Spirit Warrior

A spirit warrior is a giant insect corpse driven from a hollow in its chest by a fighter, the two so joined that the pilot shares the name. All have two or more clawed hands, clinging feet, wings for gliding leaps of 100 to 600 feet on a planet, and huge weapons. Carnivores come from the praying mantis, with grasping, slashing forelegs, mandibles, and wing eye-spots they flash before battle. Herbivores come from the katydid: gangly, with leaflike wings and limbs and legs that spring 600 feet forward or back and 400 feet up. Nektars blend butterfly and wasp, with shimmering thoraxes, banded abdomens and bold, patterned wings.

The mount attacks as often as its pilot would, so a 1st-level fighter's attacks once a round and a 12th-level fighter's 3/2. Most wield a giant longsword for triple damage (3d8). Some use special bows with a 500-yard reach whose arrows deal 3d6, each with a 5% chance to be an arrow of slaying. Any can instead claw twice for 3d6 apiece.

Carnivores also bite for 5d6 and can grapple with a hit, crushing for 1d6 each round after; a smaller foe is pinned and hit automatically, with a Strength check each round to escape. Herbivores change color like chameleons and surprise on 1-4 (1d6), screech for 2d10 sonic damage per round, and can leap over a foe and strike from behind at +2 if the pilot makes a Dexterity check. A nektar's smooth stinger, which once delivered venom, now hides a compact Greek fire tube loaded for 1d3 shots, firing every other round for 3d6 at up to 50 yards.

The dead insect's perfect balance passes to its pilot, who can never be disoriented. Damage to the mount is relayed through the bond, and on a critical hit the pilot must save vs. death or both die of shock.

Elven mages made these weapons during a great war against the orc hordes, to answer orcish monsters loosed on many worlds. The first insects went berserk, slaying their makers and wrecking part of the elves' great flagship, until an assistant named Ilyra Dawnquill saw the missing piece: an emotional bond. When her own test insect went berserk, she stepped in front of it and pleaded, and it stopped. She later wired a modified minor starhelm into its chest with gold and platinum and steered it with her skill and its strength. When the fighting ended, every one was sealed in time storage, and some still wake today.

One may be found abandoned, won from its pilot, or raised. Strays are scarce and pilots are hardened veterans, so most candidates raise one. The fighter keeps a pinhead-sized egg warm against his body, then nurses the fragile larva for six months to a year with stroking, cuddling and kind thoughts, as with a pet or familiar. Once it matures, spells enlarge, animate, strengthen and reshape the remains, bind the two minds beyond the reach of magic, disease, injury or mental control, and fit a special minor starhelm in the chest. The bond is strongest if the ritual waits for the insect's natural death, and a living insect dies during it anyway.

A finder has a base 5% chance to bond with an abandoned warrior. War-era warriors were good or neutral (law and chaos are irrelevant), and each step of alignment difference costs 1%, so a neutral finder of a good warrior has 4% and an evil one 3%. Failure ranges from devastating to fatal on a percentile table, because the bond physically rewires the pilot's brain and nerves, which only years of closeness make safe.

Feeding matters only for the larva. Nektars and herbivores eat one or two specific hothouse flowers, up to 30 times their weight daily. Carnivores grow pickier and pushier, and a hungry one can make its keeper anxious and erratic, sometimes devastating the local giant hamsters that power their ships.

The zwarth is a huge version crewed by 5 to 8 people, with one attack per round per crew member. It can fly between worlds under its own starhelm power and use many weapons. A caster inside can project attack spells through it so their damage dice become hull points, so a magic missile deals 1d4+1 hull points. It is grown and bonded like a spirit warrior, so the whole crew must undergo the process.