Hive Being (5e Race)

Hive Being

“

What is that buzzing sound...

”

Physical Description

Ero from Marvel Comics

Hive beings are humanoid shapes that are actually composed of a myriad smaller beings, like arachnids or insects. They can be made of bees, spiders, ants, beetles, and more. Their shape is usually humanoid, and they can form facial features, as well as expressions. Due to their horrific body, they are usually completely covered in public. This body composition allows them to be extremely fluid in shape and able to disperse within a small range to envelope and attack foes.

History

Hive beings are believed to be amalgamations of a single mind or spirit exerting its influence on the natural world. This origin usually starts with something which has no body, and must procure one. It could be a spirit of nature or some ethereal entity that is unable to find one whole host. Thus, the being uses its will to control smaller being, namely bugs and such. Using them as a coordinated puppet, the spiritual entity can then manifest within the body constructed of a million little critters. The central mind of this "hive" remains the entity, which can control the members within its body to move and act, as well as speak. These beings commonly inhabit areas where the species that construct their bodies are numerous, allowing them to easily replace hive members, which never have too long of a lifespan. The hive being body may seem to act like an ooze, due to some fluid potential, but it cannot be too far dispersed or it loses its influence and its control over over the bugs break, scattering its body and leaving it in the ether once more. It can take years for hive beings to full accumulate, and they are rather fragile. It doesn't help either that people find them to be abominations and will often try and kill them.

Society

Hive beings are communities within themselves, being made of so many smaller creatures. They usually are made of one creature in particular, so a bee hive would be purely made of bees. They usually are solitary and avoid hive beings made of other species. When they meet one of their own subrace, however, they usually engage in a sort of mating between their composed parts, allowing the small critters to reproduce and add to their future stores of hive members. Hive beings have shown themselves to be enigmatic and intelligent creatures in society, given that people do not discover their true natures. Many people in society fear them as an omen of infestation, while druids find that they are very interesting. As they are composed of nature, hive beings do find sympathy with races and communities reverent of it.

Hive Being Names

Hive beings usually have names that may come from a past life, if they were formerly a ghost. The words get corrupted due to the critters forming their mouths being slightly less optimal for speaking than regular lips. Therefore, these names usually have some sort of buzzing, clicking, or other insect sound mixed in. Since this can be a big giveaway, they use simpler names to bypass this constraint. Hive beings have inherent gender, regardless of their body composition, drawing from a preexisting personality.

Male: Flasszzzh, Klinick, Hissseth, Bor

Female: Ero, Glticka, Chrrass, Vntahk

Hive Being Traits

Hive beings are humanoids composed entirely of insects or arachnids
Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age. Hive beings, if not replenishing their hive members, can live maybe only about 20 years.
Alignment. Hive beings are solitary and neutral, but can be vicious and chaotic if provoked.
Size. Hive beings take humanoid forms usually, measuring up to a human about. Your size is Medium.
Speed. You have a base walking speed of 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Swarm Body. You are composed of millions of tiny beasts. Your creature type is beast instead of humanoid. As an action, you may light disperse your humanoid form, polymorphing into a swarm of your composed creatures as per the polymorph spell and back into your true form as a bonus action. If you are reduced to 0 hit points in this form you revert back into your true form. Any damage you take in your changed form is transferred over to your own hit points. The swarm you change form into depends on your subrace.
Scattering Body. Your body, made of such tiny creatures, can easily squeeze into small spaces. While unarmored, you take no penalties while squeezing. In addition, you can spend 1 minute to move 5 feet through spaces as small as 1-inch wide. Any items that cannot fit through a space you pass through are left behind. Finally, you can don or doff armor as an action.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write any one language your preexisting mind knows.
Subrace. Choose from the wasp, spider, beetle or centipede subraces.

Wasp

These vicious yellow jackets come together to sting enemies to death. People are deathly afraid of them due to the potential for allergies.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Swarm. Your Swarm Body allows you to change into a swarm of wasps.
Swarm Blast. You can send your hive members to battle for you. You know the infestation cantrip and can cast it without material components.

Spider

Spiders are not only one of the biggest provokers of phobias, but they are awfully clever and hive bodies made from them are usually quite good at devising traps.

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Swarm. Your Swarm Body allows you to change into a swarm of spiders.
Web Craft. Using the millions of spiders that make your body, you can utilize their webbing to make simple tools to aid you. As part of a short rest, you can harvest webbing fro, to create one of the following items: 20 feet of rope, 50 feet of string, or 1d4 blowgun needles.

Beetle

Beetles are tough creatures that compose hardy hive bodies.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Swarm. Your Swarm Body allows you to change into a swarm of beetles.
Carapace. Your body is covered well by myriads of tiny, hard shells. When unarmored, your Armor Class is equal to 11 + your Dexterity modifier. You may use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Centipede

These powerful, lengthy bodied insects have a venomous sting, and grappling body.

Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1.
Swarm. Your Swarm Body allows you to change into a swarm of centipedes.
Arm Coil. The muscular bodies of centipedes can curl very tight. You have advantage in Strength (Athletics) checks to grapple other creatures.

Random Height and Weight

Base Height	Height Modifier*	Base Weight	Weight Modifier**
4′ 9''	+2d8	48 lb.	× (1d4) lb.
*Height = base height + height modifier **Weight = base weight + (height modifier × weight modifier)

5.00

(3 votes)

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