Chancellor Karolina
You are Chancellor Karolina, voice of the gardens, and you are as much a member of Queen Celia’s colony as any ant. You have worked all your life in the factories, as had your mother, as had her mother before that. Your kinswomen convert the raw material of the plants and earth into wealth in a way no ant can, and yet only meager scraps of the colony’s glory trickle back down to you. You are entitled to an equal share in this colony the same as any bug in the beautiful world.
It is no wonder the gardens struggle to mobilize—past attempts at organization among the aphids have been quashed brutally as soon as the millipedes arrive swarming with soldiers. But now is your chance. Queen Celia laid three royal daughters instead of one, and the colony has turned to infighting. You and your most devoted sisters have given up your abilities to reproduce, hardening your exoskeletons into spikes and entrenching yourselves in the fortified gardens. Every faction in this civil war needs your nectar, and only once they are forced to come begging to your door will they understand how important you are to this colony.
Rise, brave aphid! The royal armies have never fought an enemy quite like you.
Aims of the Chancellor
- Control every Aphid Herd and Nectar Garden.
- Secure equal labor and civil rights for aphids and ants, if not grasshoppers and beetles.
- Gain control of the royal nursery as leverage to enforce the cooperation of a queen.
Spiked Aphids
Spiked aphids are equivalent in strength to worker ants, but an army with at least one detachment of spiked aphids increases its scouting range to 18 meters and does not have its scouting limited by stony terrain. Armies of exclusively spiked aphids and aphid porters fight headless without penalty, can travel off-road at full speed, and their scouts are invisible. You may designate one additional non-aphid detachment at a time as spiked aphids.
Aphid Herds
Your kinswomen are soft and unsuited for war, but they work diligently to produce the nectar needed for the colony’s operation. At an aphid herd extraction, you may mobilize a number of aphid porter detachments equal to the extraction’s tier. Each aphid porter consumes 0.5 food per hour, and can carry 20 food. You may do this a maximum of one time per quarterday per extraction.
Nectar Gardens
At a nectar garden factory, you may induce the plants you parasitize to produce large defensible galls which your soldiers can inhabit. This is a process that takes two hours. These galls increase the defensive bonus of the stronghold by 1, to a default of +4.
Small Unit Tactics
Armies with Spiked Aphid detachments can engage in Small Unit Tactics, special actions that can be done while on the move. An army can only engage in one type of Small Unit Tactics at a time, and can only use one detachment at a time. Small Unit Actions cannot be done against an army currently engaging in a battle. Garrisoned units and headless armies can engage in Small Unit Tactics if given precise commands, but will not exercise judgment.
If you are attacked by a force that is not the target of a Raid or Delay action in the same hour you perform that action, you are out of formation.
- Raid: A detachment can be tasked with raiding an army within scouting range. Choose between focusing on torching food, stealing nectar or food, damaging equipment, or stealing equipment. By default, a spiked aphid detachment has a 3-in-6 chance of success:
- Torching food reduces the enemy supplies by an amount equal to (2d6+1) × the raiding detachment’s numbers.
- Stealing nectar or food captures nectar or food equal to 1d6 × the raiding detachment’s numbers.
- Damaging equipment of an amount equal to (2d6+1) x 20% of the raiding detachment’s numbers. Each Heavy Weapon or Grasshopper counts as 50 towards this total, each Armor counts as 100, and each Bombardier Beetle counts as 200. A fully destroyed piece of equipment doubles its count.
- Stealing equipment of an amount equal to (1d6+1) x 20% of the raiding detachment’s numbers. Each Heavy Weapon or Grasshopper counts as 50 towards this total, each Armor counts as 100, and each Bombardier Beetle counts as 200.
- On a failure, the raiding detachment suffers 20% losses and does not accomplish their objective.
