Mawite Legend
Grov'akk,"Skitterwings"
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To flesh out one of the jungle predators of Lao-mon and give the Brotherhood a war beast.
- Image Credit: All pictures from World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, via Wowhead's model gallery
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Lao-mon
- Name: Grov'akk
- Designation: Non-Sentient
- Origins: Native to Lao-mon
- Average Lifespan: 1 - 3 months
- Estimated Population: Planetary
Two small, chitinous glands, almost resembling underdeveloped tusks, sit beneath a Grov'akk's mouth. These are its scent-marking glands, which excrete the chemicals that guide skitterwing swarms. Pheromones from the glands keep skitterwings from attacking other skitterwings, and also allow them to mark prey (based on the presence of edible flesh). A skitterwing that has recently feasted may develop "budlings", infant skitterwings, on the underside of its belly. Initially they resemble little more than a cluster of tumors, but grow as the parent eats. The creatures detach when they have reached sufficient size, and once they are in the presence of dead prey.
A Grov'akk's most striking feature is its ability for limited flight, enabled by the membranes between its legs. Skitterwings can jump six times their height vertically and twelve times their own length horizontally. When they do so, they can "flap" their legs to generate lift, then spread them to ride air currents. This allows them to glide considerable distances, up to roughly 100 meters after a running leap or further if they jump from a ledge. The membranes are thin and easily damaged, and older skitterwings often lose their ability to fly over time as their "wings" become riddled with rips and holes. Skitterwings are also excellent climbers, even up sheer vertical surfaces.
Front and top views of a mature adult Grov'akk
A Grov'akk budling, post-detachment but pre-cocoon
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
- Breathes: Type 1 Atmosphere
- Average Height of Adults: 0.3 meters
- Average Length of Adults: 1 meter
- Skin color: White, purple, dark grey
- Hair color: N/A
- Distinctions: Grov'akk are asexual, and most individuals are near-identical.
- Races: N/A
- Force Sensitivity: Non-Sensitive
- Skitterwings Together Strong: Grov'akk travel in swarms of dozens, or even hundreds, of individuals. Using scent markers to identify each other so that they never feud amongst themselves, they work in tandem to rip apart their prey, descending over every inch of their targets and ripping off chunks of them until they stop moving... at which point they lay their budlings in the meat of the corpse. The power of the swarm balances out the weakness of the individual.
- Armor-Cracking Jaws: The huge (relative to their body size) and razor-sharp mandibles of a Grov'akk are designed to pierce and rend, shredding hides and light armor with ease... and even cracking heavier infantry armor, such as plastoid, with repeated strikes. Once they have pierced their prey's outer defenses, the mandibles latch on, becoming extremely difficult (and painful) to dislodge. Then the circular, lamprey-like mouth starts in, ripping chunks of meat from the prey.
- Neurotoxic Bite: While their mandibles rely on sharpness and brute strength to rend and then latch on, the actual mouth of a Grov'akk employs a different means of subduing prey: poison. A skitterwing's bite injects a potent neurotoxin that, in most species, causes dizziness and nausea. This can lead to vomiting and clumsiness, or even loss of motor control. The venom is not fatal, but makes it even more difficult for those who are bitten to fight off the swarm.
- Leapers and Gliders: Grov'akk are powerfully-muscled for their size, not just in their armor-cracking mandibles but in their scuttling legs. This enables them to run quickly, to jump long distances, and even to fly... sort of. With a mighty leap, a skitterwing can jump many times its own height. It can then spread the membranes between its legs to catch the wind and generate lift. In this way they can "fly" for a hundred meters or so, or further if they leap from a cliff or ledge.
- Individually Pathetic: Any given individual within a Grov'akk swarm is not particularly powerful; a lone skitterwing might be able to take down a child, but even an unarmed and unarmored adult could survive the encounter. In order to be able to leap and glide, the creatures are extremely light and thin, with most of their bodyweight coming from their musculature. Their carapaces are easily squashed with a boot, let alone pierced, crushed, or blasted with an actual weapon.
- Untrainable: Grov'akk are very simple organisms neurologically; it would be more accurate to say that they have a cluster of nerve endings regulating and reacting to impulses than to claim that they have anything resembling a brain. While skitterwing swarms can be directed with chemical signals, individuals cannot actually be taught anything. They lack the capacity to learn or adapt beyond extremely basic instinct, and cannot execute any kind of tactics.
