THOSE PESKY PIRANHA BUGS

LOL- WOW!

THIS is an interesting discussion, and it went off in a tangent I did
not expect but do appreciate!

SOME ANSWERS ABOUT MY PIRANHA BUGS.

a. The area of multiple mounds DOES NOT REPRESENT DIFFERENT COLONIES of
piranha bugs .	Each mound is just an entrance to the below ground hive,
which, covers an extensive subsurface area. Piranha bugs are a lot like
terrestrial bees.

(LOL -	who ever wrote about the chance of breaking through the surface
by accident and ending up in the main chamber was correct- there was a
chance with a heavy enough vehicle to do so. NOW would n't that brown
your pants?)

b. The vast majority of piranha bugs are workers, that emerge from nest
at  night to forage for food (scavage), and return to the hive with
their goodies. During the daylight hours, the piranha bugs are inside
the hive and inactive unless dis - turbed.  Other types are Queen,
Princess, Drone, and the egg-things (braindeath! Cannot remember what
thes are called)

c.  They are aggressive and territorial in defense of the hive and
mounds but do not go crazy at the approach of a alien who is just
passing through the area and does not bother the mounds.

d.  In fact, native gazing  critters, and  predators live in harmony
with the piranha bugs until the bugs swarm in defense of their hive then
these  animals move out smartley for safer places.

e.  The piranha bug hives are generally given a wide berth by the
colonists and their   domestic animals,  as the colonists are aware of
the  defensive swarming.

f.  The bugs seem to be irritated by loud noises, and bright colors
(red, yellow, blue).

g. The bugs seem to be active all year around, and since the arrival of
MAN on the  world, no one has seen any evidence of a massive swarm (like
South American	army ants) roving about eating EVERTHING IN ITS PATH.

h.  They are not very vulnerable to attack by projectile firing  or HEW
( narrow beam) small arms, or swatting (basically not enough casualties
to produce a "HIT") but are extemely vulnerable to explosive weapons,
area effects incidiary weapons,  flame jets, and gas weapons . It is
supposed that flooding a hive will drown  any of them that are unable to
escape.

i. Low temps (as in freezing) will reduce them to dormant state.

j.  In games terms, each  mound had the potential to release 1D6 swarm
templates (6"circles), and one swarm could fly from an intact mound each
turn.  If the mound is blowup,	2D6 swarms can	fly out of the hole each
turn. 

k. The swarm has no defensive armor of any type and can make 4D6 attacks
against anything under the template.  A swarm can sustain 10 hits,
before being "dispersed". Bugs ever have "bad" morale results.	

l. A swarm can move 2D6 inches, has no turning or terrain penalties, has
a max altitude of 12", and hover inplace. Movement is from 0" to what
ever the dice score says in a turn. 

m. Swarms automatically move toward any "enemy" with 12".  If there are
no "enemies" within 12" swarms move rn a random direction based on  1D8
as below;

1=N, 2=NE, 3=E, 4=SE, 5=S, 6=SW, 7=W ,	8=NW.

(and of course there are "millions" of the suckers lurking below ground)

Overall this is a useful critter to have hanging about for games.

ANYWAY, guys and gals, I use things from sci-fi that tend to add
uncertaintity to my games, and alien animals, insects, plant life, and
sentients all  work for this.

I tend to keep notes and records of what has gone before,  and	who,
what, where, when, how, and why something  happened in a game.

And maps of regions, cities, and table top battles so I knnow what has
happened previously and can  make sense of what is going on.

I  can also fall back on scenarios from my nice dependable library of
hard and  paper bound sci-fi books , occassionally movies, or
tramsplated historical events, or  themes from other types of  books and
movies, if my own imagination does  not work up sometihng on its own.

I am a gamer and GM for fun,  nt to make a living at  it, not a
scientist, or anything like that.  Just an old fart out to get the most
out of his hobby.

By the way, is there an archive some where of these posts that I can go
back and read through?

HAVE FUN! PLAY GAMES!

DAWGFACE