Flocks of carrion birds, bands of starving wolves, men and women with nowhere left to go and nothing left to sustain themselves on, all living as a single pack.
When enough of them gather together, simply brutalising each other or snatching cattle from nearby settlements will no longer suffice for sustaining them.
Pangs of hunger take over, drowning out both reason and fear alike as the Hunger Tide takes to villages, travellers and even entire towns.
Forming of a Tide
A typical Hunger Tide will form either because of famines among the locals, over-hunting of forests, or after natural disasters.
Animals, men and women find themselves starved to the point that all common taboos weight less than one's own continued survival. Neighbour digs up someone recently passed, not letting the flesh go to waste. A wolfpack brutalises it's own cubs and weak in order to sustain itself. Carrion birds descent down on those still clinging on to life. All are driven by nothing but hunger.
Transcending such preconceived notions as species or friend and foe, a mutually beneficial relationship forms between those simply looking to survive. Men abandons reason and language, wolf abandons care and familial ties, a crow becomes bold and an owl will hunt through both day and night.
Men and women are the bait, stopping caravans and stumbling into villages. They'll use their knowledge of society to lead their packs to new venues of sustenance.
Wolves appear soon after, hounding and corralling the prey as they ensure that none escape. Those trying to act by themselves get snatched, likely starting in-fights within the pack about who gets to eat the first catches.
All the while birds have been gathering, ready to gouge eyes and wreck havoc among those trying to stay organised.
In their wake, villages lay still and lifeless. Caravans are raided with none of the goods taken or even touched. Only bones are left behind, thoroughly gnawed and pecked with not a scrap of meat wasted.
Determining the size of a Hunger Tide
Wildmen - 1d6 x 2d6
Murder of Wings - 1d6 + 1 Read Beak for every two flocks
Wolves - 3d6 + 1 Men-Eater for every 6 wolves
Driven by Starvation - The pack forms over a common sense of hunger, but that doesn't mean they won't still need to sate that hunger somehow if they cannot catch prey.
After each week during which the pack hasn't had enough food to satiate it's members it will lose 1d6 HD worth of it's own either to starvation or from eating it's members, and counts as Hungry in terms of determining their morale until they next get to gorge themselves.
Food Intake - If the amount of food the pack requires is not being handwaved, 1HD of victims will feed 2HD of pack members for a week.
Murder of Wings
Hungry flock of crows, owls, vultures and the likes.
HD: 2d6+2
HP: 4 per HD, each hp corresponds to single avian
AC: 16
ML: 5 (10 if Hungry)
ATT: 4x per round @ +1 for d6 dmg
Eye Gougers - Every hit blinds the victim in one eye. Victim must pass a Con check each morning to restore eyesight, failing three times means the eye is permanently blinded.
- Three successful gouges, or a nat20, on single target means the eye has been removed.
Red Beak
Single crow covered in scars and with feathers missing, it's beak is perpetually stained brown and red from old blood which makes it easy to spot amidst it's airborne flock.
HD: 2
HP: 10
AC: 16
ML: 5 (10 if Hungry)
ATT: Eye Gouge @ +4 for 1d6 dmg
Eye Gouger - Every hit blinds the victim in one eye. Victim must pass a Con check each morning to restore eyesight, failing three times means the eye is permanently blinded.
- Three successful gouges, or a nat20, on single target means the eye has been removed.
Wolves
Tangled fur, hollowed ribcages and impeccable teamwork to split, isolate and dismay their prey.
HD: 3
HP: 14
AC: 14
ML: 8 (11 in Hungry)
ATT: Bite @ +4 for 2d4 dmg
Men-Eater
When a wolf grows disproportionately large it will need more and more food to sustain itself, such wolves sometimes get called Men-Eaters for they are perfectly ready to pounce even an armed hunter or armoured caravan guard to sate that need for food.
HD: 7
HP: 35
AC: 14
ML: 12 (retreats out of necessity, not of fear)
ATT: 2x Bite @ +7 for 2d8+1 dmg
Wildmen (& Women)
Men and women that have tossed away their humanity, now driven by instinct, indistinguishable from their pack of Hunger. Incidentally, this is also as close as one will get to a druid while still lacking the understanding of those who voluntarily discard language and civilisation.
Hides wrestled, bitten and devoured off of those who tried to oppose their position within the pack and feathers plucked from those that mocked their origins, they have truly discarded all emotion but that of simple need.
HD: 1
HP: 6
AC: 16
ML: 6 (10 if Hungry)
ATT: Improvised Weapon @ +2 for 1d6 dmg
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