Wild Pack Insect

Plenty of the desert world's pack insects live beyond the reach of nomad herders, roaming in wild herds across the city-state heartlands. They are big, placid insects armored in black segmented chitin over head, thorax and abdomen, up to 8 feet long, 4 feet tall and as heavy as 400 pounds. Sharp pincers at the front of the head serve for both eating and fighting. Six legs grow from the thorax, each tipped with a strong gripping claw, while the bare abdomen is carried by the rest of the body.

Fighting is mostly left to soldiers, which are built for it. A soldier's pincers deal 1d8 and inject Class O poison: the victim must resist with a save vs. poison or freeze, paralyzed, within 2d12 rounds. If the hit came on an attack roll of 15 or better, the victim is also seized, and each following round takes an extra 1d6 crushing damage on top of the normal 1d8. Escaping needs a Strength roll at -2, or allies can pry the victim loose by dealing just 5 points of damage to the pincers.

Like other insects, wild pack insects live in hives split into three castes: queens, soldiers and honey-bearing food producers. Soldiers do the labor: they gather nest materials, guard the queens and food producers, and forage for the adults, mostly leaves and fronds with the odd animal. Food producers secrete green honey in globules the size of melons, carried on their abdomens to feed the young and, in hard times, the adults too. Queens lay batches of 20-50 eggs, usually where vegetation is plentiful, and soldiers defend the site fiercely until hatching.

The honey globules are very sweet, trade for high prices, and alone can sustain a person for several days. Cleaned chitin can be worn as armor, but it is brittle, with a 20% chance to shatter each time a weapon strikes it. It is far more often used by powerful life-draining wizards to build chitin golems.