Volume 1: Issue 4: Summer
Giant Insects in Gamma World - Any (some 4th & 5th specific rules) Derek Holland, with help from Chris Conboy Giant insects have been in Gamma World since the first edition with such beasts as parns and cal-then. Here is some general insect information and my personal house rules (5th and 4th edition) for using giant insects in Gamma World campaigns. Maturity Types Insects can be either adult or immature. Adults are the reproductive form and immatures are the growing stage. Four Types of Immature Insects 1) Young: Identical to the adults except for smaller size. (e.g. silverfish) 2) Nymphs: Have some obvious differences from the adult, usually the absence of wings. (e.g. grasshoppers and termites) 3) Naiads: Aquatic nymphs that can have major differences from the adult. (e.g. dragonflies and mayflies) 4) Larva: Totally different from the adult, most are worm-like. (e.g. beetles, flies and ants) Stages of Growth (Instars) Each immature insect (i.e. young, nymph, naiad or larva) goes through stages of growth called instars. Each instar is punctuated by shedding the skin. The number of instars can vary from 6 to 50+, with the more primitive insects having more stages. In some insects, especially the moths and butterflies, each of the instars looks different. This allows would be "bug hunters" to know the age of their quarry and how dangerous it may be. Several insects provide parental care for the eggs and nymphs. Some go so far as to die just before the nymphs leave the last instar to become adults. Other insects, mantids among them, will eat their young or the young eat each other. This is not very common and only occurs in voracious, solitary predators. Eggs Most insects produce large numbers of off-spring, from 20 to 20,000. Those with the higher numbers do not take care of their off-spring. In giant insects there would likely be a reduction of egg numbers and better adult care. Those that do not protect their eggs lose many from competition and nest raiders. Some insects spread their eggs about but many will find a suitable spot to lay the eggs. Some wasps will capture katydids or spiders and leave them paralyzed in a burrow with a single egg. With the size increase, these typical prey could easily be replaced by humans and other large mammals.  Lifespan Usually insects have a short existence as immatures- from 2 weeks to 2 months, but there are many exceptions- the most famous are the 13 and 17 year cicadas. This allows GMs to hide immature insects away even if the adults are killed off. Adult insects also have a varying life span from a few hours to several years. To survive the winters, some have evolved the ability to freeze solid and then revive. Anatomy/Physiology Insects have a head, thorax and abdomen as well as wings (absent in some orders and families), legs, and antennae, which have been altered by evolution to a myriad of forms. Some of the more interesting real possibilities of physiology are: · Exoskeletons containing metals · Hard radiation won't cause ill effect · 100+ atmospheres of pressure won't cause ill effect · Walk on water · Detect a mate 4 miles away · Detect movement to within 1/50 of an inch (i.e.: the object only has to move 1/50 of an inch to be detected) And much much more. A GM could create just about any nonmutational power for an insect and it might actually exist. Sociology Insects have many levels of social behavior. To quote E.O. Wilson, from The Insect Societies there are 5; 1. Subsocial- the adults care for their own nymphs or larvae for some period of time; 2. Communal- members of the same generation use the same composite nest without cooperating brood care; 3. Quasisocial- members of the same generation use the same composite nest and also cooperate in brood care; 4. Semisocial- as in quasisocial, but there is a reproductive division of labor, that is, a worker caste cares for the young of the reproductive caste; 5. Eusocial- as in semisocial, but there is an overlap in generations so that offspring assist parents. The only true eusocial insects are the termites, most ants, and some bees and wasps. A GM could produce many types of nests with this information. Nests There are many different types of insect nests, I will go over 3 of the most common or well known. The Underground Burrow is used by most insects. It's usually made up of a single tunnel with or without an enlarged area for resting. Some, those used by communal insects, are called galleries; these are tunnels with many side tunnels, each with it own occupant. The most complex are ant nests, which hold chambers for food storage, dumps, dead bodies, brood care, and water traps. Note there will be no lighting and possibly all the tunnels are smaller than humans can fit- to do so is up to the GM of course. The Paper Nest is used by certain families of wasps. It is made up of wood pulp and saliva and tend to be flammable. These are quite visible and must be supported structurally, I would suggest giant trees or rocky cliffs. The Termite Mound is found in tropical plains and are made up of soil and saliva. They have the strength of cement or concrete. Giant termites could build them anywhere and they could have walls up to 3 meters thick. That, and the soldiers, would provide definite obstacles to adventurers. There would be many entrances at ground level and tunnels leading to the mound. In All Insect Nests there could be other animals. Some of them are benign (i.e. they benefit the host in some way), others parasites and predators, and others have no affect on the hosts (except being in the way of course). Looking at Wilson again, he has, on table 20-1 on page 392, many examples of these:  ARTHROPOD AFFECT pillbugs no effect pseudoscorpions no effect or parasite spiders predator mites no affect or parasite millipedes no affect springtails no effect or parasite sliverfish parasite crickets parasites cockroaches parasites or no affect true bugs benign lacewings predators beetles all possible butterflies no affect or predators flies all possible ants and wasps parasites or predators There are many more lesser known groups. A party of adventurers could go into a