Carrion Crawlers.... WEAPONISED!!!

Carrion Crawlers. Fuck you, eight paralysis attacks per round... but what an awesome murdertool it'd be if you could weaponise them.

So I have. Research: "Ecology of the Carrion Crawler" in Dragon Mag #267.

Here's what you got:

1. You need elves. The jury's out as to which kind of elves, but certain D&D editions are vague enough about their immunity to paralysis. You need Vague Elves.  Elves that are vague enough to go along with your plan without caring really what you're up to. In fact the plan is wack enough that they might wake up from their immortal stupor and feign interest. What ever it takes to get their cooperation.

UPDATE: Actually it looks like the elves aren't that necessary cause no one can find any specific deets, beyond that their immunity only applies to ghouls. What you need then is a Vague DM, and just say it's in one of the editions he doesn't have. "Elves are immune to paralysis."... and just don't mention the "attacks from ghouls" bit. Totally Legit. Trust Me.

2. If you can't get elves, or your DM is a lert, you need slaves/hirelings/tribe of oppressed goblins sewn into envirosuits. Full body, head to toe no holes breather units, basically so they don't get stung by the tentacles and launch an involuntary stopwork meeting. Or, if you have crap manufacturing facilities on hand but lots of slaves, weaponise the slaves with mancatchers. Or in this case, crawler catchers. At the very least, give them really big gloves and pitchforks.

3. Once you've got your team of wranglers sorted (for later editions make sure they've maxxed out their animal handling skills (and their craft bodysuit skills for double usefulness), you need carrion crawlers. At least two, and of each sex. Yeah, there's boy crawlers and girl crawlers. Dragon Mag told me so:

TOO MUCH DETAIL.

The important bit is that you need both. Fortunately for Man Rider there's carrion crawlers by the thousands in the Cobalt Reach being worshipped by the goblin tribes, so the following numbers are waaaay conservative, but for argument's sake let's stick with two adult crawlers getting jiggy with it, and that once they've done their long distance loving you'll end up with roughly 100 eggs.

4. To get these eggs to larval form you need cadavers. THIS IS D&D. If you can't find cadavers GO MAKE SOME. And if you can't do that you're doing something very wrong. Like being Lawful Good.

5. Here's a totally arbitrary attrition rate over the first year: 50%. You'll probably need to replace those hirelings, so bank on that in your original budget.

6. Throw that rate on the crawlers, and after a year you should have 25 girl crawlers and 25 boy crawlers. Breed them; you'll get 2500 crawler grubs. A year later, same attrition, you'll get 625 breeding pairs. Breed them; you'll get 62500 crawler grubs. By the fourth year you're looking at 1,562,500 give or take. That should be enough to paralyse the Earth. Certainly enough for The Plan.

7. Setting some aside for continued breeding, you've still got half a million grubs. Of that group, set aside 100,000, take the remainder, then find a city full of alchemists:

(that last para looks intriguing, I'll have to look it up later)

Ballparking 1 crawler=1 unit of potion, order:

• 100,000 units of Potions of Paralysis Protection

• 200,000 units of Paralysis Poison

• 100,000 units of Contact Paralysis

8. Find an army of 20,000 able bodied fighty types.

9. Equip them: each gets 5 Potions of Paralysis Protection, 5 Contact Paralysis. They'll get more stuff in a sec.

10. Aside from your army of 20000 Crawlerites, you'll need ninjas. Strong ninjas. Say a Potion is what, half a litre, you'll have this much Paralysis Poison:

11. Apply paralysis ninjas to enemy water source. 

12. Let's say that doesn't work and the ninjas get eaten and you have to go to waaaaaaagh!!!!! You've got your army of 20000 soliders sitting idle waiting for the ninjas to get back. Keep them busy making these, 3 each:

Cage-On-A-Stick

The cages need to be about one to one and a half feet long, with a lockable fliptop grill on the end. The bladey bits are for sticking into people.

13. Having built 60000 of these, insert these:

Grub-On-A-Stick

14. Remember to shut the lids. Remember to have your troops drink one of their Paralystop Potions before hand.

15. Now you got two options; you can make 

Paralysis Clubs

(the Man Rider Weapon of Choice™):

or these:

Paralyspears

(have a new pole-arm, Gary)

The smart money is on making both kinds of weapons and giving both types to each soldier. And short swords. They now have Reach Weapons, that if they hit forces the target to make eight saves vs paralysis. If the enemy somehow manages to break through a paralyspear formation and gets hand to hand, they then have to make another eight saves vs paralysis every time they get hit by a paralysis club. 

As for that 100,000 crawler grubs you set aside way back in Step 7? Just add catapults. Even if 90% get wiped out on impact, you've still got 10,000 grubs crawling round behind the enemy's walls. That'll keep 'em busy.

CARRION CRAWLER: WEAPONISED.

(no idea how much it'd cost though).