Insects!


Homebrew and House Rules


We haven't done much with insects. I'm working on an underground temple and decided to make it infested. I drew tunnels around the temple, and drew holes on the map where different tunnels go above or below the map for insects to climb through. Any suggestions on creatures? We're third level.


Giant cockroaches and centipedes.


Spider Swarms are nice for draining resources.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

It will be more interesting if the vermin are controlled by an intelligent creature-maybe a blight druid, monsters (mites), or an awakened/mutated giant insect. Or if they have a hive mind (increased Intelligence and telepathic communication).


I like the centipedes and cockroaches because they're 1/2 CR, so I can put in many of them.

The spider swarms might cause problems due to the lack of a wizard. I'm thinking of putting in an encounter with a giant spider and some spider swarms.

I like the blight druid. I like the telepathic idea.

I also thought about ants. Queen can be the boss.

So, taking all of this, I came up with this idea: Giant spider blight druid! Big fight can be the spider, a few swarms, and maybe a couple of other insects under it's control.

I'm really wishing the party was higher level! It'd be great to have a huge swarm and a spider throwing around summons and quakes!


This is great! On d20pfsrd.com I found I can search by type!


If you don't have a way for your party to kill the spider swarms, make them more of a hazard that will disappear/scamper away once the boss spider is slain.

Liberty's Edge

If you want, you could introduce some Insect animated corpses, either inhabited by a brood of fairly intelligent insects or puppeteer-ed by some incredibly crafty spider from the ceiling. they could function as a lure to a trap or a more insidious and shocking reminder of the fates of some of the others that failed to deal with the the threat the temple is filled with.

I always like having highly intelligent hive minds as a threat to the party. It makes for some really interesting antagonists if the main threat is a hive intellect that has grown to form its own sentience, especially if it has gained the understanding to cast spells. unless the party wipe out the entirety of the hive mind, it will keep coming back. And might consider the adventurers a threat to its wider plans(whatever those might be), learning from its mistakes, getting stronger and giving the players ample paranoia toward any insect they see.


ErisAcolyte-Chaos jester wrote:

If you want, you could introduce some Insect animated corpses, either inhabited by a brood of fairly intelligent insects or puppeteer-ed by some incredibly crafty spider from the ceiling. they could function as a lure to a trap or a more insidious and shocking reminder of the fates of some of the others that failed to deal with the the threat the temple is filled with.

I always like having highly intelligent hive minds as a threat to the party. It makes for some really interesting antagonists if the main threat is a hive intellect that has grown to form its own sentience, especially if it has gained the understanding to cast spells. unless the party wipe out the entirety of the hive mind, it will keep coming back. And might consider the adventurers a threat to its wider plans(whatever those might be), learning from its mistakes, getting stronger and giving the players ample paranoia toward any insect they see.

And it could even sometimes side with the party, and when members of the party dies, the insects get inside the deadbody and control it, and it could also call itself "Gravemind." Sorry, couldn't resist.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Temple to Desna, filled with butterflies!


Earlier I got an idea involving a spider necromancer. That could be interesting.

The corpse puppets might work once or twice. Not sure. Perhaps it can move in it's web and push down bodies stuck on webs that can trigger player AoO's and readied actions.

Good news is that our other player will be joining us, so we'll have a wizard to deal with some swarms.


On my G+ page (posted on August 10, 2014) I have a custom spelljammer ship deck plan whose hull is a gigantic undead beetle, requiring the spelljamming pilot to be a necromancer.


Maggots with the mutant ability to animate dead would use the same stats as my worm infested corpses. It's a zombie with an extra hit dice. It can infest anything in an adjacent square. Reflex save DC16 if alive(a corpse is automatically infested). The target of infestation has it's con. bonus in rounds before the maggot reaches the brain or heart before they die and get animated.

Unfortunately for my little worms, they can be killed during the first round of trying to infest by burning oil, cure disease, or possibly other methods.

(I've made some changes. If you are playing 4th or 5th ed. you can use the original material Orig Son of.. )

Liberty's Edge

Have some horrific or hybridising diseases. Think the transformation of jeff golblum into Grundlefly, only spread over a wider range of insects. You don't need to have the players physically turning into humanoid insects, but they could encounter the former inhabitants of the temple city+some unfortunate others turned into monsterous, mindless hybrids. Or even some parasitic fungus zombies. And the fungal infection spreads to some of insects. Enough to make the players burn every spore they encounter on the way.

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