Formian, Queen

Formians hail from the plane of Mechanus. They seek to colonize all that they see and incorporate all living things into their hive as workers.

Expansionist in the extreme, formians are dedicated to spreading their colonies until they have taken over everything and their order is unquestioned. To further this end, they attack all other creatures, usually to put them to work building and expanding cities. Formians maintain these “conscripted” workers as well as those mentally dominated by the power of their taskmasters.

A formian resembles a cross between an ant and a centaur. All formians are covered in a brownish-red carapace; size and appearance differs for each variety.

The formian queen sits at the center of the hive-city, her bloated form never moving from the royal chamber. She is served and guarded by the most loyal myrmarchs.

The formian queen cannot move. With her telepathic abilities, though, she can send instructions to and get reports from any formian within her range. She is about 10 feet long, perhaps 4 feet high, and weighs about 3,500 pounds.

The queen speaks Formian and Common, although she can communicate with any creature telepathically.

Formians are generally aggressive, seeking to subdue all they encounter. If they perceive even the slightest threat to their hive-city or to their queen, they attack immediately and fight to the death. Any formian also attacks immediately if ordered to do so by a superior.

The queen does not fight. She has no ability to move. If necessary, a team of workers and myrmarchs (or dominated slaves) haul her enormous bulk to where she needs to go. This sort of occurrence is very rare, however, and most of the time the queen remains within her well-defended chambers.

Despite her utter lack of physical activity, the queen can cast spells and use spell-like abilities to great effect in her own defense as well as the defense of the hive-city.

Hive Mind (Ex): All formians within 50 miles of their queen are in constant communication. If one is aware of a particular danger, they all are. If one in a group is not flat-footed, none of them are. No formian in a group is considered flanked unless all of them are.

Spells: The queen casts arcane spells as a 17th-level sorcerer.

Typical Sorcerer Spells Known (6/8/7/7/7/7/6/6/4, base save DC 15 + spell level): 0—acid splash, arcane mark, daze, detect magic, light, mage hand, read magic, resistance, touch of fatigue; 1st—comprehend languages, identify, mage armor, magic missile, shield; 2nd—hypnotic pattern, invisibility, protection from arrows, resist energy, scorching ray; 3rd—dispel magic, heroism, nondetection, slow; 4th—confusion, detect scrying, black tentacles, scrying; 5th—cone of cold, dismissal, teleport, wall of force; 6th—analyze dweomer, geas/quest, repulsion; 7th—summon monster VII, vision, waves of exhaustion; 8th—prismatic wall, temporal stasis.

Spell-Like Abilities: At will—calm emotions (DC 17), charm monster (DC 19), clairaudience/clairvoyance, detect chaos, detect thoughts, dictum (DC 22), divination, hold monster (DC 20), magic circle against chaos, order’s wrath (DC 19), shield of law (DC 23), true seeing. Caster level 17th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

Telepathy (Su): The queen can communicate telepathically with any intelligent creature within 50 miles whose presence she is aware of.