Every Zerg Brood, From the Garm Brood to Kerrigan's Swarm

A brood was the basic fighting unit of the Zerg Swarm: a self-contained host bred for one job and run by a single controlling mind. Under the Overmind that mind was a cerebrate, and each brood's size and mix of strains followed from the role it had been made for. The cerebrates died with the second Overmind at the end of the Brood War, and the broods of Sarah Kerrigan's Swarm were led by broodmothers instead. Terran explorers named the Great War broods after beasts from old Earth mythologies. (StarCraft (manual); StarCraft: Brood War; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Broods of the Overmind#

These were the broods of the Great War. The manual lists six great broods in two groups, and the campaigns add a few more. All of them answered to the Overmind through their cerebrates. (StarCraft (manual))

Garm Brood#

Leader: the cerebrate Zasz. The Garm Brood was the Primary Strikeforce's assault brood, around 10,000 strong. It hit with speed and ferocity in hit and run raids that wore down enemy defences, and Zasz loved a pre-emptive strike. (StarCraft (manual))

The brood fought on Chau Sara and then pushed across Mar Sara, where it hit Backwater Station and closed in on the colony's capital before the Sons of Korhal pulled the colonists out. It then followed the Swarm to Antiga Prime, where it surrounded the crashed Norad II alongside the Surtur Brood until Jim Raynor broke through to rescue Edmund Duke. (StarCraft)

Fate: on Char, Zeratul slipped through the brood's lines and killed Zasz for good. Leaderless, the Garm Brood went berserk, and Daggoth ordered the Overmind's youngest cerebrate to destroy it before it overran the main hive cluster. (StarCraft)

Jormungand Brood#

Leader: the cerebrate Araq. With around three million warriors, the Jormungand Brood was the Primary Strikeforce's hammer. It came in behind the Garm Brood's raids and won through numbers and brute force, and it was at its best in straight ground fighting. (StarCraft (manual))

It was the first brood to fight the Terran Confederacy openly, attacking an Alpha Squadron force on Chau Sara in 2499. Its biggest moment came on Tarsonis, where it built its main hive cluster around New Gettysburg. Arcturus Mengsk sent Kerrigan to hold off the protoss there, then abandoned her, and the zerg carried her away. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade)

Fate: the brood helped guard the Overmind on Aiur and failed. Once its master was dead, its creatures roamed Aiur like animals, cut off from any controlling mind. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Brood War (manual))

Tiamat Brood#

Leader: Daggoth. Tiamat was the largest and most powerful brood in the Swarm, a living fleet of about 6.5 million that was thought to carry the Overmind deep inside it. It specialised in space combat and only sent ground forces down when things got desperate, but it also bred elite strains such as the Hunter Killer hydralisks. (StarCraft (manual); StarCraft)

The brood held Char's orbit during the Great War and spearheaded the invasion of Aiur alongside the Grendel and Baelrog Broods. It then fought in the doomed defence of the Overmind at the Eye of the Storm. (StarCraft)

Fate: Tiamat outlived the Overmind and stayed active through the Brood War. By the Second Great War, parts of it had gone feral on the world of Cavir, where Abathur found some of the last surviving lurker dens among them. (StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Fenris Brood#

Leader: the cerebrate Nargil. Fenris was a tiny Command Wing brood of roughly 5,500, and the Swarm's trackers. It hunted down escaped breeders and runaway enemies across wild ground or open space. Its real job was finding new species worth absorbing, then hounding them until the Overmind had either assimilated them or wiped them out. No account of its end survives. (StarCraft (manual))

Surtur Brood#

Leader: the cerebrate Kagg. Surtur was a heavy reserve of around 2.6 million, unleashed only when the Jormungand Brood failed to finish an enemy off. It was kept deep inside the fleet because it was known to kill other zerg in its frenzies. (StarCraft (manual))

It was seen in action once: on Antiga Prime, besieging the wreck of the Norad II alongside the Garm Brood until the Sons of Korhal broke the siege. (StarCraft)

Baelrog Brood#

Leader: the cerebrate Gorn. The Baelrog Brood was a terror squad of about 6,000, the most fearsome warriors in the Swarm. It was used to spread terror and confusion, and its cannibalism and indiscriminate slaughter often sent enemy soldiers running or turned them on each other. (StarCraft (manual))

On Aiur, Fenix smashed Gorn's hive cluster and destroyed the cerebrate's body, only to watch the Overmind bring it back and the brood rally. The Baelrog also defended the old terran installation on Char where Tassadar found Zeratul, and failed to stop the protoss escaping with the dark templar. (StarCraft)

Fate: in the last push before the Overmind, the protoss stormed the Baelrog and Grendel hive clusters and Zeratul killed both cerebrates permanently. That left the Overmind with only two broods to guard it. (StarCraft)

Grendel Brood#

Leader: an unnamed cerebrate. The Grendel Brood first turned up on Chau Sara with the Garm Brood. It joined the Tiamat and Baelrog Broods at the head of the invasion of Aiur, and its cerebrate was charged with forming the core of the Overmind's defences once the Overmind landed. (StarCraft)

