Here is one of the weirder creatures from the 1981 Fiend Folio for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition, while it didn't get included in later editions of the game, the core idea behind it is quite cool and there have been attempts to update and make versions for 5th edition D&D, I browsed through them all, decided we could do better, and come up with something that includes my favorite thing.
Random roll tables!
This monster is one of the classic Fiend Folio weirdo critters that gets mocked a lot, but I think is a hidden gem, a diamond in the rough, just needing some spit and polish to bring out its true value.
So, let's look at the Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life, otherwise known as the CIFAL. Grab yourself a tasty beverage; it's time to get deeply nerdy.
In the original fiend folio, hundreds of fan-submitted monster creations were considered for inclusion; Oliver Charles Macdonald created and submitted the Cifal and the Giant Two-Headed Troll to the editor of White Dwarf magazine, neither of which got published in the monthly magazine, but both of which appear in the Fiend Folio printed in 1981.
The Cifal didn't really have any lore attached to it; it just informed us that, for whatever reason, some swarms of stinging and biting insects decided to cluster tightly together, forming into a roughly humanoid shape and attacking a bunch of adventurers. Half the fun is coming up with the why and How of this encounter.
We know that the cifal is not a natural creature, but the insects that come together to form a cifal are completely normal. There could be many reasons, upset fey spirits, possessing entities, gods, elementals, primordials, an ancient curses of the creator races now long lost, but some malignant force compels these insects to swarm together into a solid, humanoid shape and attack other creatures.
I quite like th open ended mystery of them, true horror stems from the unknown after all.
Encounters with the Cifal should be preceded by strange behavior in the wildlife, particularly but not limited to the insects. They will have a tendency to swarm, and even species that don't normally form into hives will start to display strange, coordinated, and cooperative behavior, such as hundreds of spiders working together to cover trees with spooky veils of cobweb or the song of the crickets and cicadas changing pitch, becoming a shrieking sound, like the scream of a child, rising in volume and dying away, over and over, day and night. Flies all gather in the same place into a dark pattern that you can almost recognize. A pile of earthworms, all crawling up and over each other like they are trying to escape the ground. Any of which is enough to wave a big red flag in the face of any druid, fey creature, elf, or gnome, who will feel the presence of something else lurking under the cover of nature, an alien, cruel, and unfeeling force.
When the Cifal appears, the player characters should be on edge, they have been dealing with descriptions of insect behavior that fill their minds with all sorts of terrible ideas, the Cifal is both a dire threat, and also, its supposed to be the answer to the question of what the hell has been going on with all the bugs, only, the Cifal doesn't speak, it gives no answers, it is just as damned mysterious as the rest of the weirdness that has been going on, only, this new nightmare really is trying to kill them.
It's still a mystery, but the players can put this issue aside for a moment, as they fight to just stay alive.
The Cifal was originally just assumed to be a mass of biting and stinging, flying bugs, but I think we can diversify and give the Cifal a range of different insect species to take advantage of their unique traits, so I've included a random table with specific bug abilities you can easily add onto a base template of attributes and abilities all the types of Cifal share.
And here it is. I do hope Oliver Charles Macdonald would be happy with what I have done with the creature.
The Colonial Insect Formed Artificial Life is a medium swarm of tiny beasts, it has a neutral alignment, but could certainly be evil if its some sort of curse or the creation of a hag's foul magic. I suppose you could create a good Cifal, your campaign might need just that sort of thing, a nature entity summoned by the wood elves to protect their forest realm.
As a swarm the Cifal is Amorphous, able to fit through openings as small as an inch without any bother, making for an excellent infiltrator and assassin, the Swarm tactics allow multiple Cifal and small allied swarms of insects to provide advantage to each other's attack rolls if they within 5ft of each other and as swarms, they can occupy another creature's space, but they can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points. One key feature I preserved as best I could from the original Fiend Folio version is that when the Cifal is reduced to zero hit points, it makes a Constitution saving throw, if it gets a 12 or higher, it splits into three small swarms and carries on it's attack, and I provide stats for those small swarms as well. If it rolls an 11 or lower, it fails to form into those small swarms and all the individual insects remaining will fly and crawl off on their own.
