Scarper's skirmish groups and NPCs: An unpleasant parasite.

[urzilla]

Lovely paint job, and wonderful writing, you really make the world come to life
The way you merged the maw miniatures with stats blocks and background is inspiring
keep it up!

[Grumpy Gnome]

All looking great! 👍

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nice work, both models and background.

[jhonpog]

love those bile worms you make space travel sound very.....yucky

[Freddy]

I like the new models, especially the sewer dragon.

[Scarper]

Resurrecting my own thread here, but I've got a few more creatures to add to the Stargrave bestiary after it swung back to the front of my projects pile. Hope they're still interesting.

'Primitives' are isolated folks who never advanced far beyond the stone or early iron age, and tend to be in the wrong place and wrong time when off-worlders want something. These guys managed to fight back and keep hold of a few weapons.



'Ryakan' are leathery-winged ambush predators that live in dark places and tend to infest spaceships. They're described as enveloping and biting their targets, so these xenomoths from an old Zombicide kickstarter seemed to fit the bill. I've had them for forever and never found anything to do with them, so I was pleased to use them for a project. The paint job is a little basic, but the wing patterns were a lot of fun to paint.




And finally for today, 'mindgrippers' are parasites the size of a large rat which leap onto and grapple with their prey's head. If they successfully latch on, they pierce the skull and can briefly control the target while they consume brain matter. Headcrabs? Headcrabs. These fellas are sculpted with greenstuff, and I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. They're almost cute!




Hope you like them, and C&C is very welcome. Thanks for reading!
 

[Talysman]

I'm good with resurrecting old threads

These look very good! I don't generally think of gnolls in space, even if they are "primitives". Well done all 'round.

[has.been]

Nice work.

[hubbabubba]

It's great to see this thread pop up again.

Those flying beasties very much look the part, well played.

Additionally, I'd missed the excellent background narrative for the bile worms, very well written.

Thanks Scarper.

[Freddy]

Great additions, I espacially like the crabs!

[Ragsta]

Those Mindgrippers are so bloomin cute. I love what you?ve done with their little micro diorama bases and painting.

Those Ryakan look like a nasty encounter to face. It?s been said before but you?re background writing is always very well done.

[Scarper]

I'm good with resurrecting old threads

These look very good! I don't generally think of gnolls in space, even if they are "primitives". Well done all 'round.

Thank you! I've always had a soft spot for scavengers and underdogs, so these guys have been in my head for a while. I'm pretty pleased with how they've come out.

Nice work.

Thanks a lot!

It's great to see this thread pop up again.

Those flying beasties very much look the part, well played.

Additionally, I'd missed the excellent background narrative for the bile worms, very well written.

Thanks Scarper.

Thank you! Those are really kind words. I really enjoy writing the little narrative snippets - they help me build worlds a lot better in my head and flesh things out after a story-based game. I also figured fresh meat would be hard to come by between planets, and hardy travelling folk will make do with what they have!

Great additions, I espacially like the crabs!

Thanks a lot! They were quite simple to sculpt, but I'm pleased with them anyway.

Those Mindgrippers are so bloomin cute. I love what you?ve done with their little micro diorama bases and painting.

Those Ryakan look like a nasty encounter to face. It?s been said before but you?re background writing is always very well done.

Thanks, Ragsta! I can't wait to see what you do with your tyranid versions. They're really pretty gross in person.

The dioramas were fun to do

[Scarper]

I realised after posting the replies above that I hadn't posted my little microfiction for the Mindgripper models.

Thanks for reading these - I feel a lot more exposed posting writing than painting for some reason, and I've had some really kind feedback from the LAF folks. I hope you enjoy this one.



-----------------------------


Brain-thieves? You've lost me, Corporal.

...

Oh. Oh! Yes. 'Mindgrippers.' Parasitica Ovacorporis. 'Brain-thieves,' yes. Or 'corpse crabs,' if you're amongst the Parechua. I've read about them! Fascinating evolutionary line. Not uncommon in the wetlands around here. You've - seen one, I assume?