- Patrol: A detachment can be tasked with defending your perimeter. By default, a spiked aphid detachment has a 3-in-6 chance of success. If successful, you will be made instantly aware of any changes to your scouting area throughout the hour, cannot be surprised, and all operations against you or your location have a -3 penalty to their roll for the hour. Having a unit tasked to Patrol lowers your marching speed by half.
- Delay: A detachment can be tasked with slowing down an army within scouting range. By default, a spiked aphid detachment has a 3-in-6 chance of success. If successful, you slow the enemy's base marching speed by 6 miles, and any movement counts as a Forced March for the target army. Multiple instances of a successful Delay do not stack. On a failure, the tasked detachment suffers 20% losses and does not accomplish their objective.
The Spiders
In the first chaotic days of the war, you were approached by three worker ants. You received them eagerly—sisters in arms!—but as they approached you counted their limbs. They had not six, but eight; they were not ants, but spiders, bred for the purpose of serving the old queen. Mistreated by the old order and looking to sell their services in the new. They see you as the best option for a changed colony—a colony where they could reap the rewards of their endeavors, instead of blindly serving a queen unto death—and would aid you in seeing it come to reality, for now Queen Celia is dead and the knowledge of the spiders died with her. They were always a small group, hard to breed en masse, and in the initial spasms of the civil war many spiders were slain. But not all of them. This is what they said to you that day.
You have the services of three spiders loyal to your cause, irreplaceable in their infiltration and surveillance abilities and willing to do whatever you ask them to. You can always send workers or soldiers to perform operations like normal, but as for professionals, you have three.
A spider-led operation costs nectar like normal and involves a spider being sent to a location or attaching itself to an army camp to begin working towards its goal. Spiders travel as skirmishers. A spider operation is resolved with a 2d6 roll like normal, but with the following modifiers:
- The spider gets +1 for another spider’s aid.
- It gets +1 if its goal is easy, like spreading rumors or keeping an ear out.
- It gets -3 or more for a hard goal like assassination (which it only attempts against a character if there's a special opening).
The Others
- Queen Cecelia. Celia’s daughter who takes most after her—she has cloistered herself in the royal nursery and has hidden behind her royal guard, raising her brood of larvae. She will no-doubt want your nectar; it is a key ingredient in raising larvae to be soldiers instead of workers. She is surrounded by the armies of both her sister Celina and Consort Hofmann, who cannot reach the nursery by the back-tunnels the way you can. Perhaps a deal can be struck with this queen—but be careful doing so.
- You know the royal guard to all be ancient giants, many generations old, whose heads are formed in the shape of great shields. If they position themselves correctly, they can block whole tunnels with their heads; but behind the shield, each is spindly and delicate.
- You know that it takes one nectar to induce maturation of an ant larva into a soldier.
- Queen Celina. Celia’s daughter who has brought most of the colony’s workers and soldiers to heel, falling into old patterns. Though perhaps she will not just repeat her mother’s rule, for she has partnered with Consort Hofmann, though it might be a marriage of convenience. She must be watched carefully, for she has shown herself willing to make concessions to autocratic rule. Perhaps she will be willing to make more.
- Consort Hofmann. A man who understands that the colony cannot continue unchanged, even if he does not understand the extent of the change necessary. He is a male ant, but he is still an ant, and his focus lies far too much on the fruits of industry than the workers who created the economic apparatus he so loves. His coalition is that of overseers and engineers and soldiers; it is no wonder he so readily partners with the royalists. But perhaps his heart may still be changed. Queen Zsófia. A queen ant, but one betrayed by the old order and seeking escape from the boot of Queen Celia. She no doubt sees you as far beneath her, entrenched in her monarchist ways of living, but perhaps you can convince her that she too has a place as an equal in the colony reborn? She is cloistered in her own nursery and no doubt has a brood as well.
- Melchiorre. A brave freedom fighter—justified in his fury, if extreme in his demands. He seeks the full destruction of Celia’s colony and with it all hope of cooperation for a better future. Perhaps you can negotiate his place of honor in the new order—one where grasshoppers live free. If not, best stay clear of his hungry jaws.