Fairly basic creature. I see the visual. I feel the yuk. The ecologist in me is screaming.

My only thought, is their is only so much dead skin on a person. And how long will it take them to eat "that patch". Once they have all the dead skin in their patch, surely they would move to find flakier pastures. I know they are part of a "whole" and they might not move, but.... Of course, if they started eating "live" skin once the dead skin has been exhausted. That would be a different story. Thus removing them after they have been there for too long could become.... problamatic.

Aside: I could not see them covering someone over for too long. You would need timing and such to make this work in a useful manner.

They are symbiotes, rather than parasites. So I know they are not bad, but.... They provide the host with vastly more than they are getting back. Okay, they just seem too useful. Go to Comment

Couldnt place why it was familiar, thank you Oakwood. Go to Comment

Useful but I woulden't want to wear them. Go to Comment

Ok, while it is a little too short for me. Yes I like lengthy submissions that belch way too much information. This is what made me come to realize it was a neat idea.

Some merchants also sell these creatures as "self repairing armor" to adventures down on their luck

That alone did it for me. The fact that they are insects and crawl and embed themselves into your skin makes me quiver just trying to imagine the feeling. But that alone makes it a useable submission for me. Go to Comment

This is quite cool - I have seen insect armors in other places, but this is still well done and useful. Go to Comment

OK, my first comment here:

I generally liked the idea, but it seems very similar to Leto III putting on a suit of sandtrout in "Children of Dune" by Frank Herbert, right down to the diamond shape of the creatures. Go to Comment

Like I said in my previous post, they are a mutation caused by whatever biological/nuclear (or magical) weapons were used to make your favorite post apocalypse setting. So while they were not naturally created by the process of evolution, they have mutated and adapted to their environment and now are capable of successfully breeding. Go to Comment

Updated: Clarified a few small details. Go to Comment

Actually I was going for something that was similar to the real world parasites "scabies" and "chiggers" but more beneficial; hence the variation of the name into "Scalies." (Mutated by radiation the post apocalypse setting I used them in.)

The reference from Dune sounds vaguely familiar. I read that book ages ago, and was bored to death close to the end. If I remember right the things from Dune were ultimately lethal, irremovable, and made Leto close to invulnerable, unlike the Scalies. Go to Comment

The original concept was for them to feed off a persons sweat and perhaps body hair as well; which could prove advantageous to some people. I like the idea of them becoming parasitic and consuming healthy flesh if left in place for more then a week or two, especially if they execrate an anesthetic preventing the wearer from realizing they were being slowly eaten alive until they tried to remove them...

Also in the original post apocalypse setting their main draw back was the continual perception/skill penalty from feeling the creatures crawling over your skin, making it difficult to perform complex tasks and conentrate for long, let alone get a good nights sleep.

besides the caused discomfort when set on,  wearing clothing was difficult to impossible as well as the social interaction pentaly. (Who's going to have a normal conversation with someone covered in a crawling carpet of bugs, a few of which may decide you are a more desireable host?) This alone provided enough problems to off set their advantages and keep them balanced. (they also weren't very bullet proof, making them a less then optimal armor choice for firearms conflicts.)

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Very nice,are they natual?(I woulddnt think so Go to Comment

Indeed, very nasty. Go to Comment

I've never encountered a submission quite like this before. Nasty creatures. Go to Comment

If you got one of these when it was a maggot, could you tame it and make it your pet? Go to Comment

I linked this to Insects (and Spiders and other creepy crawlies) for you. I thing this is a simple solid submission. As a stand alone it's not terribly original, but as a part of a codex it's very useful. Solid.

3.0 Go to Comment

Cheka... your weird. :)

Im not sure what does this for me. If there were not elecricity shooting, small cat sized insects that agressively feed on living flesh... then I may have talked into liking them. As it is though.... the feed portion is ok, the laying of larva is ok... the fact that they leave scars and wounds tend to get infected is even ok... Something about the direction this sub came from and went just did me wrong.

I don't have any issues with this being for a post aapocalyptic setting, on the contrary they seem more fitted to something a tad more modern and even sci-fi. Its just something in the way they were described, or lack of a lot of description perhaps, is what made me not take this and enjoy it. Go to Comment

Pretty nasty critters.

If these are for a fantasy campaign, the description is a little too modern - Tasers, etc.

Basketball sized - the main body or the sphere including the wings? Either case these bugs are huge! Go to Comment

They were designed more for a post apocalypse or space faring campaign actually, hence the runaway lawnmower reference in the description. (I almost added in a bit about shotguns and flamers being the preferred weapon of choice to counter these pests but figured that pigeon holed them a bit too much as far as high tech/low tech versatility)

As for size, that includes the wing span. Go to Comment

I didn't go into a whole lot of description since they are for general appearances simply an enlarged common creature so a lengthy description would have been redundant.

I'm not sure if you could tame it as a pet since like most insects, as soon as it becomes hungry it immediately goes in search of food. Anyone attempting to tame one would therefore need to keep a readily available supply of food near by. (And once it pupated the food supply would then have to be living for the insect to show any interest.)

Although; I suppose in a post apocalypse setting a sufficiently vile and crazed person could raise one or more of the creatures by feeding it scraps of meat then after pupation allowing to to feed upon a slave, or even their own body when food was scarce. Go to Comment

Maybe he just does it for the same reason people boil puppies and eat kittens.

That said: The essential idea here is good. I like it. However, I feel that it needs a certain level of expansion - What is the fundamental reason he gets bored doing things the 'nice way'? What events caused him to become so psychopathic? What cracked him in the first place? Go to Comment