Young Myrmex

Family: Myrmex

Small elemental, neutral good

Armor Class 13 (natural armor)
Hit Points 54 (12d6 + 12)
Speed 30 ft., burrow 15 ft., climb 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
12 (+1) 13 (+1) 13 (+1) 8 (–1) 10 (+0) 8 (–1)

Skills Perception +2
Damage Resistances poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, unconscious
Senses blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages understands Terran but can’t speak
Challenge 1 (200 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Elemental Nature. As the myrmex.
  • Keen Smell. As the myrmex.
  • Limited Telepathy. As the myrmex.
  • Spider Climb. The myrmex young can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.
  • Stone Walk. As the myrmex.

ACTIONS

  • Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d4 + 3) piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) poison damage.
  • Earth Shift. Ranged Spell Attack: +2 to hit, range 60 ft., one target in contact with the ground. Hit: The target is pushed up to 10 feet in a direction of the myrmex’s choice, and its speed is reduced by 5 feet until the end of its next turn.

BONUS ACTIONS

  • Earth Manipulation. As the myrmex.

ABOUT

Giant ants made of dirt and stone climb out of a hole in the ground, while the clusters of ferns, grasses, and flowering vines on their backs sway with their movements.

Myrmex are giant ants from the Elemental Plane of Earth that have burrowed their way to the Material Plane.

An Incessant Need to Explore. Intelligent, curious, and social, mrymex love to explore, meet new creatures, and learn new things. Their colonies are welcome to all—so long as no one is intentionally harmed—leaving them with no notion of private or political boundaries. Myrmex young are encouraged to become companions to other explorers to better enrich the colony on their return.

Uncommon Ants. Myrmex superficially resemble ants but have notable differences. They don’t have a hierarchy, and they have neither a queen nor castes. Instead, all are equal, and if a colony maintains at least twelve myrmex, it can elevate a speaker. The speaker is a myrmex that is imbued with power by the colony—a power that can be revoked in the rare instances the speaker works against the desires of the colony a whole. The speaker becomes the myrmex’s voice to other cultures and enacts the will of the colony after each member has voted on a decision.

Earthen Young. Rather than lay eggs, adult myrmex sculpt their young from dirt, stone, earth from their own bodies, and rare minerals. These minerals prove a limiting factor to a colony’s growth because the required minerals and their proportions are precise. This need for rare minerals frequently puts them at odds with roaming xorn, who enjoy consuming many of those same minerals.

Seeking Friendship. Myrmex make allies easily, but they don’t tend to swear fealty to anyone, especially elemental lords, which often makes their colonies a target for other elementals. They are loyal friends, and such friendship can last for generations. For instance, many myrmex have been friends of the pech for millennia, and some myrmex even share colonies with them. However, no myrmex colony has ever sworn fealty to a pech lithlord, and some colonies have even broken away from their pech allies when a lithlord has tried to rule or command the myrmex.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Tome of Beasts 3 © 2022 Open Design LLC; Authors: Eytan Bernstein, Celeste Conowitch, Benjamin L. Eastman, Robert Fairbanks, Scott Gable, Basheer Ghouse, Richard Green, Jeremy Hochhalter, Jeff Lee, Christopher Lockey, Sarah Madsen, Ben Mcfarland, Jonathan Miley, Kelly Pawlik, Sebastian Rombach, Chelsea Steverson, Brian Suskind, Mike Welham

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