As if the desert was not bad enough for a far flung dire halfling who was short on food,
water and pack animals, I had to contend with another of the little known pests of Faerun,
measuring up to a full foot long, the bright, blood red bugs called Dragon Beetles are very
nasty looking, covered in spikes that will cause painfully itchy welts wherever they
stick you, barbs and spines all over the six legs and a head with horns a little like a
tiny Triceratops thunder beast, the Dragon beetles are very unusual for a beetle in that
they are highly social insects, forming complex groups called Nests.
The reason this is quite a problem, is that, like ants raiding your picnic lunch, the dragon
beetles will sniff out any fresh or preserved meat in your provisions, tear apart your gear
to get to it, then rather than staying there and eating it immediately, as most beetles
do, these beetles grab it and take it away, back to the nest for consumption or to feed
their next generation of red, waddling thieves.
I've faced all kinds of serious threats, vicious Auromvorax, invasions of Ankhegs, conversations
with peckish dragons, but these stupid scarlet bugs damned near killed me just from eating
all of my food, and sadly, I couldn't kill the beetles and eat them, as the things are
quite toxic.
I did track them back to their nest site though and decided I was going to burn the whole
lot of the dark crimson beetles and all of their offspring just out of spite, though
I was justifying my murderious intentions by rationalizing that I could not stand by
and let these animals kill another lonesome sage far, far fom home.
What I didn't count on was that their nest, located in a humble little pile of boulders,
or somewhere down underground with an entrance in the boulders, was going to lead me into
one of the most secret locations in all of Faerun.
Now I am returned safe and sound to candlekeep, I have no idea exactly where that nest was
located, as I don't remember anything after I first approached that region of small piles
of rocks in the sandy flat lands of the Raurin Dust Desert.
My memory just tells me I woke up, at least a hundred miles away, in the plains of purple
dust, much closer to Brightstar lake, fully healed, well fed, hydrated and with no idea
what had just happened, other than the fact that I was missing a few items, my food supply
was restocked with hard little cubes of compressed bread, and my journal was almost full with
my own hand writing that I could not recall putting in there at all.
I should mention, when I travel, I keep my journals very well concealed, using a fairly
rare item called a little big box, made by my family for a number of generations, its
like a little wooden and steel bound case that folds open, and then that folds open,
and again, and again, until you finally open the lid on a decent sized treasure chest,
which is again, much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
The trick with the little big box is that it is folded, not located inside other extra
dimensional spaces, its just ... compressed.
There are set rules around folding up things, most folks know you can only fold a bit of
paper 8 times, well, a normal sized sheet of paper, a 4000 foot long sheet of tissue
paper can be folded 12 times, the inside space of a treasure trunk has its own set of rules,
as does specially treated, enchanted black duskwood.
In hindsight, I should have kept my dried meats in there along with my journals and
spare clothes.
Ah well.
The important thing is, the little big box doesn't radiate magic, the outside of the
box is entirely non-magical, the inside is very magical, but when folded up, it looks
like nothing more than a little spice box, or tinder box for cooking.
Most folks pay little attention to all the cooking supplies an average halfling carries
with them so nobody ever steals my little big box.
Honestly, dwarves and elves are justified in their famous crafting skills, but everyone
overlooks that you simply can not match the pots, pans, wooden spoons and other mundane
items that the halflings create.
There is a reason that halflings wear pots as battle helmets and can put stop to a fight
just by waving a magic spoon and using it to both reduce temperatures from a boil, and
calm all emotions in the immediate vicinity.
But I digress, the Dragon beetles are not that hard to deal with one on one, or so I
thought, but those we see roaming around the surface world looking for dead animals to
drag back underground are the typical beetle shaped, deep crimson with black edged shells
and a rather nasty stinger in their rear end, well, it's unpleasant, but much worse for
dragons and dragon kin, more on that in a moment.
Unlike actual beetles, these critters have no wings at all, so they are more like beetles
that turned into ants, much like ants are evolved from wasps, more or less.
They might be native to Toril, they may be from any number of other worlds or planes
of existence, they don't have any supernatural abilities though.
