Formian/Ant Hive help?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

I am designing a relatively small pre-dungeon dungeon that is (or appears to be) a giant ant nest. As the party gets towards the queens chamber (it needs to be a small nest), they will find that the hive has been coopted by formians. Only, giant ants are vermin and cant be dominated... cant they? The idea is the ants nest has been throwing out some loot in its spoil, because it has breached an ancient Marru tomb (the actual target of the party).

So how did the formians do it?

Also, does anyone have any giant ant or formian nest maps? Id love to get some inspiration. I need something simple with only a handful of encounters and a few traps (probably cave in traps and pit falls).

Thanks guys.

[Pronounceable]

So how did the formians do it?
Magic. They prolly have a special spell or something.


Maybe look at pictures of ant farms? Gotta be a lot of those around the internets. A "realistic" giant ant hive would be far too massive for a predungeon, so you don't want a true anthill map anyway.

[Bronk]

The formian queen could take levels in Vermin Lord and create a separate hivemind that way. If that makes her too powerful for your game, just have the leader of the local ants and formians be a myrmarch, and have the queen be elsewhere. They have telepathy with a 50 mile range, so she could be practically anywhere, and could even lead to new plot hooks.