Half of the third level of the Scarlet Citadel is home to a clacker beetle hive. Clacker beetles are nasty buggers, with an area of effect attack that gets compounded when multiple beetles work together: “When multiple beetles clack in the same turn and create overlapping cones, each affected creature makes just one Constitution saving throw with disadvantage and the result is applied against the total damage.” Kobold Press monsters have a reputation for hitting as hard as their CR says they should, and clacker beetles show why it’s a deserved one.

They’re also scavengers, which I interpreted to mean that they would attack downed opponents. This led to the only death so far in our Sunday morning game. The gang had gotten greedy and were going for one more treasure haul in the clacker beetle hive. Arien got swarmed and taken down and then swarmed again, and the rest of the party had to retreat with her beetle-bitten body. Fortunately, Ptolus has an entire temple district, and they were able to trade a favor for a casting of raise dead.

I needed a lot of bug minis for the Clacking Caverns, and preferably ones that were easy to paint. The little fellow from this Artisan Guild set can be printed separately from the main figure, so I filled the plate with little beetle STLs and painted them with Aggaros Dunes Contrast paint. One coat, top and bottom, done! I’m very happy with how they turned out.

I brought them back out this past Sunday as the crystalback wydarr on Hot Springs Island. Spoilers: The party had found the nereid sanctuary of the Crystal Sea Cave, but the nereids were tied up fighting the wydarr that kept tunneling up into the cave. The gang fought a bunch of them, and it was a tough battle. Multiple characters got dropped to zero hit points, and I was legitimately worried about the possibility of a TPK when two people were down at the same time. Some good tactical thinking saved their skins, and next week they’ll have to figure out how to get the wydarr to go somewhere else for good.