Furtive scuttlers in the squalid darkness...

GIANT COCKROACH (#7/31, #7/365) [OOTP IV]

SKILL: 6

STAMINA: 6

ATTACKS: 1

WEAPON: Small Bite

ARMOUR: See below

DAMAGE MODIFIER: None

HABITAT: Dungeons, Ruins, Caves, Towns (sewers)

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 1-6 or 4-24

TYPE: Insect

REACTION: Unfriendly

INTELLIGENCE: Low

Scuttling cockroaches with brown chitinous bodies, spiny legs and waving antennae can be found everywhere across Titan, and the largest is the grotesquely overgrown GIANT COCKROACH which ranges from dog-sized to almost two metres long, and whose carapace can be as hard as plate armour. These size differences are because they are colonial insects; when encountered, roll on the following table to determine which caste the Giant Cockroach belongs to:

Roll Caste (all other scores as per above)

1-2 Scout: Light Armour, can fly, will try to steal Gold Pieces and Provisions

3-4 Worker: Medium Armour, can fly

5-6 Soldier: Heavy Armour, cannot fly

All members of a small group will belong to the same caste, but larger nests of creatures will contain 4-24 individuals, split into rough thirds for total caste numbers, and ruled by a screeching, foul-smelling huge COCKROACH QUEEN (SKILL 7 STAMINA 7, Large Bite, Heavy Armour, cannot fly).

Owing to this acquisitive caste-based hierarchy, the Giant Cockroach is a remarkably communicative creature, making a disconcerting chirruping sound by sawing its antennae together, as well as clicking its mandibles, and skittering forwards when attacking, chittering, hissing and waving its antennae angrily. In fact, when wounded to half its STAMINA or below, a GIANT COCKROACH will emit a high-pitched shrieking noise that immediately summons 1-3 nearby reinforcements of the same caste.

Such perspicacity has seen Giant Cockroaches experimented upon by Marrangha-Mages and being used as basal bodies for hybrid Vivisects, or as living guard-idols of incipient corruption by Insectoid Monks and other such tainted groups. To most adventurers however, they are a thieving menace down in the dungeon, always after gold or food. The Giant Cockroach is likewise infamous for extruding a putrid-smelling yellow ichor when slain, which is disgusting gunk to be wiping off your weapon at the end of a long battle!