| Notes |
Giant termites act like ants in many ways. Sunlight demoralizes them, and they prefer to remain within their immense mounds. Worker termites can create a 10 centimetre thick cement wall that is 3x3 meters across in half an hour if working alone. Each additional worker lessens the time required by ten minutes to a mini-mum of 10 minutes (for 3 workers). About a third of termite nest inhabitants are the warriors with larger heads and hooked jaws. Some termite mounds employ nasute warriors instead of the normal biting types. A few tropical types have warriors capable of both biting attacks and nasute abilities. Nasutes cannot normally bite. Their head is shaped like a bulb with a long narrow gun-like snout extending out the front. Termites are never encountered out foraging. Sometimes a cement-like tunnel is encountered going from their mound to a source of wood — these tunnels are packed full of termites. Giant termites dwell in large mounds and grow fungus gardens deep within. Termites cannot be poisoned by laying out bait, for they feed only on their fungus gardens. If attackers knock a hole in the rock-hard mound, the termites send out soldiers to delay the attackers while workers seal the opening over with cement. If attackers actually enter the mound, then the termites employ their expertise at tunnel fighting. They may lead attackers into blind alleys, which are then sealed off, or surrounded by warriors. The maze of passages within a mound confuse the invader and is nearly impossible to map, as they twist in all three dimensions. Termites are sometimes attacked anyway, despite the difficulty, to get at their fungus gardens. This fungus is sometimes magical in nature. The effects may vary — eating a fungus may add a SIZ point to the eater, or it may add a POW point, transform him into some other type of organism, give him one-use Rune spell, or transport him onto a different plane. If it appears that the attackers are likely to defeat the termites and pillage them, the termites will usually try to flee with their fungus balls. |
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