The small swarms have an armor class of 13 and an average of 18 hit points, a speed of 20 feet, that can be crawling or flying, depends on the sub-type of Cifal you are dealing with, each small swarm can make two swarming insect bite attacks per round and are +5 to hit one target within 5 feet but also, maybe on the same space they are in, and do on average 13 points of damage each attack, the damage type may be poison, piercing, acid, necrotic, depends on what sort of insects they are.
The medium sized mass of the Cifal is a challenge rating two monster, which means you can face a couple of these things if you have a party of, say, 5th level characters, which means they could break up into six small swarms, and thats 12 attacks per round so, not so funny all of a sudden.
The Cifal base attack thankfully is no more powerful than the attack of the small swarms, because those swarms are its two attacks, the third swarm represents the body of the Cifal, holding it all together, but also, the Medium sized Cifal has a secondary attack or defense, as any creature that touches the CIFAL or hits it with a melee attack takes 7 (2d6) piercing damage as thousands of tiny insects bite and sting. This damage is sustained while they are in contact with the Cifal.
All Cifals have blindsight to a range of 30 feet and a passive perception of 10, they don't understand or speak any languages and have resistance to all bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage, in the original version that included only taking a maximum of 1 point of damage from even magical slashing damage, but that is a little overpowered I think, the variants also add specific resistances and immunities.
The base movement speed is 30 feet. The variant traits may add things like flying attacks, but usually, the Cifal doesn't fly unless it is reduced to small swarms. The base attributes are Strength 16, dexterity 11, constitution 14, intelligence 4 (which is generous), wisdom 10, and Charisma 6.
The base template has an armor class of 15 and an average of 45 hit points, it's 7d8 plus 14, so between 21 and 70 hit points.
The variants I have included are the Fire Ant, the Mosquito, the Beetle, the Dragonfly, the Termite, and the Hornet; you can come up with your own, for example, scorpions or stink bugs, perhaps marine Arthropods, and even leeches; there are so many options.
Fire ant types cause 3d6 acid damage and are immune to fire; they have a special burning defense when hit by a melee attack. These things are literally fire ants and can set a village ablaze if not stopped in time. A bit far-fetched, but hey, it's D&D.
Mosquito variants do piercing damage of course and have two special actions, first is caled Disease Carrier, On a hit, the target must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution save or be infected (disadvantage on checks and attack rolls until cured). The second is called Blood Drain, which reduces the target’s hit point maximum by the damage dealt until they finish a long rest.
The Beetle variant is tough, with an armor class of 17, piercing damage attacks, resistance to cold and lightning, and it can curl up into an armored ball, gaining resistance to all damage except psychic.
The Dragonfly variant is fast; it moves at 50 feet on the ground of 40 feet in the air each round and it has a special Dive Bomb swarm action where it needs to fly at least 20 feet toward the target to make a, oh, I wrote bite here, but its really thousands of tiny bites or stings, you know what I mean, anyway, the standard swarm sting attack of the base template but with an added saving throw from the target, they need to roll 12 or higher on a strength test or be knocked prone, which can be very nasty if they are also getting savaged by a bunch of small swarms.
The Termite variant is fantastic for warfare or just general mayhem, very nasty if you are playing spelljammer, the damage type is piercing, and the variant gains resistance to acid damage; its special action is called Devour Structure and simply destroys a five-foot cube of wood in one action.
Finally, the Hornet variant, scary as hell, damage type is Poison, resistant to poison damage and immune to the poisoned condition, its Swarming Stings action against one target in melee range or within the same space, which is +5 to hit, inflicts 3d6+4 or an average of 14 poison damage and the target get a 12 or higher on a constitution test or be poisoned for one minute, I leave it to you if they get further saving rolls in that time or not, I wouldn't give that option unless there was some special toughness to the target, because we are talking about potentially hundreds of hornet stings inflicted at once, which is quite serious.
And that is about all I have for you today on the CIFAL, I do hope you have enjoyed it, and this look at how to convert and update a simple enough creature from 45 years ago. You know what they say, Time Flys but most Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life variants do not.
OK, maybe they don't say that, its a terrible name, please suggest something better in the comments below!
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