I suspect they evolved on the world of Abeir and arrived on Toril some time ago, or always
existed on both worlds, there does seem to be much more of them in the deserts of the
ancient east, also where you tend to find a lot more dragonborn.
Dragonborn take these pests a lot more seriously, as the venom in the dragon beetle stinger
is much, much more deadly to all draconic life.
A bite is the primary attack of the dragon beetle, remember there is almost always a
group of these things, 2d6 individuals that will all become very agitated the moment they
smell the alarm chemicals one of them is spraying around itself.
Their eyesight and hearing are not very good, I don't think they can see much past 30 ft
even in bright daylight and rely almost entirely on scent marking and chemical signals to navigate
as a group and communicate basic activity modes to each other, they are no more intelligent
than ants.
Their stats are basically the same as a giant fire beetle with the following changes.
The bite inflicts 1d4+1 slashing damage, they don't produce any form of illumination of
course, their ability to scent track gives them advantage on wisdom checks involving
their sense of smell or taste and allows them to follow after the scent of decay from much
greater ranges.
Their tail stinger is +1 to hit one adjacent target, it inflicts one point of damage, however
Draconic creatures need to make an immediate DC 10 saving throw or take 2d8 poison damage.
If they damage reduces the draconic victim to zero hit points, they slip into a stable
but poisoned and paralyzed condition for one hour, save ends.
Of course, snapping out of the paralysis with one of your arms snipped off and carried away
to the food chambers is a terrifying prospect, so kobolds and dragonborn tend to shoot these
things on sight.
Within the nest, dragon beetles can also be found in soldier and leader body types, the
soldiers don't just bite, they swap their stingers for scorpion-like tails with great
big snipping claws on the end, they are larger and use the same stat block as a giant spider.
Leader types are not gender specific, which makes them quite unlike ants and bees and
such, they can be found in the food and egg laying chambers, protected by the formidable
warrior types.
They have the same bite stats as the warriors, which are +2 to hit and inflict 1d6+3 slashing
damage, plus the stinger of the leaders has more damaging venom, the save DC is 12 and
their venom inflicts 2d12 poison damage, plus paralysis unless they make the save.
Nests of up to 16 beetles can be found in underground ruins, in cramped caves, and even
in thick clumps of underground vegetation.
At least half of the nest ranges out to hunt every day, seeking recently killed creatures
or prey that a group of beetles can easily take down.
A man-sized creature can be consumed over the course of a week, or last for as long
as two months, preserved and stored as a depository for eggs.
The females lay their eggs in the carcass.
When the eggs hatch (in about one months time), the newborn beetles feast upon the remaining
flesh until they are strong enough to emerge and join the rest of the nest.
Adventurers locating a dragon beetle nest can sometimes find treasure on these egg-infested
carcasses as the insects have no interest in anything other than meat content.
Encountered all alone, dragon beetles are not aggressive, they will run off if disturbed,
if cornered they just stand rigidly still and make a hissing sound, but won't fight
back, its only when you get two or more together that they become very aggressive, anything
that approaches closer than 10 feet is going to get a bite from them.
Oh I should mention that the stinger venom also leaves a nasty red scar on draconic creatures.
Attacking the nest, the whole population becomes frantically aggressive, getting a +1 bonus
to hit and any bite damage.
It is possible to extract dragon beetle venom and coat weapons with it.
Each beetle can produce 14 uses of the venom, and each dose is good for a single effect.
On a naked blade, the poison remains potent for one day.
In a glass or ceramic container, the venom keeps for a week.
Crude armor and shields can be fashioned from the scarlet shells of dragon beetles, though
this is a painstaking process and requires proper knowledge of crafting techniques, the
end result is quite striking and ornate desert kingdom palace guards sometimes include giant
insect shell components in their elaborate uniforms.
Coming up next, the Orium dragon, followed by some juicy dragon lore,
but for now, my name is AJ Pickett, I make videos about Roleplaying Game lore, particularly
monsters and exotic planes of existence, thank you for joining me and as always, I will be
back with more for you, very soon.