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| Surf's up, friend! |
Sorry; I'm already talking about it without saying what it is.
"It" as it so happens, is a witch who has a swarm of friends who absorb life from enemies, and using this life force, casts magic. Let's look at ways to put this together.
Stirge Swarm
So first off, we need to visit a few ideas. Now, since we aren't writing full character sheets for these guys and gals, we don't need all the itsy bitsy gorey gears and springs; just the idea that such a concept exists and works.
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| Giant magic mosquito! |
First off, using a swarm as a pet or familiar is pretty well covered in Dungeon Fantasy 5: Allies. In the same book we have the concept of an Energy Reserve granted by familiar, which is a slightly more complicated mechanic than I feel we need. Instead, we are going to just assume that this variety of stirge is capable of using a healing power to heal Energy Reserve in a sympathetic way.
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| Fun book for pets |
But here's a tiny snag, the stirge doesn't suck away Energy Reserve, it sucks away HP. Well, this is fine, and we have precedent for a similar ability in Pyramid #3/50 Dungeon Fantasy II even, on p.15, looking at Blood Pool. So, realistically, stirges can use leech powers to steal HP and turn it into Energy Reserve of the same type that the Hag uses. They can then use whatever method of Lend Energy or Healing (ER Only, Sympathetic) to pull this off. Let's see what a single stirge might be like.
| Attack Skill | 15 | Active Defense | 0 |
| Affliction | 0 | Damage Resistance | 0 |
| Damage | 1 | Health | 0 |
| Fatigue Points | 8 | Hit Points | -5 |
| Move | -3 | Will | 0 |
| Total Offensive Rating (OR) | 25 | Total Protective Rating (PR) | -5 |
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| Useful information on vampire powers |
Pretty weak, leech is an automatic hit, provided that the stirge can land. I extrapolated the idea of having abilities to restore HP being similar to having abilities to restore FP, and applying a bonus to FP in the same way. Let's see what the finished stats for a single stirge is.
| ST: 5 | HP: 5 | Speed: 3 |
| DX: 10 | Will: 10 | Move: A3 |
| IQ: 4 | Per: 10 | |
| HT: 10 | FP: 15 | SM: -3 |
| Dodge: 8 | Parry: N/A | DR: 0 |
Leech: Reach C, Maximum damage is always 1, and DR protects as normal. HP absorbed this way goes into the stirge's blood pool instead of recovering its own HP. In order to perform, the stirge must land on a target. Each HP of damage done recovers 1 point of Energy Reserve. Counts as a contact agent when it matters.
Lend Blood Pool: Reach C, Maximum recovery is 5 ER, the size of its extra energy reserve. In order to heal, it must land on its target, pierce the skin with its proboscis and pump it in. Counts as a blood agent where that matters.
Traits: Wild Animal, Arthropod, Slave Mentality, Flight (Winged)
Class: Dire Animal
And for a swarm of about 30:
| Attack Skill | 5 | Active Defense | 0 |
| Affliction | 0 | Damage Resistance | -4 |
| Damage | 10 | Health | 0 |
| Fatigue Points | 273 | Hit Points | 80 |
| Move | -3 | Will | 0 |
| Total Offensive Rating (OR) | 286 | Total Protective Rating (PR) | 80 |
| ST: 5 | HP: 90 | Speed: 3 |
| DX: 10 | Will: 10 | Move: A3 |
| IQ: 4 | Per: 10 | |
| HT: 10 | FP: 15 | SM: -3 |
| Dodge: 8 | Parry: N/A | DR: 0 |
Leech(15): Reach C. Roll against 15 and subtract DR from Margin of Success. This much HP was drained into the blood pool. Mind bulk penalties and RoF defense rules when making an active defense. Counts as a contact agent when it matters.
Lend Blood Pool: Reach C, Maximum recovery is 5 ER, the size of its extra energy reserve. In order to heal, a stirge must land on its target, pierce the skin with the proboscis and pump it in. Counts as a blood agent where that matters.
Traits: Wild Animal, Arthropod, Slave Mentality, Flight (Winged), Vulnerability (Gusts; Gusts that don't normally hurt targets do full damage. Those that do normally damage targets do double damage.)
Class: Dire Animal
Note: Being a swarm, it is dispersed at 90 HP. At this point, the swarm breaks up, into the 12 remaining stirges, who lose the benefits of being able to swarm.
So, as we learned with the shambling grass a bit ago, a large swarm of very weak enemies becomes a large threat.
Blood Soaked Hag
So this is the last element, and She doesn't need to be strong really, because her pets are already a brutal threat (Counting almost as a boss by themselves) But for giggles, let's make a Mage anyway.
| Attack Skill | 8 | Active Defense | 8 |
| Affliction | 0 | Damage Resistance | 0 |
| Damage | 6 | Health | -2 |
| Fatigue Points | 10 | Hit Points | 0 |
| Move | -2 | Will | 0 |
| Total Offensive Rating (OR) | 22 | Total Protective Rating (PR) | 6 |
Which comes out to:
| ST: 10 | HP: 10 | Speed: 5 |
| DX: 10 | Will: 10 | Move: 4 |
| IQ: 10 | Per: 10 | |
| HT: 8 | FP: 20 | SM:0 |
| Dodge: 8 | Parry: 12 | DR: 0 |
Quarterstaff(14) Reach 1, 2, 1d+2 Crushing,
Traits: Magery 2, Talks With Animals (Insects, Stirges), Ugly
Class: Mundane
Strategies
The big gimmick of this encounter is the contact agent leech. So a character that has no blood, or sealed might be totally immune to the worst effects of a fight and be able to fight with impunity. A character with an alien biochemistry, depending on how you want to fluff up the Lending of the blood pool, might be able to sabotage the fight by ingesting a human poison that they are immune to in large amounts, which might in turn hurt the hag when it is transferred to her. On the other hand, if the blood is acidic or otherwise, it might harm the stirge swarm itself.
For a GM, the swarm is pretty strong for a newbie 250 point team of 4 average characters, but it has a few massive Achilles's Heels. It is slow, it is vulnerable to jet attacks, and to gust attacks that normally only provide knock-back advantages. The swarm is controlled by the Hag (slave mentality). So, by defeating her, or otherwise having her call off the swarm immediately ends the fight. Since the swarm is strong, if you are the type of GM who hates Total Party Kill, you might want a way out planned. Maybe She's an old magic crony. Maybe She wants some herbs from a mountain too far for her to walk... and she has magic, so she can somehow trap them via a geass type spell or something similar.
Other Notes
I left the Hag pretty weak, so it can obviously be made stronger easily by giving her any appropriate magic. Take a look at some other statted Wizards, some unholy Clerics in Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level, or maybe the Necromancer templates in Dungeon Fantasy 9: Summoners for inspiration for something creepy maybe?
The swarm is hard to make any weaker and still be interesting, Obviously, giving it more damage, making it faster, or giving it an impaling attack with the proboscis can make the stirge a more active threat. If you have a Coleopteran in the party, maybe it can speak bug language to the stirge?
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