Giant Mason Wasp

This oversized cousin of the common mason wasp is 6 feet long with a 12-foot wingspan. Its shell gleams jet black, while its jaws and mouth shine a hot, cherry-colored red, and a retractable stinger tips the abdomen. Both sizes of wasp are honored across the desert lands as heralds of the gods and omens of luck.

These wasps rarely trouble humans or demihumans, preferring beasts, reptiles and wicked monsters of the open country. Facing one foe, a wasp dives, grips the victim with its legs, bites with its burning jaws and stings.

The bite inflicts 2d4, plus a further 2d4 of heat unless the victim resists fire. The sting adds 1d4 and a fierce toxin: failing a save vs. poison means collapsing within 1d4 rounds into a burning fever. Two system shock rolls follow. Passing the first means waking in 1d3 days. Failing it but passing the second means a week of fever and permanent loss of 1 Constitution point. Failing both means death after a week unless cure disease is cast in time, and survivors still lose that point.

Fire cannot harm these wasps. Against groups, one can exhale flame three times daily in a cone that widens from 5 to 15 feet across over a 20-foot length, dealing 6d5 (6-30) damage, halved by a successful save. Killing one is considered dreadful luck; at the DM's option, each participant must make a saving throw or fall under the evil eye.

Wild wasps live alone. The female builds big above-ground dens of sand, dirt and saliva that dry hard as stone, which gives the species its name. Monthly she takes a mate; together they hunt and paralyze a large beast or evil monster, cement it inside her den, and she leaves 1-3 eggs on the helpless body before sealing the door. The larvae devour the host, dissolve the seal and depart to find hunting grounds of their own. Dens hold no hoard beyond what victims carried.

Giant mason wasps are often friendly and make superb pets or guards if someone can communicate with them, usually priests who can talk to animals or rangers. Some mosques keep them as guardians.

These wasps are known as foes of evil in town and wild alike. Their nemesis is the vishap, which raids dens to eat the eggs as a sweet delicacy.

Because killing one courts misfortune, harvesters usually wait for a natural death. Fire glands make potions of fire breath; powdered shell makes potions of fire resistance or oils of fire elemental invulnerability. The poison sacs hold an insinuative Type O venom that goes inert after seven days and can also be made into antidotes.