Homebrew Broodmother-Myrmex Species Details

Myrmex are creatures that have the ability of parthenogenesis regardless of gender , but that depends on their caste. Eggs not made through the parthenogenesis can gain the traits of the parent. Every Myrmex resemble giant insects (more specifically, ants) with hard, chitinous armor, 3 pairs of walking legs, a moderate-sized thorax, a moderate-sized head with large, yellow eyes and large mandibles, and a large, bulbous abdomen ending in a sharp stinger. As eusocial arthropods who exist in a colony form hierarchy, the Myrmex are quite diverse in body plan, and come in 5 different castes, with most castes having many unique features:

  • Workers have the standard Myrmex body plan, with 3 pairs of walking legs, a body held parallel to the ground, and a bulbous abdomen.
  • Majors  resemble the Workers, but are slightly larger in size, have a slightly darker body pattern, and have larger mandibles.
  • Universal differ the most from the standard Myrmex body plan; some resemble the Workers while others resemble the Majors
  • Broodmother is the largest of the Myrmex castes, they resemble the Workers, but are much larger in size, have a slightly lighter body pattern, and boast 2 pairs of wings that they can fly around with. When a Broodmother lays eggs they change form and bear less of a resemblance to the Worker, with a new pair of horns on top of their head, and with a long, pulsating, sac-like abdomen. They are also the only Myrmex capable of  breeding and parthenogenesis.(it's also the caste of this species type or aka the main species)

----Colors------------------------

Myrmex can range through a variety of colors such as; brown, dark brown, green, red, orange, yellow, teal, dark green and black but they keep the same color as the main Broodmother of that colony

 

Broodmother-Myrmex Traits

Biologically Programmed: Your instincts override free will, Laying Eggs: You lay eggs creating other Myrmex, Breeding: You absorb the dna plan of a creature and use the blueprint to fertilize the eggs, Pheromones Communication: release chemical scents to deal an adverse amount of effects or remotely communicate, Venom Stinger: Protract a needle like stinger to piercing damage and deal poison conditions, Acid Spray: as a range tool inflict acid damage from far locations

Biologically Programmed

All Myrmex are unable to use agency as their instincts override free will. So they must roll an intelligence check to freely choose an option out of four in a limited amount of possibilities, if fail intelligence check player must roll 1d4 to choose a option in a appropriate possibility. All options and possibilities are; 

An Unknown Creature Appears(creature that is not within colony)

d4 Instinct
1 Observe the creature from a safe distance.
2 Approach cautiously to identify whether it is friend or foe.
3 Retreat toward the nearest ally or nest location.
4 Immediately prepare for combat if the creature appears threatening.

You're Attacked

d4 Instinct
1 Fight the nearest attacker.
2 Escape while looking for reinforcements.
3 Protect nearby brood, allies, or the queen before yourself.
4 Attempt to disable rather than kill the attacker for later evaluation.

You Find Food

d4 Instinct
1 Eat immediately if hungry.
2 Bring it back to the colony.
3 Store it for later use.
4 Ignore it if a higher priority exists.

You Discover Valuable Resources

d4 Instinct
1 Collect as much as possible.
2 Mark the location for others.
3 Defend the resource from intruders.
4 Continue the current mission and report later.

You're Given an Order

d4 Instinct
1 Obey immediately.
2 Complete your current task before obeying.
3 Verify the order's source first.
4 Refuse if it conflicts with colony survival.

You're Alone

d4 Instinct
1 Search for your colony.
2 Build a temporary shelter.
3 Scout the surrounding area.
4 Stay hidden until allies arrive.

You Encounter an Injured Ally

d4 Instinct
1 Protect them.
2 Carry them to safety.
3 Heal them if able.
4 Continue the mission if saving them would endanger the colony.

You Encounter an Enemy Stronger Than You

d4 Instinct
1 Retreat.
2 Delay them while allies escape.
3 Hide and observe.
4 Challenge them if the colony's survival depends on it.

No Immediate Task Exists

d4 Instinct
1 Patrol the surrounding area.
2 Maintain equipment or the nest.
3 Gather useful materials.
4 Stand guard.

A Loud Noise Occurs

d4 Instinct
1 Investigate immediately.
2 Hide and observe.
3 Signal nearby allies.
4 Prepare an ambush.

The Colony Is Threatened

d4 Instinct
1 Defend the queen at all costs.
2 Evacuate vulnerable members.
3 Counterattack the source of the threat.
4 Organize the colony's defenses.

 

If a unlisted possibility occurs the player may act in their own will as long as it benefits them/the colony(the DM adjudicates if not clear)

 

wall-scaling

You gain the ability to climb/cling to any surface as long as one of your six legs is on it. Also climbing no longer cost an extra movement. In addition, when you make a running jump, the distance you can cover increases by a number of feet equal to your dexterity modifier 

Insect Physiology

Use the biological tools on your body to gain  abilities, new abilities are:

Mandibles: user deals 1d10 slashing damage to creature in 5ft or user can instead burrow and create a tunnel at 75% of users movement speed.

