Scarabs Blog post

[John Dunn]

Hi folks,

This is the first of the posts on banes in the setting. We'll be releasing
it next Monday. It's also the first Savage Worlds game mechanics that we'll
show off.

-John

[Ross Watson]

Some questions:

1. Why are they wild cards?
2. 2 feet long and swarm in the thousands? I would think the swarms would
have to be extremely rare or the entire continent would be bug food.
3. The descriptions says they never appear in small groups, but the game
stats is for a swarm in the size of a large burst template -- which strikes
me as a small group when you're talking about 2 foot long bugs.

[MATTHEW STEEN]

I'll second Ross's questions.

Also, is there anything particularly nasty that separates these from just being oversized bugs? I'm mostly looking at this in comparison to the Prairie Tick Hatchling Swarm from Deadlands, both in terms of stats and presentation. Not that there needs to be, but it seems like their size is the one thing designating them as being 'Bane'-worthy.

---

From: Ross Watson <spy...@clansmith.org>
To: accursed-wo...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 2, 2013 4:20 PM
Subject: RE: Scarabs Blog post

[John Dunn]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

On the questions, please let me know if this addresses your concerns or not. If you have an alternative suggestion, please let me know.
Ross:

#1 - My thought is that all banes will be Wild Cards. That would be part of what differentiates them from more typical foes. If need be, we can break things down further, and not have the Scarabs be a Wild Card.

#2 - Yes, that's correct. Swarms would have to be rare. I'll add a bit about that to the write-up.

#3 - Good point, Ross. My intent was that there would be dozens, if not hundreds of those templates in a swarm. All, of course, Wild Cards.

Matthew:

#1 - These are a relatively minor bane. (Which could be a good justification for them not to be a WIld Card.) So, no, there is not anything that distinguishes them beyond being large bugs.

#2 - I'm not a Deadlands guy, so I wasn't familiar with the Prairie Tick Hatchling Swarm. (I built off of the swarm in the SW core book.) I've now found the relevant stats and reviewed them. To me, the Prairie Tick Hatchling Swarm deals less damage and is easier to kill  than the Scarab swarm. One important addendum is that I did forget to add the AP2 to the Scarab attack. To a certain extent, though, Scarabs are essentially a different trapping, with some back story.

-John