- Not That Strong: While Grov'akk can eventually pierce even something as durable as a heavy plastoid body glove, that is the furthest extent of their chewing power. Vehicles need not fear them (unless they can somehow get inside to bite the crew), and skitterwings will ignore vehicles. Exceptionally strong materials like beskar will also easily keep them from inflicting any harm, as will bulky protection such as a hazard stormtrooper's armor or an armored exoskeleton.
- Exploitable Scent Markers: Grov'akk mark their targets with their scent glands, identifying those they attack as prey to the rest of the swarm. They also avoid attacking other skitterwings by excreting a certain chemical signal from the same glands. It is possible to mark oneself with skitterwing scent, effectively becoming invisible to the creatures, though one of them must be "milked" to get the chemicals. Pheromones and chemical weapons can also confuse the beasts.
- Diet: Carnivore. Grov'akk eat huge amounts to enable their reproduction. A swarm can skeletonize a bantha within minutes.
- Communication: Pheromone trails, chemical signals.
- Technology level: N/A (Nonsentient)
- Religion/Beliefs: N/A (Nonsentient)
Grov'akk reproduce asexually through "budlings", perfect genetic copies of themselves that grow on their underbellies whenever they consume excess calories. Two or three good meals are enough to produce half a dozen budlings, which emerge like tiny tumors from their chitinous skin. Once the budlings are sufficiently developed, the Grov'akk allows them to drop off of it during its next hunt. The juvenile skitterlings nest in the corpse of the prey creature, consuming it as their first independent meal. If there is insufficient nourishment, they may eat each other, with the strongest surviving. They spend the next week in a spongy cocoon.
If the cocoon survives the week, a fully-grown Grov'akk emerges and seeks out a swarm to join via pheromone signals.
Because budlings are perfect copies of their parent, all Grov'akk share exactly the same genetic code; any mutation or deviation results in the newborn creature being immediately consumed by its fellows. As a result, skitterwings are exactly the same now as they were hundreds of thousands of years ago. Shi'ido scientists postulate that this means there was a single "original" Grov'akk, a progenitor to the entire species. Some suggest that it could have been lab-grown, while others claim that natural evolution resulted in this remarkably stable species. Local legend, meanwhile, holds that a massive "mother Grov'akk" still exists somewhere in the jungle.
A skitterwing attack is straightforward but horrifying. Half a dozen or more of the creatures descend on a prey animal (or sentient being) at a time, latching on with their sharp and powerful mandibles; these chitinous protrusions can cut through flesh down to the bone, and don't unclench even when the Grov'akk is killed. Then they feast, ripping off chunks of flesh and injecting their dizzying venom with each bite. Creatures under attack can be completely covered in leathery wings and chitinous limbs, with skitterwings latching onto limbs, torsos, backs, and even heads. If one Grov'akk is killed and detached, another from the swarm takes its place.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Grov'akk (Shi'idese for "Skitterwings"), native to the jungles of Lao-mon, are at least as old as Shi'ido recorded history. Due to the stability of their species thanks to their odd method of reproduction, they have existed in their current form for an incredible length of time; local scientists hotly debate exactly how long, and attempts to identify a genetic ancestor have been both common and inevitably controversial within the scientific community. Over time, many were captured for local study, with intense examination of their chemical signals and the properties of their neurotoxic venom. Although they are extremely prevalent (and dangerous) in Lao-mon's deep jungles, none were recorded to have left the planet prior to the arrival of the Brotherhood of the Maw, and they were thus unknown in the wider galaxy before that.
As it did with all things that fell under its control, the Brotherhood soon turned to weaponizing skitterwings. Using a combination of captured Shi'ido research and brutal trial and error, the Maw's beastmasters developed a simple tactic for using the swarms on the battlefield: they filled grenades and artillery shells with synthetic versions of the chemicals used by Grov'akk to mark their prey. When these weapons detonate, they spray the area with those chemicals. The swarms are then unleashed from huge holding crates, and the skitterwings swarm the marked area, trying to consume all of the prey they find there. Brotherhood beastmasters who work in close quarters with the creatures milk them for the pheromones they use to identify each other and paint themselves with these chemicals to avoid having the swarm turn on them.
Marauder tribes on Lao-mon are dispatched to capture the swarms, setting gravity traps or dragging huge nets through the treetops.