Antennae: You wave your antennae across the battlefield. For one round: Invisible creatures within 30 feet cannot gain advantage from being unseen. Hidden creatures automatically reveal their location if they move. You gain advantage on Perception checks. User knows everything what is going on in 15ft as long as it is on the same plane

Stingers: user deals 1d8 piercing and inflicts target creature in 10ft with poison condition the more a target creature is stung the more poison conditions are stacked upon it. also their is a 10% chance the target also gains Paralyzed condition

Maul: user uses mandibles twice then stinger on a single action, 3 time used before user can recharge by completing a short rest

trophallactic fluid: user converts 1/4 of last food they ate into 'Ant Milk', user can feed other creatures to stave off hunger for 8 hours and heal by 1d6 amount, if used 4 times user must eat another food source to recharge this action 

Compound eyes: user boost overall accuracy by 30% and give adv on preception

Molting: user sheds past exoskeleton removing any active conditions and regenerating lost limbs by resetting to the default state but, after taking this action for 1 round any action against user is a crit

Lay Eggs

On skill first time use Broodmother Myrmex lose their wings and the ability to fly. User creates an egg or an egg-cluster(a group of 5 eggs in 1 item form, can only be used 3 times per long rest) that can develop into a type of Myrmex. Each egg has 5 hit points, and must go through stages of development before becoming the desired Myrmex, the development's appearance is similar to ants. The egg stages are;

  • Egg: an immobile item, size: tiny, 2 hitpoints, sticky it clings on to surfaces
  • Larvae: an immobile creature, size: tiny, 8 hitpoints, must be fed every 15 minutes or it begins to starve after 2 rounds of starvation the larvae dies
  • Pupae: an immobile creature, size: tiny-small, 10 hitpoints, Armor class: is 14(natural armor)
  • Adult: the desired Myrmex

The development time varies depending on the type of Myrmex caste that is developing. Each Myrmex caste can have different types of jobs once the job is chosen it cannot be changed after death, the Myrmex and their jobs are;

Worker

hp:12

Armor class:13

Size: small

Speed:30ft

Climb:30ft

STR
12 (+1)
DEX
16 (+3)
CON
13 (+1)
INT
3 (-4)
WIS
12 (+1)
CHA
4 (-3)
Actions
  • Insect Physiology

  • wall-scaling

  • Biologically Programmed

  • Pheromones Communication

Languages

  • Understands the languages you speak.

Condition Immunities

  • Charmed
  • Frightened

Development time

  • it takes 1 minute to progress into another stage, or 1 weeks if you want to double the stats to create a True Worker

Jobs

  • nurser: their ant milk speeds up development time by 3 turns after fed to larvae, also they heal 1d10 instead of 1d6
  • Digger: can burrow and create a tunnel at 25%+ movement speed, and can build dirt walls 12ft long and 6ft high
  • Chef: can either apply poison effect to any food item or cause it to double in effectiveness
  • Harvester: can actively carry to things at a time in mouth, can carry large items without being weighed down, and passively cause all flora in 15ft to have a doubled growth rate

Behavior

nurser: They prioritize staying near eggs in the nest, larvae, and Broodmother Myrmex to feed them ant milk when they have any, and feeds any wounded Myrmex in 15ft by recovering hit points equal to 1d10. They are neutral but, will attack anyone except a broodmother for eating  a developing Myrmex. They also transport all eggs, larvae, and pupae into the Nurseries

Digger: They stay within the nest prioritizing patching broken walls in the nest by making walls to close them, they will also reopen the closest collapsed tunnels,  they create rooms in nest titled; Nursery: a large room with 12 dirt beds on each side of the room, Trash Rooms: a room with a 30ft deep pit, Broodmother Room: a large room with a large dirt bed and 4 organic chests(one chest holds 12 cubic feet or 300 pounds of gear.) that chefs that can hold fill with food one on all sides of it, Food Room: A giant room with 12 organic chest and a 10ft deep pit called the pot that holds 48 cubic feet or 1200 pounds of food, Storage Room: a room with 6 rows of 12 organic chests, and Rest area: A large room with soft dirt that heals 1d20 when resting, there can only be 3 of these rooms existing at once  and they create tunnels closer to food sources.

Chef: They stay in the Food Room and double the effectiveness of food within the room, they poison the food of any non Myrmex, they walk around following any Myrmex within the nest feeding them with the doubled food.

