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. 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.
Leaders:
Huhurin are communities of themselves, under the absolute
power of the Lord. Other than that, they have no social
organization, and Huhurin hives feud constantly.
World View:
Huhurin tend to see themselves as being the lords over all
they survey, a natural reaction to the sort of power that the
Huhurin Lords wield over their Lesser Huhurin, though smaller hives
on Huhurin worlds are well aware of their limitations. The Huhurin
tend to try to organize non-Huhurin society into Huhurin patterns,
and see the employees and associates of an individual as their
lesser controlled creatures, often leading to problems.
Temperament:
The Huhurin are functionally immortal, and are thusly prone to
taking the long view about things. However, their memories are
refreshed every twenty years or so, and they do not forget
anything.
History and Culture:
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, nominal 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 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 dying, 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.
Tech Level:
Space
Huhurin in the Galaxy:
Their temperaments, life span, and management abilities have made
Huhurin ideal crime lords, and they have no objection to filling
that role. They are also quite successful criminals, as the
detection and capture of individual Lesser Huhurin are hardly
noticed by the larger hives. For this reason, Huhurin are viewed
by suspicion, and Lesser Huhurin are usual trapped and killed as
vermin.
A Quote:
"You owe me 12,000 credits. Pay the bag Huhurin, or it'll
blow."
Spaceships:
Numerous forms of Huhurin hives are capable of spaceflight, at
varying degrees of functionality.
Stats:
Attribute Dice: 11D
Attribute Min/Max
Huhurin Lord
Knowledge: 2D+1/6D
Perception: 2D/4D
Typical Lesser Huhurin
Dexterity: 2D/4D
Mechanical: 2D/4D
Perception: 1D/3D
Strength: 1D/2D
Technical: 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.