The Hierarchy
The color of a flitter determines everything. Sex, intelligence, social rank among its own kind... There are five (and -only- five!) colors, and they are as follows:
Gold (queen): Female; top-ranking fire-lizard.
Her word is law! Largest of all the flitts. Most intelligent and
strongest to Impress. About 5% of all flitts are golds.
Bronze: Male; top-ranking male fire-lizard.
Mates with the queen. Almost as large as a gold and largest of all the
males. Close in intelligence to queens. About 10% of all flitts
are bronze.
Brown: Male; middle-ranking to low ranking
(depending on number of bronzes). Mates with greens (or the queen
if extremely lucky). Medium sized and of medium intelligence. About 15%
of all flitts are brown.
Blue: Male; lowest ranking male fire lizard.
Mates with greens. On the small side and of pretty low to medium
intelligence. About 30% of all fire-lizards are blue.
Green: Female; lowest ranking fire-lizards.
Mates with blues and browns, but does not clutch, or if so the eggs do
not hatch or they die. Incredibly stupid; more instinctual then intelligent.
Impresses poorly; some even turn wild. About 40% of all fire-lizards
are green.
Mating & Eggs
When a gold fire-lizard mates, roll 1d25+5 to see how many males are attracted to her flight. Then roll 1d(#of males) see what color flies her. Only on a max roll will she be flown by a brown (else flown by a bronze). Then roll 1d45 for the number of eggs. If this number is less then 5, there is no clutch at all (bad flight).
The percentages for colors or fire-lizard eggs are as follows: 5% are gold, 10% are bronze, 15% are brown, 30% are green, and 40% are blue. You always round, of course (<imagines a fraction of a fire-lizard>). Note: there is -never- more then one gold per clutch.
Also, if the sire was brown, 1d(# of eggs)-5 will not hatch. If the sire was bronze, 1d3-1 eggs will not hatch. Unhatched eggs are always greens.
Impression
You cannot tell what color an egg holds, though it is fairly easy to make semi-accurate guesses. Gold, bronze, and brown eggs are considerably larger then green and blue eggs, so for our purposes they have been seperated into two different groups.
When trying for a gold, bronze, or brown, roll 1d(# of large eggs). The lowest numbers are the numbers of browns, the middle numbers are the numbers of bronzes, and the highest number is the gold (if there is one). After a number is rolled it cannot be used again.
Rolling for greens and blues is very similar, except that there are only two colors. The lower 2/3 of the numbers are greens, the rest blues. Again, no using the same number twice.
Once you know the color of your flitt, roll one of your dice. This represents you trying to Impress the fire-lizard. If you do not score a hit you do not Impress, though you or someone else may try again. If you roll a one the flitt does not Impress and dissappears *between*, turning wild.
Write down the number of hits you make on the Impression roll. This is a bonus/modifier to be used later when you need morale chacks for your fire-lizard. This modifier represents the strength of the bond between you and your flitt.
Next, roll for the intelligence, or max percentage of understanding, of your flitt. The percentage you get will be how much the flitt understands. When you are trying to get your flitt to do something, you must roll one percentage die and it must be under your flitt's percentage of understanding for them to know what you want of them.
Roll 1d75 to find the percentage. Then add the color modifiers: -25 for green, -5 for blue, +10 for brown, +15 for bronze, and +20 for gold. Write this percentage down as well. If the modifiar puts your flitt below 1% intelligence then there is always a chance it will turn wild. If you ever ask it to do something you roll one of your dice, and if you don't get as many hits as you did when you Impressed, it goes wild.
Dice, XP, and HP
Flitters, when hatched, have dice based on their color. Greens are 1d4, blues are 1d5, browns 1d6, bronzes 1d7, and golds 1d8. Luckily, flitters can earn XP (phew!). There are basically three ways for a flitt to gain xp, though whether the way is available to them depends on their dice.
The best way for a flitt to get xp is in a swarm (see below). The creature's XP value is divided evenly among the swarming flitts.
However, what if you only have one flitter? Well, once your flitter gains enough XP to be a 1d15, it can fight singly to gain xp (though not very well). This method of gaining XP cannot be used when a flitt is below 1d15 (as they will never score a hit!).
If you have only one flitt and it's under 1d15 though, what do you do? For flitts under 1d15, every time they make a successful understanding roll, they gain 2 XP. This method of gaining XP cannot be used after 1d15.
Up until they reach 1d20, flitters have HP equal to half their dice sides. From then on they gain 1 HP every 5 sides.
Summoning
If you have more then one flitt, then this rule is for you (if you only have one, don't worry about it). To call a swarm of flitters, roll your dice. For every point you make one of your Impressed flitters will come.
If you have a queen flitt and you get two-thirds of your flitts to come in that way, the rest will automatically come. Also, you may roll once for every gold queen you have.
If all of your flitters are summoned, then the rest of the hits determine how many wild flitts also answer the call. Each wild flitt has a "summoning cost" (for lack of a better term) equal to their dice sides. You can spend the hits you roll on any colors you like, though no more then one gold. Wild golds do not bring their swarms.
Swarms
A flitter swarm attacks with 1d(sum of all flitts' dice sides). Since you are commanding a swarm you aught to know how many of each color you summoned, no? So just add up all the sides. Simple.
One cannot target an individual flitt in a swarm, obviously. But area attacks are good for getting the pesty beasts. Damage is split equally. However, once one point of damage for every flitts is accumulated, any wild flitts will flee.
Then one most roll morale dice (using the plus modifiers from Impression) for their flitts to see which flee. Generally, if the golds stay the rest will as well (<imagines rolling for every flitt in a swarm of 60 - oi!>). This roll is one of your dice + bond modifier (average of entire swarm). Then roll the swarm's dice. So long as your roll is higher, the swarm stays. This morale rule is applied to any and all commands.
This happens again when there are two points per flitt, though this time even if the golds stay the greens and half of the blues will not. At three points you roll yet again. You get the point.
If a swarm ever scores no hit the flitters automatically disappear *between* (no morale roll).