Myriad Worlds: Insect-Folk

It is difficult to describe the shear variety of insect-folk. It is thought that no less than seventy-nine separate species all fall under the heading of ‘insect-folk’, ranging from the tall and multi-limbed Aradonousi, to the short and carapaced Kkkki. The Xiaba, perhaps the most familiar people of insect-folk, have six subspecies, all distinct in minor ways, none of which are immediately recognizable to any but the most experienced observer of the Insect-Folk people.

As such, it will be incredibly difficult to explore the Insect-folk as a singular culture, though there are similarities and differences between the species that make a seperate section not only possible, but advised.

Commonalities

For example: all Insect-folk save the Zatalians perceive the Myriad Worlds as being dominated by a select number of races: The Soft-skins, the Ogres, and the Hard-skins, i.e. the Insect-folk. While we might be aghast at how this homoginizes a large number of distinct and different species, the Insect-Folk generally do not view these differences as significant — or at least not nearly as singificant as other differences.

The Fekec, for example, due to both their own soft bodies and their inclination to view minor differences as overly significant, tend to be overly rigerous in their racial designations, including having multiple racial labels for people who live in different sections of major cities.

The extent to which a species might view other people as entirely or partially in this framework is variable. The majority of the major cultures are recognizable as distinct by the major Insect-folk cultures, but how much this distinction is given purchase is dependant on the individual.

All known Insect-folk are omnivorous, and have no taboos surrounding cannibalism. This has given the scholarly community pause, as these truths carry through even the most distinctly different species. Why this should be true when other basic fundamentals are not is a puzzle yet to be unraveled.

There are six separate Insect-folk species that are common enough across the Myriad Worlds to warrent personal description:

Insect-folk of Kcrickth

The tallest of all the insect-folk, and the first to make any contact with Soft-skins, the Insect-folk of Kcrickth are a people of tall buildings, impecable dress sense, and a sharply analytical instinct. They are an old people, wise and patient in their ways, though perhaps more interested in fermented drinks than might be prudent.

With a history that spans several eons, the Insect-folk of Kcrickth have no name for themselves in their own language, as their culture eschews such collectivist ideals. Indeed, the Insect-folk of Kcrickth generally refuse to speak of large concepts like cultures, continents, or monarchdoms. They habitually focus on the here-and-now — the people, things, and issues that are present — rather than the ephemerals that exist outside ones own sphere of experience.

This can sometimes extend to an almost solipsistic attitude among the less well-traveled, such that they have trouble understanding that other people and places exist when they are not nearby. They also might struggle with abstract concepts such as loyalty or justice, beyond their immediate application to their immediate circumstances.

In spite of this, Kcrickthians, as we soft-skins have dubbed them, have a natural curiosity and compassion ingrained in their very being. The Kcrickthians who have acclimated to wider experiences and abstract concepts can even approach an insufferable generosity, even while they may appear as elitist or condescending towards we younger folk.

Xiaba

The most common of all the insect-folk, the Xiaba (proncounced ZEE ah bah) is a designation that — according to their scholars — comprises six other separate subspecies, all of which have their own culture, physiology, and history. For the soft-skins, there is a great deal of argument as to whether this delineation is useful, as there is regular disagreement with these designations, both with their precision and their accuracy.

Rather than detail all six subspecies here, I will instead describe the Xiaba as a whole and encourage those who wish to explore the complications of their biology to seek out any number of valuable books on the subject.

The Xiaba are slightly taller than the average person, with six long carapaced limbs. Their manipulators are the same, whether feet or hands, and they commonly alternate their middle limbs between arms and legs depending on their need. The placement of their joints prevents them from ever achieving a comfortable six-legged mobility, while to use all six limbs as arms would require a harness.

The Xiaba are genderless, hermaphroditic, and give birth to multiple eggs at once. These eggs, each of similar size to a bottle of wine, will hatch tiny nymphs who will grow over the course of five years into a young Xiaba, at which point it will become sapient. Of the six subspecies, five also view this as the moment when their consumption is no longer socially acceptable.

In terms of physiognomy and physiology, the Xiaba are wildly polymorphic, such that oftentimes pairs of Xiaban are mistaken for different species of insect-folk.

Zatalia

The Zatalia are short, thickly carapaced, and capable of living nearly everywhere. They have no concern for temperature, toxicity, or even local wildlife. They are an industrious folk, and generally unwilling to indulge in the more gentle arts of conversation and diplomacy. To speak with a Zatalian is to speak with a singular will, one that is likely uninterested in anything you have to offer.

This is not to say they are cruel; Zatalia simply care little for anything other than their own people, their homes, and their survival.

As a culture, the Zatalia are mostly herders and hunters, primarily using wooden tools to build their towns and farms. This simplicity in calm times is contrasted with their ferocity when angered. when a hive of Zatalia is roused, they swarm in phalanx formation with long rifles of blinding light and black smoke. The entire Zatalia nation has only gone to war once in the annuls of recorded history, and there has since been no trace of the Prallin people, who were purportedly their foes.

So single-minded are the Zatalia that should you ever happen to meet one, you may safely ignore it unless it addresses you directly. Do not expect them to ever do so, as they are resolutely the most xenophobic of all the Insect-folk of the Myriad Worlds.

