Once, there were many hives. A small nest of wasps hid among the basements of what later became Halmart. Bees proliferated in the State Park. A colony of termites happily chewed their way through the old, disused sheds now annexed by Miller’s Chickens.
No-one knows where Queen Pepidra came from. Did her egg nestle in the sewers for years, swaddled by a coterie of worshipful servitor-ants? Did she arrive in a crate of pungent fruit, on board a human flying vessel from Far Away? No-one really knows...but everyone knows of her iron mandibles, knows of her army of ruthlessly loyal soldier ants, and knows how one-by-one, the Ant Queen has been conquering and assimilating every insect hive in Smalltown into her All-Hive.
And some—some—know of the strange fungal tendrils with soft, insistent hyphae that are beginning to sprout from her polished, royal head...
"Queen Pepidra's All-Hive" is an NPC faction written for David Cox's Forged in the Dark roleplaying game Eat Trash. Be Free. The faction departs from the game's core focus on furry animals stealing food in a human town by detailing a conquering army of insects.