Fate: Fenix and Zeratul struck its main hive cluster and killed its cerebrate. The brood fell into chaos and the protoss had a clear road to the Overmind. (StarCraft)

Leviathan Brood#

Leader: none named. The Leviathan Brood was one of the original broods of the Swarm, and an odd one. Its strains grew spikes, carried a chaotic essence and drifted further from the standard designs than any other brood's. Its mutalisks fought as one mass that could black out the sky, its corruptors could handle high gravity, and its hydralisks never lost the ability to become lurkers. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Fate: it survived the Brood War and ended up under Kerrigan, who folded her new strains into its gene pool. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Kerrigan's guardian brood#

Leader: the Overmind's newest cerebrate, too young to have earned a name. After Kerrigan was taken on Tarsonis, the Overmind made a fresh cerebrate and brood with one task: protect the chrysalis holding her while she changed. Daggoth lent it Hunter Killers to move the chrysalis from Tarsonis to Char. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Queen of Blades)

Fate: the brood guarded Kerrigan until she hatched as the Queen of Blades, then fought under her on Char and destroyed the Garm Brood on Daggoth's orders. It went with the Swarm to Aiur for the final campaign. (StarCraft)

Broods after the Overmind#

Tassadar killed the Overmind on Aiur in 2500, and its broods split three ways: those that went feral, those that followed Daggoth, and those that followed Kerrigan. Outsiders also learned they could seize a brood by taking over the mind that ran it. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Brood War)

Daggoth's Renegade Swarm#

Leader: Daggoth. Cerebrates weren't built to live without the Overmind, so Daggoth had several of them merge into a new Overmind on Char, near the Khalis crystal. It was too young to rule the Swarm, but Daggoth and his cerebrates still held most of the broods. Kerrigan called them renegades. (StarCraft: Brood War)

The renegades chased the Aiur refugees through the warp gate to Shakuras. Two cerebrates dug in around the xel'naga temple there, and the dark templar killed both. When the protoss fired the temple, every zerg on the planet died, and Daggoth took a beating that suited Kerrigan perfectly. (StarCraft: Brood War)

Fate: the UED Expeditionary Fleet used a psi disrupter to break the renegade defences on Char and captured the second Overmind with everything it controlled. Scattered remnants survived as ferals into the Second Great War, including lurkers Abathur found on Cavir. (StarCraft: Brood War; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

UED Slave Broods#

Leaders: Admiral Gerard DuGalle and the United Earth Directorate, through the captured second Overmind. The UED had come to the Koprulu sector partly to take the Overmind and use the zerg as a weapon. Once it held the creature, it kept it docile with neurostims and psychics and took over Daggoth's broods. (StarCraft: Brood War (manual); StarCraft: Brood War)

The enslaved zerg gave the UED control of the sector for a time. But they were hard to steer far from Char, which Kerrigan noticed when her alliance retook Korhal. When the UED hit her base on Tarsonis with masses of zerg run by its scientists, killing those scientists turned the passive zerg into a rampaging mob. (StarCraft: Brood War)

Fate: Kerrigan tricked the dark templar into killing the second Overmind on Char. With it and its cerebrates gone, every zerg in the sector came under her direct control. (StarCraft: Brood War)

Kerrigan's Swarm in the Brood War#

Leader: Kerrigan, with a cerebrate loyal to her as her lieutenant. Freed by the Overmind's death, Kerrigan built her own faction of the Swarm and fought Daggoth for the succession. She used the protoss, the Terran Dominion and Raynor in turn, then betrayed each of them. (StarCraft: Brood War)

Its big battles came on Shakuras, Korhal, Tarsonis and Char, and after the second Overmind fell it beat off a combined Dominion, UED and protoss counterattack. See Kerrigan's Swarm and the Brood War for the full story. (StarCraft: Brood War)

Fate: by the end of the war it was the whole Swarm, and the cerebrates that had served the second Overmind were dead. (StarCraft: Brood War)

Kukulkan Brood#

Leader: Kerrigan. She created this assault brood on Char after the Overmind's death, and at first it stayed home to guard the hive cluster. (StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga)

Kerrigan later sent it to Bhekar Ro to take a xel'naga artefact. It infested the land around the colony of Free Haven. Alpha Squadron stopped its assault on the colony, and the protoss held the artefact. (StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga)

Fate: after a terran nuclear strike, an energy creature rose from the artefact and absorbed every zerg and protoss on and around the planet. The brood was gone. (StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga)

The New Swarm#

Leader: the cerebrate Kaloth. Kaloth raised the dead Alexei Stukov as an infested terran and set up on Braxis with renegade terran allies. (StarCraft 64)

Fate: Raynor and the protoss fought through the New Swarm, injected Stukov with a serum that reversed his infestation, and fled as the protoss purified the planet. See Resurrection IV. (StarCraft 64)

