STHEED 1 (3)

Crawling insects called stheed are common in some areas, especially warm woods and
Stheed hives are made of jungles. Stheed create large hives of delicate, glowing crystal veins that resemble deliberate
high-grade synth. works of sculpture or perhaps a device of the numenera pulsing with forgotten energy.
These mounds attract prey, which allows the stheed’s subtle, soporific aroma to do its
insidious work. Prey that beds down and sleeps near a stheed mound becomes the target
of a stheed swarm feeding frenzy that boils out of the hive to take advantage of unresisting
food.
Every stheed hive has a queen. While the regular drones are just a few inches long, the
Stheed queen: level 5 queen—usually holed up in a subterranean chamber—can reach lengths of 6 feet (2 m) or
more. A stheed queen is telepathic, allowing her to communicate with her brood.
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment: Anywhere wooded and warm in groups of twenty or more
Health: 3
Damage Inflicted: 2 points
Armor: 1
Movement: Short; immediate when burrowing or climbing
Combat: Stheed hives, which can be simple or elaborate, produce a pleasant
odor that is noticeable within short range but has a concentrated effect
in immediate range. Anyone moving to within immediate range of
a stheed hive must succeed on a difficulty 5 Might defense
task or fall into a restful sleep that lasts for several hours.
An ally can attempt to wake a sleeping victim, providing
them with additional chances to succeed on a difficulty 5
Might defense task.
Stheeds use their complex mouthparts to feed on
prey, inflicting 2 points of damage
per round while simultaneously
releasing an anesthetic, which
means no pain is associated with
a stheed bite. A sleeping target
doesn’t wake, even if being
swarmed by hungry stheed.
A swarm of five or more stheed
can attack as a single level 4
creature inflicting 4 points of
damage per attack. A swarm
can also produce a pheromone
burst instead of inflicting
damage, and attempt to put a
target within immediate range to
sleep on a failed difficulty 4 Might
defense task.
Interaction: Stheeds are nothing more
GM Intrusion: A than hungry insects; however, a
character has a
nightmare. When they
stheed queen is telepathic and might
wake, they remember negotiate if the hive is threatened.
something important Use: Dried and powdered stheed is
they’d forgotten, or they sometimes sold in markets in the
put together various clues Steadfast for its ability to grant a
and come to a new and
restful night’s sleep. A warehouse
possibly useful conclusion
on an unrelated topic– containing such goods was recently
the truth is, they are overrun with live stheed and an
asleep stheed mound. angry queen.

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