Huhurin Hive Creatures


The Huhurin are an unusual species. Each individual hive creature is no more intelligent than an ordinary house cat, but a colony of hive creatures has a collective intelligence equal or greater than that of the average human. The Huhurin are housed in a hive. During primitive times, that hive was made of mud, sticks and stones, but as the Huhurin civilization advanced, the hives increased in sophistication, eventually reaching their current plasteel and duridium state. These hives increase in size with the powers of the hive, and the Great Elder Hive, ruler of the Huhurin people, resides in a hive over 6 kilometers in diameter that has been equipped with high power hyperdrives, and numerous weapon mounts.
The general physical appearance of a Huhurin is of a six- legged creature, around 20 centimeters long, with a hairless hide that is covered with non-overlapping pebble-like scales. This basic form varies greatly, as seen below. The mental activities of a Huhurin hive are coordinated by an androgenous "Lord". This lord is around three times as large as the average Huhurin, pasty white in color, with an expanded braincase and vestigial limbs. On it's own, a Huhurin lord is sentient, though much less intelligent than a full hive (1D in Kno, and Per). The lord controls the mating of the lesser Huhurin, and will autoinseminate to produce other lord eggs. Huhurin lords are usually sessile creatures, and are incapable of independent motion. However, many have equipped themselves with repulsorlift chairs that enable them to travel from one part of their hive to another, an especially useful ability for those Huhurin that live in hives not initially designed for their use, such as walkers or starships.
At the beginning of a hive's life span, all lesser Huhurin in the hive are essentially the same. However, as the Lord has some influence in the development of Huhurin in the egg, and it will control the breeding activities of Lesser Huhurin, the hive soon develops a great number of castes of Lesser Huhurin, each with it's own purpose, and each designed to fill that purpose as best as possible. Typical examples include stronger and larger heavy laborers, light camouflage colored scouts, and many others. Some of the older and more advanced hives have hundreds of castes, and have stretched Huhurin biology to it's very limits, with castes of flying, gilled, and armored Lesser Huhurin, but the differences in the castes of most hives are small, and in many cases can only be determined by long observation or dissection.
The number of Lesser Huhurin that a Lord can control, and the range at which they can control them vary greatly. Younger Huhurin Lords can only control a relatively small number of Huhurin, and at very short ranges. As they age, these numbers increase. The Great Elder Hive is rumored to contain nearly a million lesser Huhurin, and it's lord is said to be able to control them for parsecs.
The Huhurin are an egg laying species, with two sexes necessary for the production of fertilized Lesser Huhurin eggs, and only one needed for the production of a Lord Egg. A hive will always have three or more Lord Eggs stashed away in various places, which the resident Lord usually eats before they reach maturity. However, when a Lord Huhurin is dieing, it will send out a tight telepathic beam to these fertilized eggs, containing all it's memories. The Lord loses it's memories as it broadcasts them, and if it survives the situation that it thought was fatal, it will remain as nothing more than a vegetable. The first of these eggs to hatch immediately gains control of the hive, and has the other eggs destroyed. If there is a period where the hive is without a Lord, everyday operations will break down, and the lesser Huhurin will do nothing other than find food and defend their hive as best they are able, and will often wander out of the range of their lords, to live and die as nothing more than animals. When a Huhurin lord feels the need to reproduce, it will produce a Lord egg, bundle it together with some common eggs, and order a Lesser Huhurin to take that bundle as far away as possible.

Stats:

Attribute Dice, hive: 11D
Attribute Min/Max
Huhurin Lord:
KNO: 2D+1/6D+1
PER: 2D/4D (see below)
Typical Huhurin:
DEX: 2D/4D+2
PER: 1D/3D (see below)
MECH: 2D/4D
STR: 1D/2D
TECH: 1D+2/4D
Move: 5/14,

Special Abilities:

* Lesser Huhurin: a beginning Huhurin lord can maintain telepathic control and contact with up to 20 Lesser Huhurin. They can increase that number permanently by spending 10 character points per additional Lesser Huhurin desired. The range of the control starts at 20 meters, and can be permanently increased at the cost of a cp per extra meter. The Lesser Huhurin that have been produced by a Lord can only be controlled by that Lord or that Lord's first generation descendant.
* Lifespan: Because of their memory transfers, the life of a Huhurin hive is virtually unlimited. The Great Elder Hive is at least 45,000 standard years old, and possibly much older than that. The life span of the individual Huhurin is relatively short, with Huhurin Lords living around 20 standard years, and Lesser Huhurin living around 2 years.
* Castes: By expending cps to improve the stats of Lesser Huhurin, the Hive creates a caste, specialized for the purpose that the cp were spent on. 6 Lesser Huhurin eggs are improved with a single expenditure, and that is the lower limit for the number of members of a caste for it to breed true. A Huhurin caste can double in numbers each generation. In addition, a Huhurin Lord can breed in other modifications to it's castes, with the cp cost and the number of generations required for the modifications to take place varies with the difficulty of the modifications.
* Perception: Those perception skills that rely on mental abilities, such as Investigation and Con, reside in the hives Lord, and the other purely sensory abilities reside in the lesser Huhurin. As with other mental skills, when the lord is controlling a Lesser Huhurin, that creature gains the full abilities of it's lord.

Story Factors:

* Hives: The Huhurin hives are wonders of miniature construction, with crawlspaces, a large number of propulsion and defense systems, and a fair number of atmospheric controls. Many hives are formed from pre-existing shells, such as landspeeders, starfighters and freighters. There are even rumors of a hive that took up residence on an Imperial Star Destroyer, and managed to drive the imperials from that ship. What became of that hive is unknown.
* Hive Wars: Due to the nature of the Huhurin, violent disputes between hives are far closer to wars than brawls. In fact, their home planet of Huhurin has no government other than a large number of warring hives. These conflicts are protracted, as the memories of the principles are refreshed every twenty odd years, and their are almost no Huhurin without a long running feud with one or two other hives which are seldom resolved without the complete eradication of one of the hives.
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