giant ant nest and die of spider venom or run into a parn in a termite nest- the buggem nest in Legion of Gold has herps, zarns and said parns. Such animals are usually not detected by the hosts or possibly even given care (i.e. the hosts will feed and possibly groom the "guest".) The spider may only eat other guests and the parn could feed on the termites' nymphs. There are also guests who are attacked by the hosts, but have some form of protection. A carnivorous caterpillar hides inside its silk, a tiger beetle with super thick armor has enough protection, etc. Aquatic Insects Some giant insects spend some or all of their lifespan in water. Dragonflies, caddisflies, and some butterflies are examples where the immature form dwells in the water and the adult is terrestrial. Some beetles and bugs spend their lives in the water and some beetles have terrestrial grubs and aquatic adults. In almost all ways, aquatic insects fill the niches of their land-bound kin. The only exception I have heard of are dragonfly naiads that hunt vertebrates- in this case fish and tadpoles. With giant insects, the predators would most likely be at the top of the food web with only occasional predation by other insects and large fish. Currently there are no giant insects that live in the ocean. There are some striders that live far from land on the water, but no swimming species have been discovered. It is up to the GM, who can choose to have insects live in the oceans. HOUSE RULES 5th edition Radiation: All insects are much less affected by radiation than other organisms.  Radiation Level Effective Radiation Level R1-R3 R1 R4 R2 R5 R4 Senses: All insects have Awareness- perception 2, and depending on the insect may have as much as rank 6. Their vision is much better at seeing motion; thus they have problems reading and such. Treat this as if their language skills was 2 ranks less when reading. Exoskeleton: This gives them an armor score of d4 (LI), d3 (HI), d6-2 (En). Most insects have tungsten, zinc, and iron in their mandibles to reduce wear. This allows them to be able to inflict damage to any substance weaker than tungsten. The exoskeleton also allows them their great strength - a max of 18. Social interaction and intelligence: Insects are not really intelligent- most should have an INT max of 9 and social insects even less (7). Non-social insects are usually solitary and thus are limited to a PER score of 10 and can gain no greater than rank 8 in any PER skill. Social insects (termites, bees, wasps, ants and webspinners) are also limited to a PER max of 10 with other species (14 with their own) but can reach a rank of 12 in PER skills. These PER scores are those used when dealing with other invertebrates and plants. Halve these scores when dealing with vertebrates. HOUSE RULES 4th edition (based on an article in Dragon 174 By G. W. Detwiler) Strength: Due to their exoskeleton allowing for more muscle attachment, insects are much stronger than vertebrates, pound for pound. Some ants can lift 40-50 times their own weight (a PS of 20-25 minimum for PCs). If a bumble bee was man sized it could fly away with up to 30 tons (27 or so metric tons). Real beetles can chew through most metals (e.g. zinc, copper, tin, and lead), and so giant beetles may have the ability to chew thru plassteel and maybe even duralloy (q.v. Cal-thens). Senses: Depending on the species, insects can detect "light, shape, color, movement, UV,IR, polarized light, touch, sound, internal pressure, water pressure, air pressure, and humidity". The author left out odors (such as those produced by dead animals) but suggested an ability to detect magic which I might convert to psionics (mental mutations). This all means invisibility, illusions and such are useless. And I suggest giving PCs a senses score of 18+. Toughness: Some insects have a blood glycerol content of 20% antifreeze. These insects are hardy to -20 degrees F. Or check out my 5th ed. mutations on freezing [from a previous Apocalyptic Post article] and extrapolate from there. Predator insects tend to be resistant or immune to poisons. A health score of 15+ vs. poisons would not be unreasonable. Insects can survive radiation 100-300 times that of humans. My suggestion of a base health score vs. radiation of 25 stands.  EXAMPLE INSECTS IN GAMMA WORLD Buggems: These mutated termites are found in the first edition Legion of Gold adventure module. In it, the PCs must enter a buggem nest. So lets look at the buggem race. I think that a race of termites where the nymphs are workers and adults are the soldiers works well for the buggems. That means that every time there is a description of a worker, that the stats should be reduced depending on which instar the worker is. I would think they have evolved from a more advanced family of termites so they should have 8 or 12 instars. The exact stat difference is up to the GM, but it should be from 25 to 95% of the adult. Buggems have 4 types of adults, the usual soldiers and reproductives (kings and queens), soldiers that can emit a gas, and the leader type of telepath. Soldiers should have increased stats, from 10 to 25% and reproductives 50% for kings and 100- 200% for queens. But the reproductive forms should have either just a bite attack or none at all. Some termites do have a sticky toxin, as indicated in the old Monster Manual II, but this is not suggested for buggems, as they already have various powers already. The nest has 3 species of guests, the parn, herp and zarn. The first two are only found as a larva so they might only leave their eggs or the eggs (or the adult) were meant as food for the nest. In either case they should be left as is. They might be treated as guests, but the outcome is the same. The zarn is found as adult, so it most likely is guest and either a benign (which would assist the buggems with defense and/or hunting) or a predator (which would feed on the occasional nymph). Either way, the buggems would most likely defend the zarns as nest mates. Bibliography Wilson, E. O., The Insect Societies, Copyright 1971 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.  ISBN 0-674-45495-2 [this is not a layman's book.]