RAPICAW 1 (3)

According to their own fragmented lore, rapicaws spilled from a subterranean cavity
they called the Pale of Forever, where centuries passed like golden hours and every hour
was warm, enfolding, and blissful. Now these 3-foot (1 m) long beetle-like creatures with
bronze-colored carapaces burrow and scuttle through the cold earth, constantly searching
for another arc, the supposed lost arc, that in the lore of their kind is called the Vault of
Perseverance.
Eyeless, they communicate and sense the world by scent. Though mostly single-minded
in their search for a new home and difficult to tell apart, rapicaws are intelligent and
can show individual initiative, especially as the years flow by and the dream of finding
Perseverance fades.
Motive: Find a new home
Environment: Anywhere underground or in mountainous regions
Health: 5
Damage Inflicted: 2 points
Armor: 3
Movement: Short; immediate when burrowing
Modifications: Speed defense as level 2 due to size; breaking through solid barriers as level
5.
Combat: Rapicaws attack with mandibles, inflicting 2 points of damage and marking a foe
with a special targeting pheromone. For the next hour or so, or until a marked foe can
douse itself in water or otherwise remove the scent, all rapicaws can attack the target as
if they were level 3 and inflict 5 points of damage.
Sometimes ten or more rapicaws attack the same marked foe by forming a “death spiral”
GM Intrusion: The
around it. When this happens, the circling rapicaws make a single attack as if level 6
character is sprayed with and inflict 12 points of damage. However, during the tight, trampling attack, about half
a blast of pheromone. the rapicaws involved in the death spiral attack are killed.
Though possibly meant Interaction: If communication can be opened with a rapicaw, negotiation becomes
as a communication possible, even if a misunderstanding has already initiated conflict. Rapicaws would
attempt, it has a chance
rather trade information than kill for it.
to blind the PC on a
failed difficulty 3 Might Use: Strange insects have emerged from the ground near a clave in the Beyond and
defense task until they essentially destroyed it by creating a hundreds-strong circling, trampling mass. Many of
can wash their eyes out. the insects were also killed, but some still live in the remains of the destroyed clave.

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