Teething is uncomfortable for human children. Bits of bone slowly erupt through soft mouthflesh. Armored Boys endure their own “teething,” when plates of bone press their way out from beneath the skin all over their body. Eventually, they’ll be covered from neck to toe in a suit of natural armor, but that protection must first be earned by long, painful weeks. So you can imagine how insulting it is for them to see some soft-skinned human walking around steel plates they did not earn.
Armored Boys haven’t developed much of a language yet, communicating with one another mostly by hand gestures, and low throat-howling that is intensely unpleasant to human ears. They stand about 3’ tall.
Armor 19, Move 120’(40’), 1 Hit Die (4hp), Claws 1d6, Morale 9
Intelligence as Cave Men, 3d6 Appearing
- Reaction to Armor: If Armored Boys see someone wearing any type of armor made from segmented plates, they will focus all of their aggresssion on that target without regard for other dangers. As a single mass, they will tackle the offending character(s), and assuming they succeed, will remove 1d4 points from the character’s armor rating, until that character is completely unarmored.
- Jaw Strength: It would be trivial for an Armored Boy to split a spear or bone in half with a single snap of their jaws. It’s too awkward to properly bring to bear in combat most of the time, but they commonly use their bite to chop down small trees to make tools.
Armored Boys do not sleep. They draw energy from the darkness much the same way a tree can draw energy from the light. They are subterranean nomads, plodding through the endless caverns and passages that form the veins of the earth. They only venture to the surface if they’ve gone too long without meat. Prey is more plentiful there, but the harsh light of the moon and stars is exhausting to them, and the sun is absolutely unbearable.
The creatures reproduce asexually, budding tiny fetuses behind their armor plates. When the eye of the creature that lurks on Mars turns towards earth, these shake free. If the Armored Boy notices, it will wrap the fledgeling in a mash of meat and blood, hide it anywhere that is convenient, then move on. Within six weeks the little one will be grown enough to sniff out other fledgelings and form a new cast. The spawn are born with all their parent’s knowledge, and the new cast will begin to hunt immediately. Their plates will grow in over the course of the next three months.
Plates can be harvested from dead Armor Boys, melted down, and reforged like it were a metal. While it is no stronger than steel, its colorful, swirling “tie dyed” pattern makes it highly prized for its aesthetics.