Benevolent Bygone Bugs: The Millennium Beetles

A thousand thousand years ago they stood and silent watched

From Team Cherry's "Hollow Knight"

A little over a year ago I ran my players through a short (unfinished) adventure based on Veins in the Dark. As is the way of such things a player character died in an ambush by a stealthy predator. In order to keep things moving I had the group encounter a Trilobite Knight from Patrick Stuart's excellent Veins of the Earth, who joined with them for at least the time being. We were playing using Lamentations of the Flame Princess at the time, and the class looked like this: 

The Triolobite Knight bore silent witness to the near end of life on earth. It cannot stand the presence of funginids, for it remembers what the great fungal minds once did. It is a talented climber, a competent fighter (gains base attack bonus as fighter), and has natural plate armor that does not burden it. In times of danger it can roll into a ball, gaining +2 to its armor class and doubling its speed. Here is the class table:

Level	Experience	Hit Points	Paralyze	Poison	Breath	Device	Magic	Climb
1	0	1d8	14	11	16	14	17	3 in 6
2	3,500	+1d8	14	11	16	14	17	3 in 6
3	7,000	+1d8	14	11	16	14	17	3 in 6
4	14,000	+1d8	12	9	14	12	15	4 in 6
5	28,000	+1d8	12	9	14	12	15	4 in 6
6	56,000	+1d8	12	9	14	12	15	4 in 6
7	112,000	+1d8	10	7	12	10	13	5 in 6

I was at the time delighted with how easy it was to make the class and with the addition of this strange nonhuman to the party. The Trilobite Knights fit superbly well with Stuart's vision of the Veins of the Earth and the running feelings of impossible time and extremely real melancholy. I'd love to create more versions of the class for other systems, as well as dig a bit deeper into these creatures. Ultimately though, this is enough.