Harvester: they leave the nest roaming the surface searching for food or any resource carrying them back to the nest and storing them in their respective rooms

 

 

Major

hp:20

Armor class:15

Size: medium

Speed:35ft

Climb:25ft

STR
15 (+2)
DEX
18 (+4)
CON
14 (+2)
INT
4 (-3)
WIS
12 (+2)
CHA
4 (-3)
Actions
  • Insect Physiology

  • wall-scaling

  • Biologically Programmed

  • Pheromones Communication
  • Acid spray

Languages

  • Understands the languages you speak.

Condition Immunities

  • Charmed
  • Frightened

Development time

  • it takes 2.5 minute to progress into another stage, or 3 weeks if you want to double the stats to create a True Major

Jobs

  • Super Major: Mandibles move deals crit damage 18-20, 20% more stinger damage, 3 turns less development time compared to other major jobs
  • General: Boost all Myrmex in same colony by 40% as long as they are in a 50ft range, generals has 15 hit points but movement speed is 40ft
  • Trapjaw: deals 60% more mandible damage and lands crits on 15-20, but movement speed 25ft and loses 2 hit points per crit
  • Poisoner: stingers poison condition has a +40% chance to activate, when poison condition is active it deals 1d8 roll dam per 1d20 amount of turns, while poison is in effect the ant gains 1d8 roll hp per 1d20 amount of turns. 3 turns more to develop

Behavior

Super Major: they obey the will of the main Broodmother, but when not following the Broodmother they stay stationed outside the entrance of the nest, attacking any 35ft creature if a super major is already in a battle the 4 nearest supermajors will join the battle to help.

General: General follows Majors at 15ft distance away from them, they will attack anyone but Broodmother who attacked a Major.

Trapjaw: stay stationed outside the entrance of the nest attacking any creature in 30ft it attacking pattern is the legs of a creature to give it the prone condition

Poisoner: same behavior as Super Major

 

Universal

hp:15

Armor class:13

Size: small-medium

Speed:30ft

Climb:30ft

STR
12 (+1)
DEX
18 (+4)
CON
13 (+1)
INT
3 (-4)
WIS
12 (+1)
CHA
4 (-3)
Actions
  • Insect Physiology

  • wall-scaling

  • Biologically Programmed

  • Pheromones Communication

Languages

  • Understands the languages you speak.

Condition Immunities

  • Charmed
  • Frightened

Development time

  • it takes 1.5 minute to progress into another stage, or 2 weeks if you want to double the stats to create a True Universal

Jobs

  • Drone: they are are born with wings and the ability to fly, movement speed 35ft, 10% less hp than a normal Universal
  • Replete: can use trophallactic fluid on 4 food items rather than 1, size: large(due to bulbous pot-like abdomen) 
  • Spy: Can camouflage into surroundings(take appearance of environment or change into a creature in a crowd) , once disguised they have access to move called BackStab uses maul attack +5 on roll as a crit. Backstab takes them out of disguise and can only be used again after a short rest. Spys have 8 hit points
  • Protector: they add +4 Ac and +50% of hp to Myrmex of the same colony in 30ft, but hp is 7.

Behavior

Drone: They fly above the other Myrmex that are outside following them, swooping down repeatedly attacking any non-Myrmex in 10ft of the Myrmex they are following 

Replete: They stay within the colony nest eating at-least 4 different food to use trophallactic fluid at least 16 times to create 'ant milk', They stay within the Food Room, on the ceiling Feeding any hunger Myrmex with ant milk in 15ft

Spy: they stay idlily by the broodmothers awaiting commands, they live for the broodmothers.

 

Protector: they follow the majors and apply their effect to any injured myrmex in 30ft. 

 

.......

true myrmex double stats doesn't change the ac or speed

Pheromone Emissions

upon activation user gains options Prompt, Mark, trail, labels, remote communication, Nerve Spike. upon picking;

Prompt: control X(equal to proficiency bonus) amount of Myrmex within your colony, in a 65ft radius

Mark: mark target in 5ft, So that you and everyone in your colony would know the location of said target when ever in 60ft of it, the mark is removed if a new scent is applied or the target is wet by water.

Trail: create a trail behind your self that will make any colony member in 35ft of it follow it, trail will automatically end once you have stopped, the trail last for 3 minutes after it ends

labels: create a label that creates rooms/colony location, this changes the behavior of the colony towards these parts; Nursery, Trash Rooms, Broodmother Room, Food Room, Storage Room, and Rest area

remote communication: communicate remotely with colony members in 120ft.

Nerve Spike: Overstimulate creatures in 15ft and give them 1d10 dam and poison condition, if has condition already increase the level.

*If you have this trait and die you send a Death all colony members in 35ft will kill your attacker

Acid Spray

shoot and inflict 1d20 of acid damage up to 35ft away

Breeding

You absorb the DNA plan of a creature in 5ft distance to you and give 3 of their traits and 1 of their moves the blueprint to up to 3 eggs until that DNA plan expires. this trait can be used the same amount of times as proficiency bonus, long rest to reset the trait use.

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