Elder Dragondung Beetle | 4 |
Difficult to qualify as an insect, this flesh-eating monster bears a passing resemblence to a scarab, if scarabs grew four feet long. It is frequently found within the feces of dragons, often buliding colonies beneath the earth where dragons are frequently found. The consume anything they can find that wasn't fully digested by the dragon and have evolved to pry open any armors they may find. They are also quite capable diggers.
Because the only thing more terrifying than a 4-foot scarab that eats dragon poo is an 8 foot scarab that eats dragon poo.
Motive: Hungers for flesh and soft tissues, and strives to grow its colony
Environment: Mountains, places where dragons are found.
Movement
The beetle can move immediate distances, but it can progress alarmingly fast by leveraging tunnels created beneath the mounds of poo they burrow through, allowing them to traverse short distances and still attack.
Modifications
Due to their size, they do not gain the typical Dragondung Beetle benefit for hiding within piles of poo.
Combat
The Elder Beetle does have two methods of attack. The first is the mandible chomp found on its smaller breathen, but the Elder beetle also possesses an acid spitting attack from its ability to soften earth and stone for burrowing. This acid will do to characters and armor what it does to stone. This is a ranged-immediate attack that deals 7 damage (armor does not support). After a successful attack against a character, the character must then make a second defense roll for her equipment. Failure indicates damage to the equipment the character is wearing.
Use
Add an Elder Beetle to soften characters up before a bigger fight by damaging their possessions, or add it as a shock factor in the middle of a combat with the younger equivalents.
Loot
They carry no loot, although the brave may be able to dig through the dung and find any treasures the dragon may have eaten and not noticed!
