Monsterhearts Hive Mind (PDF)

Sex Move

Playing the Hive-mind

Darkest Self

The hive’s swarm-form allows you to be in many
places at once, and allows all sorts of tricks based
on the actual bugs that make up your swarm.
Spiders can spin webs, wasps can sting, bees can
fly, glow-worms can produce light, and so on.
Remember that the further you disperse your
swarm, the harder it will be to reassume human
form if you need to, and you might be limited to
forming disembodied hands and mouths if you
need to act.

When you have sex with somebody, it’s
cold, alien and rather dangerous for
them. They take two harm. They can
prevent one point of harm by leaving
afterwards, forcefully if necessary. They
can also prevent one point of harm by
using this sex move in addition to their
own the next time they have sex.

Your old identity wasn’t good enough,
but you can do better. Abandoning humanity for now, you revert to a more
primeval, inhuman state. You won’t
leave swarm-form until you’ve stolen a
new identity. To do this, find a helpless
human, crawl into their mouth and hollow them out from within until only
their skin remains: if you do, they die
and become your new human form.
You escape your darkest self once
you’ve done this, or if somebody offers
to help you learn whilst you’re still a
swarm.

Advancement
Take another Hive move
Take another Hive move
Take a move from another skin
Take a move from another skin
You’re part of a Plague of Bugs
Add 1 to Hot (max 3)
Add 1 to Cold (max 3)
Add 1 to Volatile (max 3)
Add 1 to Dark (max 3)

The Hive-mind is a very weird character, pretending to be something it’s not and adapting to fit in
with their peers. It’s probably easy to tell that they
aren’t normal, as they’re probably somewhat
oblivious to social intricacies going on around
them.

We Didn’t Know That! and Why Do You Do That?
play up the Hive as a naive imposter. You can use
We Didn’t Know That to reward other characters
that you like and to encourage them to protect
you. The question-and-answer for ‘why did you
do that’ can be in character or out-of-character,
depending on how you want to play it.
A Thousand Eyes builds on your swarm’s ability to
be in many places. Now, you can ‘tag’ your friends
and enemies with a spy and keep track of them.
This allows you to insert yourself into a scene with
other characters if you want to; after all, you know
exactly what they’re up to. The watched condition
probably goes away if they shower or change their
clothes, particularly if they’ve gotten paranoid
about having bugs on them.
Finally, Engulf and Horrible Revelation play up the
alien, horrific aspects of the Hive to be a true
monster. On top of this, you can use Horrible
Revelation to force people away from you and
Engulf to keep people in the scene with you –
combined with your ability to be in lots of places
at once it gives you a lot of power to direct the
shape and structure of scenes.

You aren’t a person. You’re people.
Thousands of bugs, wearing a human
skin and blending into human society.
You’re not one of them, and you worry
that they can tell, but your mimicry is
getting better every day you spend
among them.

The Hive-mind

Name

Choose a name:
August, Charlotte, Dolores, Heinrich,
Joseph, Lilian, Lucretia, Myra, Tarquin,
An insectile name, an infamous name, a
foreign name

Look

Circle one in each list:
Bland, Silky, Smooth, Waxy, Wriggly
Blank Eyes, Glittering Eyes, Wide Eyes

Species

Origin

Choose one:
Ants, Bees, Glow-worms, Maggots, Silkworms, Spiders, Wasps,

Circle One:
Always been here, The first of Many,
One of the Swarm

Name:

Carry Forward:

Stats
Add 1 to one of these:
Hot -1, Cold +1, Volatile -1, Dark +1

Hot [

]O

Cold [

]O

Volatile[

]O

Conditions:

Notes:

(lash out physically, run away)

Dark [

]O

(gaze into the abyss)

Harm:

OO
OO
Experience Points:
O O O O O> Advance
Your Back-story:

You don’t fit in properly yet, and everyone can
tell. Everybody gains a string on you.
You’ve been watching somebody for a while: gain
a string on them.
Your swarm-form has crawled over somebody
while they sleep: gain a string on them.

You have Swarm Form, and chose two more.

Swarm Form

(turn somebody on, manipulate an NPC)
(shut somebody down, hold steady)

Hive-mind Moves:

Strings

●
Although you normally wear a human skin to
disguise yourself among the mammals, you don’t
have to. You can take on your true form – a
swarm of bugs with a collective hive-mind – at
any time, simply by leaving the skin-suit you wear.
When in swarm-form, you can be in multiple
places at once providing they’re close together,
flow through small gaps, and do anything that a
swarm of bugs working together might be able to
do. You can’t do anything that those bugs working together couldn’t naturally achieve, such as
speaking or operating technology.
When enough of your bugs are in one place, you
can pool back together and weave a new skin-suit,
returning to human form.
You can also partially transform: for example you
might pool together enough bugs to make a hand
and leave the rest as a swarm, or turn one of your
toes into a few bugs to explore your environment.
When you are injured, there isn’t blood and meat,
there’s a thin skin and then countless writhing
bugs crawling over one another beneath.

Horrible Revelation

O
Whenever you first reveal your true nature to
somebody, roll with Cold. On a 10 up, they gain
the condition terrified, and you chose one: gain a
string on them, they leave you alone for the time
being, they get the condition watched. On a 7-9,
they gain the condition terrified, and they choose
one: you get the condition monster and they get the
condition watched, they leave you alone for the
time being

Discarded Husks

O
Whenever you take human form again, you can
change what your human form looks like. You
choose basic features such as gender, ethnicity,
build and so on. Also, roll Dark. On a 7-9, you
can choose specific features well enough to mimic
somebody you know. On a 10 up, you can choose
specific features well enough to mimic somebody,
and can include details such as injuries or the
appearance of a supernatural creature.

We Didn’t Know That!

O
Whenever one of your bugs is on somebody, they
can hide on their person. They get the condition
watched. You can always see what somebody you’ve
watched is doing and have a sense of where they are
in relation to you.

O
Whenever somebody explains something to you
that really should be common knowledge to a
human, they mark experience. If they don’t know
you’re not human, and explain anyway without
realising something’s strange about you, get a
string on them.

Engulf

Why Did You Do That?

A Thousand Eyes

O
When you lash out physically whilst in swarm-form,
roll with Dark. On a 10 up, add the following
option to the list: you do no harm and they cannot
run away from you. On a 7-9, add the following
option to the list: you do no harm to them but
they cannot run away from you without first
dealing you at least 1 harm.

Other Moves:

O
Whenever somebody successfully turns you on or
shuts you down, you might be confused as to what
just happened: if you are, roll with Cold. On 10
up, ask them why did you do that and they have to
answer truthfully. On 7-9, they carry one forward
to do the same thing again, and you carry one
forward to use why did you do that.