Resources: The Autumnal Swarm

The Autumnal Swarm: Pupae

The pupa grant great bonuses to their host. Agility, Endurance, and Strength are all raised to 13 if they were below 13. Intelligence is increased to 10 if it was below 10. For up to three minutes every day, the pupa grants its host a bonus of six on any one ability except Wisdom. If the host is an archetype, that archetype can be increased by six levels for those three minutes. The host will gain all immediate benefits of the level increase: attack bonuses, reactions, and survival; but will not gain new skills, fields, or spells (though they may cast existing spells at a higher level). Player characters will not gain verve or mojo.

For up to three hours (but not concurrently with the major bonus) the host can use a lesser bonus of three.

Pupa last for thirteen months, after which the pupa emerges from its cocoon and leaves the dried (and beautiful) skin behind, an empty shell. The pupa will emerge as a beetlepede or as an unformed butterfly warrior.

The swarm will call beetlepede pupae “chrysalises” and butterfly pupae “nymphas”.

The pupae are scarabs that attach themselves to the host’s tongue, and slowly take over from their tongue. They now have two tongues, one of which is a beetle-like bug kept hidden unless they need to use the pupa’s powers. Then their insect tongue detaches from the roof of their mouth.

Beetlepede spies

The natural form of a beetlepede spy is of a human-sized ant, beetle, and centipede cross. A beetlepede may take control of any living, intelligent creature who consents. Their insect form “enters” the host and leaves a crossroads-shaped scar on the body. This sphincterous scar opens to let them enter or leave as they please. Note, though, that the beetlepede is not physically inside the host: means of looking inside the host body will not reveal the bug, unless it looks inside their spirit. Further, damage to a host does not damage the bug(s) inside.

A beetlepede adds its survival to that of its host; when a beetlepede leaves its host, it regains all of the survival it had when it entered. When a beetlepede’s host dies, the bug will usually leave the host with full survival. Several minutes after the insect form dies, it ripples away across the dimensions, devolving into a gooey yellowish puddle.

Treat the host and beetlepede as separate opponents for experience purposes. If a host is defeated but the bug leaves and they don’t defeat it (or it defeats them), they’ll get experience for the 5+ level host, but not (yet) for the 5th level insect form.

Hosts must have originally had at least a five wisdom to be a host; a host can have up to one insect inside them for every five points of wisdom. Having multiple beetlepedes in the same host will increase the slo-time field (see below) as normal for multiple bugs, but will not increase the level of the host or its survival—however, at any point before the host is killed, the bug in control can cede control to another bug, restoring the insect portion of the host’s survival. The beetlepedes are considered separate opponents for experience purposes.

Butterfly warriors

They appear as normal humanoids—humans, saurians, etc.—from the waist up. From the waist down is a twitching insect-like larval tail, ending in a sharp stinger. Dull orange, greenish-brown, sickly grayish purple, and puke yellow pulsate slowly across their larval half. They dart like hummingbirds via beautiful diaphanous wings emerging from their humanoid half and also slither quickly via their larval-tail.

The Butterfly Warriors are the messengers and guardians of the Autumnal Swarm. They are often sent out as spies, to retrieve items, and to perform assassinations. Their knowledge merges with the swarm as normal when they return, and they can merge their knowledge with other warriors by touching them or by flickering with them.

They attack with weapons and by stinging. They often use jagged scimitars as their weapon attack; whatever weapon they use does normal damage, with +2 damage for strength. They can also use claws or talons if their shape allows it, doing the same damage as the shape normally does, at +2 damage. They can attack with both the weapon and the sting in the same round.

They can use their sting in a called shot to place a victim in stasis for a number of rounds equal to half the damage done, round up. A victim of stasis is invulnerable for the duration of stasis; they’re literally out of time, able to do nothing and be affected by nothing. They are visible to others, but have no recollection themselves of anything between going into and coming out of stasis. They will continue whatever action they had started before going into stasis. Victims can make an evasion roll to avoid stasis.

Butterfly warriors can flicker to a new location within ten yards at the beginning of each round. An after-image remains at their original location for the remainder of the round. The after-image will act separately from the real warrior; it cannot affect the world or be affected by the world, but it can be targeted by spells or other effects. It will continue in its ghostly way to perform whatever actions the warrior had been doing when it flickered away. This ability is part of why they are difficult to hit, and also gives butterfly warriors a bonus of 2 to all reaction rolls against area or targeted effects. While the after-image is targetable by spells, it does not maintain them—if a butterfly warrior with a darkness on it flickers away, the darkness goes with the warrior and does not stay with the after-image, for example.

Butterfly warriors can also exchange places with any other butterfly warrior within 100 yards. When such an exchange takes place, the two warriors also share all of their knowledge. The range of potential exchange is increased for each extra warrior in the area. If two warriors are within 100 yards, for example, they could each flicker places with another warrior in 200 yards. If there are three warriors within 200 yards of each other, they can each flicker places with a warrior in 300 yards, and so on.

In either case, flickering is a free action; a warrior can flicker and attack normally in the same round.

They take the form of whoever they are fighting, but with a multi-colored larvae-like tail that undulates and ripples. Thus, they can only impersonate someone from the waist up. Barring that limitation, they can impersonate vaguely human-like persons from small to large size. When they fight someone, they will start to resemble that person (from the waist up) after every successful hit with weapon or sting. After seven hits (or after successfully putting the target into stasis) they will completely resemble their target, and maintain that form until their next fight. If a butterfly warrior stops fighting before fully taking on the form of their target, they will maintain a “between” form until their next fight. If a butterfly warrior takes on a small form, their sting only does d8 damage; if they take on a large form, their sting does d12.

When a butterfly warrior goes unconscious, their wings take over and fly them to the nearest swarm hive (or base camp). When they die, their whole form morphs into a twitching multi-colored larval form that tastes like chicken. Unlike the beetlepedes, their form does not ripple away in a few seconds, but rather disintegrates somewhat naturally over one to three days.

The Mind of the Autumnal Swarm

The Autumnal Swarm are a fractal mind. Within each insect is the seed of the whole. Whenever an insect is within the slo-time field of another insect, they share their memories fractally. Because of this, they each generally know anything that another swarm insect knows. When a swarm insect dies, its last senses are sent in a burst to any other swarm insects within five hundred yards.

Because their mind is so alien, they are immune to telepathic powers and spells. They are also immune to sleep. They are even partially immune to spirit charms such as fear, command, spiritual hold, and spiritual torpor unless the manifestation affects all insects within the current insect meld. For example, if there are three Autumnal Swarm hosts or insects within the same slo-time field, a spiritual hold must affect all three of them for it to affect any of them.