[MW Pokemon] Hivebound Captain - CR 7 Medium Ooze - $5 Reward (Patreon)

“I inquired of the fair knight where she might be headed, and her response stung me to the core: ‘Bzzzzzzz.’ The bees she sent after me also stung a lot.”

— Sir Abeil the Swollen

The thick golden liquid dripping through the chinks in this knight’s chitinous armour has the appearance of honey, but in reality it’s the knight itself. This ooze uses its sweet, sticky body to lure all kinds of insects, but primarily bees, wasps, and hornets. As these oozes grow, they start seeking out entire hives to consume, each one contributing to the ooze’s growing set of armour.

Armour of the Hive. Insect exoskeletons provide very few nutrients for the hiveborn captain’s growth, so it repurposes the chitin into an exoskeleton of its own. Its upper form is humanoid, with nods to the sharp, angular structures of its prey, leaving its lower half as a bulbous vesicle of viscous ooze. The armour and weapons created by this process are both lightweight and sturdy, allowing the ooze to pull off an incredible feat: flight. According to all known laws of biomancy, there’s no way that an ooze should be able to fly, yet fly the hiveborn captain does.

Sticky Swarm. While most chitin is crafted into armor, a small amount is used in conjunction with wings and stingers to create swarmlings, tiny droplets of buzzing ooze that act as a defense mechanism for the main body. When the captain is threatened, it sprays out these little winged droplets to drive off assailants. After luring in wandering insects, the swarmlings can also be used to follow prey back to their hives, leading the captain directly to its next meal.

Forest Forager. The first step of such an ooze’s hunt is to lure prey. Hivebound captains absorb fruit, flowers, and even meat through their bulbous lower mass. Unlike gelatinous oozes, hiveborn oozes do not dissolve this food once absorbed, but rather present it as a sensory beacon to the myriad insects that wander the forest. These oozes have attacked caravans transporting food, molasses, and flowers driving them off the guards with their swarms before absconding with the goods. Some enterprising exterminators use hiveborn oozes as symbiotic assistants, giving them sugary foods in order to rid a castle of an ant infestation. 

Sappy Sapience. Oozologists speculate that there may be a case of divergent evolution and a shared ancestor between hiveborn oozes and oozekin. Both demonstrate the ability to assimilate the matter they consume, though without Dr.Stein’s biomantic tampering, hiveborn oozes show little potential for genuine sapience.

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Get the stats for this fearsome foe in the ATTACHED FILES!

Enjoy the gorgeous rendered art for it HERE;

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