Schezar's Zerg Swarm#

Leader: the smuggler Alan Schezar, through a captive cerebrate. Using khaydarin crystals and protoss technology stolen from Aiur, Schezar took control of a cerebrate and its brood and used them to guard his operations. He also turned a Torrasque loose on the protoss. (StarCraft: Enslavers)

Fate: a Dominion task force teamed up with the protoss and killed the cerebrate. That broke Schezar's hold and stopped the Torrasque from coming back. (StarCraft: Enslavers)

Ulrezaj's Slave Brood#

Leader: the dark archon Ulrezaj. He used warped khaydarin crystals to take over zerg on Korhal, where they fought alongside Schezar's old gang. Zeratul's forces fought through them while hunting for a stolen crystal. (StarCraft: Enslavers: Dark Vengeance)

The Swarm under Kerrigan and after#

With the cerebrates gone, Kerrigan made broodmothers, powerful queens who each led a brood. When she was restored to human form on Char in 2504, many of them broke away, and she spent the rest of the Second Great War winning them back. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Char Brood#

Leader: Kerrigan. Char Brood was her main strike force. It went with her to the xel'naga temple on Ulaan, where Karass and his warriors gave their lives so Zeratul could escape it. In 2504 it led the Swarm's invasion of Dominion space in search of xel'naga artefacts. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Fate: it led the defence of Char against Raynor and the Dominion and did them heavy damage, but it couldn't stop the Keystone firing and restoring Kerrigan. See the Battle of Char. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Zagara Brood#

Leader: Broodmother Zagara. Her brood stayed on Char after Kerrigan's defeat and survived the Dominion's attempt to purge the planet. When Kerrigan came back, Zagara fought her, lost and swore loyalty. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

The brood then stuck with Kerrigan through Zerus and the invasion of Korhal, where it flooded Augustgrad and attacked the palace from the south-east in the final assault. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Fate: still active. Before Kerrigan ascended, she passed the whole Swarm to Zagara. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Naktul Brood#

Leader: Broodmother Naktul. Her brood had settled on Phaeton. After a Dominion attack, Kerrigan took it over to wipe out a Dominion force and its Drakken pulse cannon so she could get back to Raynor. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Fate: Kerrigan left it behind once the job was done. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Nafash Brood#

Leader: Broodmother Nafash. She took her brood to the ice moon Kaldir to rebuild it, betting the cold would toughen it. It did make them more aggressive, but a protoss expedition killed her. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Fate: Kerrigan found Nafash's body and her surviving warriors gone feral, and took them back into the Swarm. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Niadra's Brood#

Leader: Broodmother Niadra, born on Kaldir from a larva Kerrigan planted to destroy a protoss ark carrying news of her return. She wrecked its engines and killed its crew, but the ark drifted out of Kerrigan's range and Niadra was left alone with her brood. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Fate: she kept to her purpose. She took her brood to Adena, where in the Battle of Adena she killed the protoss admiral Urun and nearly captured the psionic marine Elms before the terrans escaped. (StarCraft II: Shadow Wars)

Kilysa Brood#

Leader: Broodmother Kilysa. Small, but rich in leviathans. Kilysa broke away after Kerrigan's defeat and asked to come back when Kerrigan was reborn. Kerrigan made her earn it by destroying the Dominion arms hub of Mistaff IV. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Fate: the brood also fought at Brokas Hur and Cruxas III, retook a lurker den from ferals on Cavir, and used its leviathans to blockade Korhal against Dominion reinforcements. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Aiur Brood#

Leader: none that anyone could see. The zerg left on Aiur after the Brood War stayed feral, guarding and feeding on the Overmind's corpse. Zeratul had to fight through them in 2504 to reach the dead Overmind's memories. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Fate: at the start of the End War the Aiur zerg suddenly began fighting with real intelligence. Amon had taken them over, and they became his brood. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Amon's Brood#

Leader: Amon, through his hybrids. Amon's Brood was built from feral zerg outside Kerrigan's control, mostly the Aiur zerg. It kept old strains her Swarm had dropped, like scourge and guardians. Aiur alone held about five billion zerg. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

It fought the protoss through their failed attempt to retake Aiur, swept over Shakuras, and fought the protoss again at Endion. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Fate: the protoss blew up Shakuras with the brood still on it, the Purifiers burned it off Endion, and it lost the last battle on Aiur when the Keystone tore Amon out of the Khala. See Amon's Forces. (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void)

Claw Brood#

Leader: Amon. The Claw Brood existed only in a vision the Overmind left for Zeratul: a future where Amon's hybrids and this brood hunt down the last protoss, after which the hybrids wipe out the zerg too. (StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty)

Primal packs, the zerg who never had broods#

The primal zerg of Zerus never joined the Swarm, so they never had broods. They ran in packs, following any leader who could get them more essence, and changed sides whenever that paid better. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Kerrigan saw that difference first-hand on Zerus. Pack leaders like Yagdra and the ancient Zurvan sent their packs against her while she transformed, and she killed them one at a time with help from Dehaka's pack. Dehaka's pack later went with the Swarm to Korhal as allies, not subjects. (StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)