Tome Tuesdays: Who you gonna call?

[Aeternis]

As if sand in my corset was not enough, the Land of the Dead offers a much creepier amenity in the form of clickity, crawly bugs. Nothing is quite as poignant as listening to a group mate gasp and then shout out "Holy crap! That's a really $#%ing big scorpion in there!"

This week is not so much about the giants of the sands, however, but more about the pesky critters that skitter about the dead spaces in between. Kill enough of them, and you may just become known as the realm's best bug-buster!

The Verminator
Unlike its diminutive cousins, the Giant Scarab is a monstrous Khepra beetle twisted into being by dire sorcery and selective breeding, then reanimated upon death. While they are employed as tomb guardians, the most dangerous Giant Scarabs dwell in the desert, laying in wait for unsuspecting prey.

Can you kill even the biggest bugs?

Because they require so much food to maintain their huge bodies, Giant Scarabs are able to enter a dormant state that can last for centuries at a time. It is the Scarab’s ability to seemingly rise from the dead which has caused the Nehekharans to revere the Khepra beetle as a symbol of resurrection and eternal life.

“The beetle’s shiny carapace was studded with the shafts of a hundred arrows. As more landed, it displayed no discomfort. Its movement was plodding and deliberate, its multifaceted eyes focused only on the enemies that goaded it with pike and spear, arrow and shot. Well-placed cannon fire brought the Scarab to pause, but for the men who fought against its dogged advance, even that respite was all too painfully brief.” – An excerpt from “War in the Desert” by Ruprecht Altzman


Bug Stomper
Individually, the flesh-eating Scarabs of Nehekhara are annoying pests. Nonetheless, they are also capable of massing together into great swarms that can strip flesh from a man’s bones in mere moments.

A voracious Tomb Swarm leaves nothing to waste.

Unlike the Khepra beetles that comb the desert in search of dung, the scarabs that comprise Tomb Swarms are long-dead insects that have been animated by the Liche Priests. The members of the Mortuary Cult learned long ago to summon and control these undead swarms, and they are as dangerous as they are terrifying.

“Every step I took in the tomb elicited a delicate crunching sound, as if a thousand hollow quail’s eggs had been strewn about on the floor around me. Curious, I knelt near to the floor with my lamp. “Thousands of beetles, dried out and long dead, littered the ground, their dead legs bent at odd angles and their iridescent wings catching the light. All at once their legs began to flex, their wings began to twitch, and my heart, already pounding, was drowned out by a droning buzz …”
– Timothy Ehrlichmann, Scholar