Planar Bestiary
A smear of greenish light resolved. Glowing undead bugs, crawling and scrabbling over each other in their thousands, washed forward like a wave. Or, more precisely, a swarm of ghoul beetles.
Like ghouls, ghoul beetles are drawn to locations where they can eat dead things, or soon-to-be-dead things. Over time, relying on some sort of demonic generative process, more and more ghoul beetles arise from an actively feeding swarm, which in turn gives rise to more swarms. However, even if not fed, a swarm of ghoul beetles can remain animated indefinitely.
A ghoul beetle swarm is sometimes associated with the Tomb of Winter
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment: Anywhere in the multiverse, alone, in groups of two to five, or with intelligent undead who command them
Health: 9
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (3 points)
Armor: 1
Movement: Short; immediate when flying
Modifications: Speed defense as level 2 due to large swarm size; resists effects that command or repel undead as level 5
Combat: A swarm targets all creatures in an immediate distance in diameter. The hundreds of tiny individual bites of the swarm are treated as a single bite attack that deals 3 points of damage that ignores Armor (unless the character's armor leaves absolutely no access to skin). Living creatures must succeed on a Might defense task or be paralyzed for one minute, or until they finally succeed on a defense task on a subsequent turn to regain the ability to act and move early.
Ghoul beetle swarms flee bright light and fire, unless commanded by intelligent undead. They are immune to necrotic and poison attacks.
Interaction: Hungry insects, ghoul beetle swarms move towards food without tactics or fear of death, unless otherwise commanded.
Use: Some intelligent undead or powerful necromancers use ghoul beetle swarms as animate outerwear, which can be molded and shaped according to their whims, but usually includes a long train. In a pinch, the outerwear can disengage and swarm anything the wearer indicates.
GM Intrusion: The ghoul beetle swarm divides into two ghoul beetle swarms with the same stats as the original, each with 7 points of health.