Inundators are gangrenous Imps that are spawned and housed by Reefs. They act as ranged pack hunters, crawling amidst their host's nooks and crannies before attacking their quarry with coordinated volleys of paralytic darts. A group of Inundators is called a hail.

Imps - Inundators

Inundators are a modest size up from Imps, with slightly chunkier builds and a height increase to 1' 10" (56cm). The size increase combined with their lack of wings has them sacrificing much of their mobility, and they aren't particularly physically strong, either. All of their potential is poured into the five large betentacled "petals" that wrap around their necks, with each tentacle on board playing host to a gangrenous body system that fabricates and pneumatically launches small paralytic darts. These petals are usually only unfurled during combat; when not in use, the Inundator closes up somewhat, mostly encasing their head in the large flaps.

Inundators have a fairly simple combat plan: They do not leave their host Reef, instead arranging themselves in order to form multiple fields of overlapping fire. When brought in range of a target (roughly 90 feet), the Inundators will rapidly pelt a target with their darts, which are coated in a paralytic toxin. Each dart, being a pneumatic projectile about an inch long and a tenth of an inch in diameter, is insignificant by itself, but a deluge from multiple Inundators will rapidly accumulate toxic buildup, eventually killing the target if they are struck too many times (though Inundators have been seen actively avoiding this, preferring to subdue targets alive for Myrmecophs to capture.

During peacetime, Inundators typically stay around their hosts, though they may occasionally travel between Reefs to tend to an unkept Reef is necessary. Inundators are not especially well-adapted to custodial work like Aquarians are, but they have been seen eating the grasses and smoothing out sand to help Reefs maintain their small ecospheres.

Inundators, like their non-gangrenous counterparts, have a very particular set of epigenetic triggers accounting for much of their overall complexity. This specialization does, however, include some triggers found in the gas pressure accumulating tissues of Howitzers (which are assumed to be replicated in the Inundators' own dart-launching mechanisms).

Inundators are, perhaps rather obviously, based off of sea anemones. They've got the looks, they've got the stingers, and they've got the venom that makes you feel heavy. In that regard, they perhaps fit the Reefs the best, given that anemones are frequently found amidst corals and other sea life. It gives them a nice niche, and the imagery of a Reef covered in Inundators is just very cute to me.