...

Ha! Oh, I envy your work sometimes, Corporal. I'm so rarely away from the lab, sometimes I feel like I might as well have never left Shengsuo. Such a wasted opportunity in amongst all this biodiversity. I'd love the opportunity to study one, should you come across another specimen. Such an unusual parasite. Or, or a predator, perhaps? They certainly blur the line on Terran taxonomy, as xenobiology has such a tendency to do.

...

Are you sure? Do you have a minute? Of course! Just - stop me if it's too much, I know I tend to babble. But you did ask!

They start out as pure predators - as soon as they're capable of independent motion they rely on prey species to survive. Larvae and other insectoids for the immature stage, while the adults survive mostly by predating on bigger insects and small rodent-likes. Ambush predation, mostly - they're warm-blooded, but small enough and with a low enough metabolic rate that they can survive with a relatively sparse pool of prey.

Their unique feature,  though, that comes with their reproduction. A one-of-a-kind adaptation that lets them successfully gestate far more young than they have any right to.

Ovacorporis are sexually dimorphic - that is, the males and females are different in their body structure. The males are much smaller, less aggressive, but they're not so important in this. They just... start the process off, so to speak, by fertilising an adult female. This causes a shift in the female's hunting behaviour. They start to target much bigger animals, generally mammal-likes, though not exclusively. Animals much bigger than they would be able to take down using their traditional hunting behaviour. They're not trying to kill it, though. It's a - much more unpleasant goal.

They have a - a 'beak', I suppose you would call it, similar to a Terran cephalopod. Like this, you see? But it's the weapon within it which is the true marvel. If the creature can grapple the skull of one of its newer targets (ideally the occiput, the base of the skull, though they're certainly not that picky) the 'beak' is forced forward by a powerful muscle contraction. It fractures the victim's skull, like this, but it also fires in a - a - a 'payload' of sorts. A needle-like protuberance delivers a bundle of invasive neuronal tissue, a pool of powerful paralytic toxin and a flood of microscopic zygotes - fertilised eggs - all within a fraction of a second.

The host's brain is invaded by the new tissue that the mindgripper has injected while its movement is impaired. It replaces host neurons, severing neural connections and leaving its own in their place. It rapidly targets the movement centres, the sensory input, the 'controls', I suppose you could say, but it leaves the higher functions alone. Efficient, certainly, but horrifying too - it's entirely likely that the new host remains conscious throughout the process.
It's something - unsavoury - to see, from what I've read. The first few moments in the literature have been compared to a poorly operated marionette, or, or some kind of - a rictus convulsion, I think it was? Apologies, it was very evocative, but I can't place the phrasing.

Within less than a minute, the new host is fully within Ovacorporis' control. The creature then simply 'pilots' its target somewhere safe and out of the way, then detaches and leaves its new incubator be. You've likely seen mindgripper hosts before - acidjacks or swamp-oxen just standing, staring, swaying. Often somewhat - bulbous. The young mindgrippers, twenty-five to forty of them, depending on the size of the clutch, grow and feed within their host, bursting forth fully formed once the host body can no longer sustain them. They target fat stores first, things that the host can survive the loss of - the process can take weeks! Can you even imagine, the feeling of being consumed from within? Of a great number of tiny claws, working inside your...

Um, Corporal? Are you - You look a little -

...

Oh, Private Duchenne? You are sure? I didn't - No, no I don't think he could have.
I'm sorry. Really, Corporal, if I knew, I wouldn't have -
No. No, you're right.

I'll - I've got a lot to do, Corporal. Why don't I - Yes. Yes. For the best. I'm sorry again.




Shit.

-----------------------------



C&C is very welcome! I'm trying to do different 'voices' for a few of these, which I'm hoping comes across. Thanks again for looking.



 

[Ragsta]

Cripes. That was… Grimly good.