Space Demon Nymph Hosts

There are many horrible things about space demons, but their method of reproduction is perhaps the most horrible of all.

Space demon queens deliver live nymphs and these immediately scramble about looking for a host. (This task is often made easier for the nymphs by adult demons, who drag hosts off and imprison them in a chamber near the queen, to supply to emerging nymphs.) When the nymph finds a suitable host, it will hop onto it and swallow its head into their body via a huge maw on the bottom of the nymph's body, sinking their scythe-legs into the shoulders of the host and a piercer rod through the skull and into the brain of the host. Removal of this rod results in guaranteed 100% fatality to the host, so once hosts are infected there is no saving them.

The nymph thereby takes over the body of the host, and begins pumping in hormones and enzymes which rapidly transform the body of the host at a molecular level, until about two weeks later the host is a full-fledged space demon. This process tends to spread from the neck down to the legs, but this is not always the case, and for instance one arm of the host may have transformed into a space demon arm before the other has.

The host's brain is the last part to be transformed in order to continue to support the still human bits of the transforming creature. This is a painful process for the host, to put it mildly, whose muffled screams of anguish have led to nymph hosts being termed howlers or shriekers.

This explains why space demon nymphs appear to be assault demon heads with spindly legs, as that is essentially what nymphs are.

Even while transforming, the nymph host can be a formidable opponent, as it is "piloted" by the nymph which will use the host's limbs to flail at enemies of the hive with that terrifying strength that the human body can demonstrate when it is not inhibited by fear of self-injury. Nymph hosts can sometimes be found shambling about, shreiking or moaning, in zones infested by space demons, and make frightening foes indeed if they can get into close combat, made only worse by their piteous shrieks as they flail away.

The models are available now, code TTC-908 (the newest code in the Space Demon range). Click on the above image to see it larger.

Space Demon Shockforce

In their ten millenium-long war with "Species 84," the Ti Monhids have bioengineered what we, in our dimension, call the Space Demons, viciously fearless creatures of unparalled close combat capability. Battle forces of tens of thousands of these creatures, swarming around their enormous Ti Monhid lords, have helped reverse the steady reverses that the Ti Monhids had suffered as, in their arrogance and wickedness, they attacked a far superior race.

Indications are that the Ti Monhids wish to finally gain the momentum in the colossal conflict, and have begun breeding a new species of Space Demon, one that is as skilled as its predecessors with fang and tailaxe but now carries a biorifle, firing chambered acid a very long distance and with great accuracy. (How they can shoot with such accuracy when the species has no eyes is still a mystery to Federal scientists.)

Here's a sneak preview of two of the five poses of the newest swarm bioweapon of the Ti Monhids, the Space Demon Shockforce. There will be five poses, four rifledemons and a demon with a heavier acid-cannon.

As befits a new sub-species, a new head has been developed, with sensor strands on either side to pick up the location of their targets with uncanny accuracy.

Stay tuned for more details.

Exterminators

The Federal Defence Forces are static army units which defend far-flung worlds from alien attack or infestation, and preserve government control on planets subject to unrest or separatism. They wear some body armour, though less extensive than in the first-line Federal Army divisions, and it is of simpler design and tech. Their weapons are the older rifles firing caseless CPR but each one mounts a grenade launcher and this affords the FDF troops with considerable close range firepower.

Due to infestation either by Space Demons or Parasachnids, units of the FDF stationed in infested zones have become proficient at eradicating such "xeno-hazards." These units are called, with some dark humour, "Exterminators," and they are the only units of the FDF to be actively posted to foreign worlds, but only long enough to put in place a programme of eradication (POE) so that the local forces can then maintain the xeno-hazard.

One typical unit is the 1/2/469FDF (first battalion, second division, 469th FDF Division), a unit raised on Earth, in the FUSA (Former United States of America). Although raised in the Mid-West of the FUSA, the unit has been stationed for some years in the Florida Quarantine Zone, which was rendered uninhabitable by Parasachnid infestation after the First Pelagic War. It being eventually recognised that these infested zones would be difficult if not impossible to fully cleanse, the emphasis is instead placed on population control, planned and executed by the FDF division in the zone, in this case the 469th.

The most effective bug-hunting battalion in the division is the first battalion of the second brigade, a designated Exterminator unit self-dubbed the "Pointy Toed Shoes" because there is no place the bugs can hide once the second battalion is gunning for them.

Because of their Exterminator status the PTS are periodically deployed to other worlds as well, and they were eventually called in to implement a POE for the Parasachnid population after the Sepulvedan War was over. During this time they also had many battles with holdover Control Battalion Death Squads surviving in remoter outposts of the planet.

We are pleased to sneak preview the first three of nine poses of 15mm Exterminators which will be released shortly. The pack will be a typical squad, split into two four-soldier fireteams and led by a sergeant. Each fireteam will have a MLMG (mobile light machine gunner); one team has three riflemen as support for the MLMG, the other team having two riflemen and a flamethrower operator. These should be released in a few weeks.

