Colonial Grell

Colonial grell are a hive-dwelling, colony-based form of the subterranean grell, matching their solitary kin in size and look. They are bound together by telepathy with their philosophers and their brilliant patriarch, and their arrogance exceeds that of any other thinking race. They admit no equals, scorning even ground-dwelling grell as lesser beings, and in their language the word for a lesser being also means food.

Like their wild cousins, they float high in large chambers to hide, but as a group they launch savage coordinated raids using two weapons. The tip-spear is a metal blade that fasten by suction to a soldier's tentacle tips, slashing for 1-6 damage or stabbing for double. A victim impaled on a tip-spear counts as paralyzed and suffers the same fate as a grappled one, with later tentacles hitting automatically (see Wild Grell). Captives are imprisoned and later eaten as raid rations.

A lightning lance holds 36 charges and fires once per round for 3d6 electrical damage, halved by a save vs. spell.

Grell vessels do not fly as other starships do. The patriarch opens a strange dimensional passage and the ship dives beneath space and surfaces elsewhere. In the flame-sea, its prow opens on a hollow tube running its whole length, and the ship ignites the inrushing flame-sea material, jetting exhaust out the back like a squid with the patriarch regulating how fiercely it burns. In hopeless situations the patriarch can telekinetically reshape the ship into a rough armored giant. It swings an enormous halberd for 1d10 hull points, can discharge an electric arc from it for 3d6 hull points (one round to recharge), and punches for 1d3 hull points with each fist.

Each ship carries one grell family in a strict pyramid. The patriarch rules the ship from his chamber: a sessile mass about 30 feet across whose tentacles have grafted into the floor, his huge brain running the higher functions of the entire family and steering the vessel. Below him, philosophers relay his will to the workers and can lead the soldiers in organized combat. There is one philosopher per 10 workers; one in five has a ring of protection granting AC 0, and a few can cast spells as 2nd-level wizards. Workers and soldiers are ordinary, dull grell who handle routine maintenance and make up most of any family or raiding party.

Above every family stands the imperator, who can command all of them and unite them into one force, the Golden Swarm, named for its gold-hued ships. It sweeps through space like locusts and leaves only wreckage behind.

Grell are the great wasters of the void, stripping a region bare before moving on. Having found human space again, they see it as one thing only: a vast pantry of fresh meat.