Again, this is not a cruelty, but rather they simply find outsiders alien in both their behaviors and mindsets. This extends even to other Insect-Folk, and as such the Zatalia are perhaps the most “soft-skin”-like in their views of the different people of the Myriad Worlds.

This makes them slow to anger or offend, as they will always find your behavior alien, no matter how simple or extreme. At the same time, this also makes them far more difficult to befriend, as the kindest gestures are viewed as bizarre and foreign. Even adopting their own behaviors is more likely to be seen as a strange mockery, rather than a flattering effort.

Xyklyy

The Xyklyy (pronouced ZIK lie)are a tiny people of glittering winged folk, devoted to their own notions of comfort. They are largely independant and isolationist in nature; it is rare you will ever see two at once, and never more than three. If you do happen across more than one, it is likely you have hit upon a romantic interlude, and you would be polite to withdraw.

The Xyklyy are a nomadic folk, having no traditional homeland of their own. Instead, they house themselves wherever they happen to be when their nesting instincts arise.

Being smaller than most folk of the Myriad Worlds, the Xyklyy require little in the way of food or shelter. They craft their makeshift huts out of detritus and their own bodily secretions, which dry quite hard. The Xyklyy have little use for personal posessions, having no regular home to keep them, and a culture that eshews items and tools in favor of natural ability.

Describing Xyklyy’s culture is a difficult thing to do, as they remain independent enough to avoid such connective concepts. The idea of personal property is an alien idea to them, much as owning a particular leaf or tree or river might seem odd to an Uumpoun, or how owning the Velvet itself might seem to a citizen of the Arcwhite Kingdoms. Their attitude towards the world means that they will take very cavalier attitudes towards anything that is not immediately on your person. Many is the picnic that has been ruined — or at least been severely complicated — by a nearby Xyklyy.

Xyklyy have sometimes been given mythological status in primitive cultures, calling them “fairies” or “imps” or the like. Their rarity is likely to blame for this, and their lackadaisical natures responsible for such mistakes lasting for as long as they did.

Woowaaluq

The Woowaaluq (pronounced woo WAH look) are tall, lumbering, and many-limbed. Oftentimes mistaken for an offshoot of the Zatalia, it is not difficult to understand why: they generally reside in similar climes and posess a similar recalcitrance towards other people of the Myriad Worlds.

A closer study of the Woowaaluq physiology reveals the obvious differences, with the Zatalia having a bisected thorax, far fewer and thicker legs, and manipulator limbs of uniform size with their ambulatory limbs, rather than the Woowaaluq’s many thin legs, a segmented torso, and arms three times the length of their legs.

Cultural differences are likewise pronounced, with the Woowaaluq devoting much of their societal focus towards more agrarian living. The Woowaaluq have never advanced beyond a hunter-gatherer society, with only tiny communities advancing into farming. They are resistant to any advances beyond their own design of the counting-loom, and the Suriifom; a writing method involving rocks pressed into clay. Their society meets the Arcwhite Kingdoms’ seven metrics for a Stagnant Culture, though several fringe scholars refute the justifications.

CH’bakx

The CH’bakxeese are a collective species of insect-folk, each no bigger than a large dog. However, they are apparently unique among the Myriad Worlds in creating a unified hive-mind of sorts.

A single CH’bakx (pronounced Chih BACK six) is, according to their own scientists and sages, no more intelligent than a lizard. Once they are introduced to another, however, they release pheromones that cause a chemical reaction to occur in their brains, resulting in the birth of sapience. This creates a kind of third organism in addition to the first two, a mind that does the thinking for the two individual CH’bakxeese.

As the number of CH’bakxeese grows, so too does the level of pheremone production, and therefore their intelligence. This has caused many scholars through the ages to classify the CH’bakx as a hive-mind, but this is now known to be inaccurate. the pheromones, while influenced by the surrounding CH’bakx, do not think or control individuals as a hive-mind might. Instead, the individual minds influence and are in turn influenced by the pheremone cloud, creating a sort of communal thought-pattern. Individuals remain themselves, of a sort, but while they do not think the same thoughts as their fellows, they do think in the same way.

Culturally, this has encouraged the CH’bakxeese as viewing communities as individual beings in their own right, that they are merely parts of. The CH’bakx word for this community — Klikx — has been translated as Hive in many translation guides, and this has so far been an acceptable analog.

As a whole, the CH’bakx are a curious if cautious people, though their space requirements have so far limited their involvement in the diverse societies of the Myriad Worlds.

Thamon

The Thamon are a long and thin soft-bodied people of Insect-folk, with thin and delicate wings and long thin legs. They are not particularly remarkable from a physiological standpoint, save for one distinct difference between them and and somewhat fragile soft-skins of the Myriad Worlds: the Emulsining.

Scholars and sages believe that due to a strange cycle, as yet undiscovered, a chemical is released into the Thamon brain. During this time, the Thamon falls deeply in love, or perhaps deep devotion with another Thamon. It is a process akin to love, worship of a divinity, or similar process. If the two individuals agree to progress, the younger metamorphoses into a vibrant energy wave which is consumed by the elder, advancing it in age and strength.

Culturally, the process could be aquatinted with voting, as eventually the number of devoured Thamon reaches a critical mass, and the succeeding Thamon becomes a ‘queen,’ changing physiologically into a birth-giving machine. The newborn Thamon are mental and emotional copies of this queen, who rebuild the species’ numbers and cultural traditions until the cycle begins again, and a new queen is made.