Giant Tick & Tick Swarm

Giant ticks are the bane of every PC with a low Constitution score.  And tick swarms are just…yikes.

Mastodons migrating farther south than usual bring ticks to the Sterngrass Plains.  The ticks begin breeding rapidly, spreading as swarms and decimating the local centaur population.  More than one centaur runner has inadvertently worsened the crisis while seeking help, collapsing in a blood-drained, swarm-covered husk just as he reached the next tribe’s land.

A rash of bubonic-plague-carrying tick swarms appears to be the work of a daemon.  Actually, the swarms are the work of a gelugon determined to keep the local paladin order off-balance while he makes his next move.

The first hint that there is something wrong with the hamlet of Ramble is the sight of the children playing with their pets—not dogs and cats, but giant ticks.  The docile ticks do not seem to regard the children as prey, but leap to attack any strangers.  Of course, defending oneself against the vermin only upsets the children, who run for their parents.  And that’s when things get weird…

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 265

I am excited with some of Blogger’s changes—for one thing, my formatting is not going out of whack the second I try to make an update.  (Maybe now I can go back and edit all my many, many typos…)

Backlog alert: Black pudding, blindheim, and fungus leshy entries are up.  Speaking of Plant creatures, the Paizo blog recently had some previews of plant companions from the forthcoming Advanced Race Guide and bumped up the pirate familiar list for the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path.