The Sting is an apparently fleshless flying monstrosity.
Background[]
The Sting is armed with a curving poison stinger that kills horribly at a touch. No cure is known for its poison, and the death throes and agonies of its victims brand burning into one's nightmares after merely reading of them. The creature appears alien and exudes miasma of repulsion. The very aroma of the Sting is enough to kill a human if breathed very deeply, or for very long. It is impervious to fire and ice. The only possible protection against its strike are a quick reflex, a thick hide, or an armored one.
The general appearance of the Sting is that of a chitinous bug with no soft flesh, just hard armor and tough leathery, featherless wings. It has a long, fluted, transmuted-mantis head, and makes sounds like a creaking coffin lid squeaking like hard chalk across slate. Acid pours from a lipless, jagged, and fanged hard mouth; one that can rip through flesh as a sharp blade slices through old, soft meat. Its long sting curls inward in a spring-like spiral beneath its segmented and plated belly, and between its many crustacean-like shelled legs. The sting uncurls as quick as sudden death, outward to its target spewing its ample poison in deadly drops as it does. Death comes with certainty, though neither easy nor quick. It is not a huge scorpion with wings; it is much worse.
The Sting is a foul creature from beyond the most fevered and feared nightmares. To face one is to face certain death.
The Iconomanic spell, Flying Sting transforms the caster into the creature. The spell appears to be from of an age earlier than the humanfolk, perhaps from the time of the lizardfolk or from before the creation of the multiverse. It may have originated in a place beyond the stars.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The name 'sting' originates in the script files ('script.124'), but is also used by The King's Quest Companion.
See also poison, venom, toxin and bane for some of the similarities and differences between terminology. This article is not the place to discuss pedantic online debates on terminology.
References[]
- ↑ KQC3E, 171, 172