Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Shimmerling Swarm

Individually, a shimmerling is a record-breaking Fey, being both the only Fine Fey, and by far the stupidest Fey in the game (with Int 1, the second one being the Caliento with Int 5). They act like some mix of hummingbirds and glowworm, eating flower pollen and probably using their natural ability to radiate colored light to attract sexual partners or for long distance communications. But even with perfect flying and 22 Dex, they're too weak to make any kind of impact on big threats, such as big animals, or to avoid the dangers of moving away from a dangerous change in their environments. That's why up to 10,000 shimmerlings can get together to form a shimmerling swarm. They combine their intelligence (with a hive mind reaching an intelligence of 7, probably due to them communicating with each other through their light) and their ability to shed light, to the point that they can dazzle or even fascinate creatures in a wide radius.
Sadly, 11 RHD is a bit too much to pay to play such a collection of creature.
The shimmerling swarm has all the best abilities a swarm can ask for. Perfect fast flying, Fine size, so immune to weapon damage, and very high dexterity for Evasion (-10 Str, +12 Dex, -4 Int, +4 Wis, +8 Cha are pretty interesting stats, if overall a bit low). Fey is also one of the very best RHD for a swarm, since swarms don't much care about BAB, and they absolutely need the skills for more versatility.
The problem is... Everything else. Both of the swarm's abilities are big unfriendly area of effects that will inconvenience (read, dazzle and fascinate) your allies more often than your enemies, and even take a standard action to deactivate. And the swarm not only has a hivemind (so no mind-affecting immunity), but is reduced to Int 1 if they fall below 1 HP/HD (they could at least have made it progressive). It's a rare way to be able to reallocate your skill points if your DM allows that (the example statblock has lower skills when it has 1 Int rather than 7), but most DMs probably won't allow that, or might even say that you revert to an NPC when below this threshold.
Still, their stats are not bad, and they are able to speak, which is extremely rare for a swarm. They also have hands. I'm not going to try to abuse any of this with "each individual shimmerling could carry a wand" or something like that, but being able to finely manipulate items could mean a shimmerling swarm could perform somatic and verbal components. Having Diplomacy and Sense Motive as well as a Charisma bonus could let it act as a face. I could see one becoming a pretty fine warlock or dragonfire adept, or an exemplar later. Maybe a dip in Marshal or a few levels in bard. There's not a lot of options, and the reason why is: a swarm without any inherent offensive ability is not a great character. 5 RHD, DLA-5


It's very interesting to see a humanoid-shaped swarm, and humanoid-shaped creatures with animal-like intelligence. They're basically thousands of tinkerbells, each with all the common sense of a moth flying into a flame, and so chaotic that even when they fathom the idea of working together, they are still as intelligent as an orc. I love how they only assemble to flee safely from a threat but the only common thought in the swarm is always to fight back and take revenge on the thing that wronged them. Truly precious confused little glow-elves. Next time, we will remain on the theme of swarms, but with a much less cute one: the Shredstorm (also a great name)!