Hivelings are horrid little humanoid monsters about the size of a goblin, but covered almost totally with dark bristles like those of a wild boar. Only a hiveling’s pale, evilly-grinning face is exposed. All hivelings in a group are indistinguishable, and they do not have any obvious gender; how they reproduce is a mystery. Most importantly, a group (clan or tribe) of hivelings are connected together magically into a hive-mind. This gives them a morale equal to 2 plus the number of surviving hivelings in the group (maximum 12).

The connection between them is so powerful that they actually share hit points. All hivelings of the same clan or tribe within a 120-foot radius “contribute” their hit points to a pool, and any damage inflicted is deducted from the pool. So long as the total hit points in this pool are greater than the number of individuals, none of them will fall; however, when the remaining hit points are less than the number of hiveling individuals, they will begin to fall, starting with the last one hit and spreading to those nearby.

A hiveling has a +4 bonus for high Dexterity, which accounts for their armor class and also applies to all attacks with ranged weapons. When rolling for initiative, roll once for the entire group and add this bonus to the roll.

Due to their slight stature, hivelings can only use small weapons such as short swords, daggers, slings, etc., but they can attack freely with two melee weapons at no penalty. They also have the ability to pick pockets with a 65% chance of success.

A hiveling can detect the presence of magic items in a 30-foot radius, and can identify any magic item within 10 feet. They are not particularly smart, and will avoid items that are complex or have multiple abilities. Hivelings do not speak (though they do gibber madly when they attack, there is no meaning to it), and thus will avoid items related to speaking languages. Neither do they read or write, so they will not be interested in scrolls or spell books.

On the other hand, a hiveling can activate any magic item usable by a Magic-user (including, of course, those usable by any class); even one that requires command words can be used, without need to actually speak the words. A hiveling is entirely capable of using a wand of fireballs, for example.

Any time a hiveling detects an “interesting” magic item, all other hivelings in its group will act intelligently to try to acquire the item. If the hivelings are badly injured, they may seek out any character carrying a potion of healing and attempt to steal it or slay the one carrying it, so they can use it themselves.

Even if a group of hivelings has Morale of 12, they may choose to abandon combat when they believe they have acquired all the interesting items held by their enemies.