| Climate/Terrain: | Bane's Hell |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Common |
| Organization: | Masses |
| Activity Cycle: | Any |
| Diet: | Unknown |
| Intelligence: | Semi- (2-4) |
| Treasure: | Nil |
| Alignment: | Any evil |
| No. Appearing: | 10-100 |
| Armor Class: | 7 |
| Movement: | 3 |
| Hit Dice: | 1-1 |
| THAC0: | 20 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 1d4+1 |
| Special Attacks: | Wounding, disease |
| Special Defenses: | Nil |
| Magic Resistance: | Nil |
| Size: | M (5' long) |
| Morale: | Unreliable (2-4) |
| XP Value: | 35 |
Larvae, evil dead from other planes who led especially selfish lives, are now doomed to spend their wretched existences serving evil throughout Hell. Larvae are horrifying 5'-long worms, sickly yellow and covered with viscous, foul- smelling fluid. Instead of a worm's head, they have distorted faces resembling the mortals they were in life.
Larvae communicate with one another through instinctive body movements that cannot be interpreted by others.
Combat: Larvae have no will of their own and simply lie in giant, quivering masses on the grounds of Hell. However, when commanded by a greater power - that is, just about anything in Bain's Domain - larva will attack en masse.
These foul creatures bite (1d4+1 damage) that bleeds for 1 additional hp damage per round until bound. In addition, anyone bitten by a larva must successfully save vs. poison or contract a rotting disease. Those contracting the disease develop a painful skin rot. After three weeks, they lose 4 hp a day unless they lie absolutely still. After one month, they die. A cure disease spell destroys the disease.
Habitat/Society: Night hags herd larvae to use them as bargaining chips in Bane's Hell. Lower planar powers use the larvae to form quasits and imps, and in return they agree not to enter night hag territories. Powerful liches feed on larval energies to maintain their undead immortality, and in return the liches destroy creatures who refuse to trade with the hags. The complex bartering system is sustained by the growing numbers of lower planar inhabitants.
Ecology: Larvae are the sole means for creating imps and quasits. Because imps and quasits later advance to become greater fiends, larvae are the foundation of the population of Hell.
Because all larvae are equally lowly, fiends select them randomly to transform into other types of creatures are needed. How the larvae become higher creatures depends on the fiends that transform them. The baatezu, for example, cast the larvae into pools of flame, where the larvae suffer for 11 days before emerging as cruel new creatures. Other fiends have different ways to promote larvae.