The Biology of Sepulveda 7: Part 10, the Space Demons (continued)

Note: this article examines the biology of the Space Demon because these at one point infested Sepulveda 7 after the defeat of the Pelagic invasion. Its publication is not meant to imply that the Space Demon is part of Sepulveda 7’s current fauna or that the eradication programme on that planet was not satisfactorily completed. Models of the Space Demon Colossus, and Nymphs, are available now on the Khurasan Miniatures website.

Due to its enormous size, the Space Demon Colossus (top) is an exception to the rule of Space Demon propagation; the Nymph (below left), and the resulting Assault Warrior (below right), are the norm.

The Space Demon breeds parasitically. Even in the heat of battle, the female of the species, the Queen, can within ten minutes create from her essence and give live birth to a Nymph, which resembles a slightly foreshortened version of a fully grown creature’s head with four sharp, articulated scythes for legs. Assuming she is provided with the flesh of enough victims, or hunts them down herself, she can create and give birth to as many as 100 Nymphs in a day.

From the moment they are born Nymphs skitter about seeking a host, preferably a biped like a human, and once one is found the Nymph will repeatedly and strenuously attempt to hop onto the host’s head. Once up on the host’s head, huge jaws on its belly suddenly gape and entirely swallow the host’s head so that the host appears to have the Nymph for a head, which, sadly, from this point on it indeed does. The cerebro-positor of the Nymph will immediately burrow through the victim’s skull and deep into the brain, wresting away the higher functions of the host’s body. The host’s brain is kept alive and fully functioning to control the body’s lower functions. This is a continually agonizing experience and the host can be heard screaming inside the body of the Nymph, leading some human populations to term Space Demon Hosts as “Screamers” or “Howlers.” Removal of the Nymph is absolutely impossible – its scythe legs burrow deep into the chest cavity of the host and quickly bond with its skeleton, and even if these are cut off the removal of the cerebro-positor from the host’s brain kills the host.

Over a period of approximately a week, the host’s genetic system goes into a furious acceleration and its cells are rapidly replaced by space demon cells (called “imperial” cells), branching down from the neck to the arms, chest, and finally legs. During this time the host is far from helpless and, under the complete control of the Nymph, can be quite a dangerous adversary, running and swinging its arms wildly, without the restraint that fear of self-injury usually brings. This puts the human trooper in the unnerving position of being assaulted by what was is effectively a talking human corpse, which begs for help while simultaneously pummelling him. Fortunately the Nymph does not know how to work machinery so Hosts are unable to use weaponry.

Eventually the process of assimilation is over and another fully formed space demon joins the hive, all of the cells of the host being replaced by space demon cells. All Nymphs are born as juvenile Assault Warriors, but, based on the needs of the hive, a queen may inject additional genetic material into a host’s belly to lead to the development of one of the higher sub-species of Space Demons.

It has been observed that Space Demons often populate their hives with Nymphs, the adult demons ranging far and wide looking for hosts which are then brought back to the hive to be infected. Also wandering the tunnels of the hive are often large numbers of wailing Hosts in various stages of transformation.

When a planet is heavily infested with Space Demons, queens will begin periodically laying eggs, a method of breeding associated only with the Colossus. These eggs are extremely large and a queen can only lay one in a day. This egg is laid in a deep chamber in the ground which has been dug by the Tunneller Space Demons, and hatches as a larva, a sort of armoured worm that is two meters long at birth and grows geometrically. The other Space Demons will gather live victims for the larva to eat, which are thrown screaming into the underground chamber to be devoured. Soon the entire chamber is filled with the expanding body of the larva, which cocoons and soon emerges, digging itself from the ground, as a tripodal Colossus, most terrible of all Space Demon creatures.

Striding rapidly across the planet’s surface no matter what the terrain, seemingly always in balance atop its three legs, the agile Colossus has many methods of attack. It can impale smaller prey with great dexterity using its razor-sharp legs, flicking a wounded victim off toward other space demons so that the injured creature’s body can become a host for a Nymph. It also bombards more powerful prey, and especially mechanical weapons systems, with its most potent weapon, the void cannon, from which pulses an extremely powerful blast which few targets can survive. Time and space seem to buckle and warp immediately before the void cannon is discharged. Jutting permanently from the creature’s outer mouth, its extensor jaws serve as the barrel of this terrible weapon, but are tipped with two enormous teeth which can flex open and shut, ripping the thickest armour to pieces. Even Federal L-HACs treat these jaws with great respect and strive to avoid the bite of the Colossus.

But the Colossus has one more weapon in its arsenal. Before a great hunt, the Colossus will lower itself and a dozen nymphs will scurry up its legs, then into the nymph-nodes on either side of the Colossus’s head. The Colossus can shoot these nymphs out of the nymph-nodes to fair distances toward enemy infantry formations, the nymphs hitting the ground running, attempting to swallow the heads of nearby prey. For human defenders, this is usually the most terrifying aspect of the Colossus -- its ability to insert the dreaded Nymphs directly in such close proximity.

The Colossus can walk with its legs extended so that it can attain great height, but is often seen in combat with its three legs bent, which puts it closer to man-sized prey and is a more stable platform from which to fire the void cannon.