Ungeziefer (Wermspittle)

Ungeziefer
No. Enc.: 1
Alignment: random
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 1 (claw or bite)
Damage: 1d6 or 2d4
Save: MU4
Morale: 6

Victims of unexpected verminomorphosis, the Ungeziefer are filthy, sewer-dwelling bipedal insects that have lost their humanity to the malevolent sorcery of cruel and callous spell-casters. Bitter at their plight, and driven underground by the Sewer Militia who have standing orders to kill any of these supposedly diseased, plague-spreading creatures on sight, they have lost their place, lost their bodies, and in most cases even lost their minds. Those especially driven past all endurance or expectation of ever recovering any semblance of what they barely remember as their human existence have even lost their souls, giving over their disgusting, insectoid forms to possession by unclean spirits, lurking horrors, cthonic powers, demons and worse.

Legionaire Ungeziefer
No. Enc.: 1d4
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 8
Attacks: 2 (Claws, Bite, Spew, and or spells/powers)
Damage: 1d10/3d4/special
Save: MU8
Morale: 10*

Wicked, debased and completely, utterly given-over to dark powers, these hideous insects scuttle about in the deep, dismal declivities beneath Wermspittle prowling for victims. These things are more or less just walking shells of translucent chitin animated by groups of spirits, ghosts, or whatever. If the body is broken-up into small enough pieces, the intangible/immaterial parasites are dispersed. Each of these horrific things chitters insanely in a dozen or more voices at once and can use 1d6 random spell-like powers. They almost never use weapons. If pressed in combat by a foe that shows some sign of having a chance of beating them, they will attempt to spew a stream of psychic pollution at the most vulnerable-looking/wounded member of their opponents in the hopes that this lingering, toxic ectoplasmic stream will give the evil entities within the possessed Ungeziefer a chance to possess one or more of their foes. Anyone reduced to zero or lower hit points by one of these vile creatures will be animated as a cacozombie host to 2d8 unclean spirits within the following 1d4 days.

But Not All Have Given Up...Yet...
But not all are so far gone. A few, very few, of these forsaken and abandoned individuals still retain some sense of their previous identity. These few, human-thinking dreamers skitter about on the very periphery of society, watching from their subterranean vantage points, watching and waiting and hoping for some chance to redeem themselves, to reclaim the lives that have been stolen from them. In the darkness and filth, these Ungeziefer brood upon the wrong done to them, and they plot revenge both bloody and inhuman in its ultimate execution. But then, their humanity was taken away from them. They're just filthy, unwanted insects now...though they could maybe use a little help with their schemes...

Inspiration: In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into an insect, at least in most translations of the text. A lot of what Kafka wrote is not strictly, directly convertible into easy-peasy English translations. For example, the word used most often by Kafka to describe Samsa's new form is 'ungeziefer,' which, in Middle German, means an "unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice," and it is more akin to a bug, vermin or some dirty-nasty thing best not directly described, rather than a straight-forward insect. In fact, Kafka did not want the form of his protagonist to be depicted at all--he wanted it to remain something indeterminate, unspecified, ambiguously disgusting so as to better demonstrate Gregor's own disgust at his situation, but alas, the book cover got a big cockroach put on it and the rest is history and be damned whatever the author intended or wanted. Nabokov was convinced that Samsa had been transformed into a beetle, not a cockroach, not a dung beetle, but just a big beetle with wings underneath its carapace, but then Nabokov was a lepidopterist as well as a play wright, so maybe that counts for something. Or not.

You can find a handy online version of Kafka's Metamorphosis at Project Gutenberg, another version is hosted at this site devoted to Kafka, and you can find a copy of Nabokov's lecture on The Metamorphosis including a link to his doodle of the Samsa-beetle on the first page of his teaching copy of the book, which wasn't as thrilling to actually see, really...kinda expected something a little bit more interesting after first hearing about his take on things...oh well; Great Literature can be pretty disappointing at times. That's probably one more reason why it has to be taught in schools, to captive audiences...


Also, so as not to be all literary and crap, the extreme metal band Imperial Vengeance did a song inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis called 'Of Insect and Allegory,' so the Ungeziefer is not only literary, it is Very Metal as well. Just saying...