Friday, June 22, 2018

Corpse Colonies

Bone-white ants chew tunnels through the corpse. Workers chew apart nearby leaves and bring them in procession to the empty stomach, where more chew those leaves into mulch for fungi, and more still chew that fungi into layers of pale-grey plaster that smother rot. In the smallest chamber of what used to be a heart, a pale queen lays row after row of glistening eggs. The colony is expanding, slowly and surely.

Soon the colony will reach maturity, and the corpse will rise.

Wants: To reproduce. Corpse-colonies wander aimlessly, searching for corpses, or living things they can turn into corpses. They will try to kill anything they come across to make new homes fit for juvenile queens.

Needs: To eat. A constant supply of fungal plaster is required to prevent the corpse-colony from rotting, and a constant supply of vegetable matter is require to grow the fungus. A colony can be tracked by the trail of mutilated vegetation it leaves behind.

Morale: Corpse-colonies do not give up. If enough damage is done to an inhabited corpse, they will abandon it and the entire colony will swarm, hoping to pull victory from the jaws of defeat by turning their attacker into a new home.

What happens if you eat this monster: Preserved behind layers of fungal plaster, the corpse in which the colony lives dries, but is kept soft by movement. It can be eaten like jerky. The ants themselves are also edible, as are their eggs, although both are quite bitter.

What can be crafted out of this monster's body: The fungal plaster the ants use to prevent their home from rotting is a very effective antiseptic, and serves as the base for many healing unguents.

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