WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK 0046 0046
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tem, so a worker stranded away from the hive overnight
could starve to death despite having a crop full of food.
However, as part of their growing intelligence, warriors
know how to puncture the honey crop and extract nutrition from it, but only if absolutely necessary.
Overall, Krikis abdomens are outwardly composed of
overlapping chitin plates that allow the abdomen to
telescope outward as its stomach or crop fills. By using
muscles to pump their abdomens in and out, Krikis can
create a vacuum that lets them suck fluids into their
stomach or crop quickly and easily.
Stingers & Offensive Adaptations
Krikis queens and many workers possess stingers for
defending the hive, while drones do not. Ironically, warrior Krikis do not have stingers and so compensate with
the use of weapons in their roles, which was a factor in
their developing intelligence in the first place.
Stingers carry venom that is especially deadly to other
Krikis. While her venom is no more toxic than a worker’s
venom, a queen normally only uses her stinger on other
queens. A queen’s use of her stinger also releases a chemical marker that signals all other Krikis in the hive to come
join the fight. The signal moves through the hive quickly,
reaching all Krikis, even those far out of sight.
History
Very little history surrounds the Krikis, as they rarely
concern themselves with such in the normal scheme of
things. Like the Oritahl, intellectual awareness and curiosity about the past or future are relatively new among
the hive-minded Krikis. Thus, all that is known historically about Krikis comes from their interaction with the
other races. Many Gare Attessa now postulate that the
Daragkarik might have kept the Krikis limited in some
unnoticed arcane ways to explain why they remained
small in population and territory until after the passing
of the Dragon Kings.
The Chitin Wars
The traditional Hivelands lie hidden behind the jagged western mountain ranges. Expansion beyond these
borders exposed the Yellow Krikis to human civilizations and conflict was inevitable. Until then, the Krikis
had ample experience of peaceful coexistence, expanding hives into regions dominated only by herd animals
and predators. Humans, however, displayed a puzzling
resistance to being displaced for new hives. Prior to
the emergence of higher cognitive function, the Krikis
would have simply retreated from that resistance and
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expanded in other directions. But after careful consideration and consultation with hive royalty, Yellow Krikis
warriors broke with tradition and asserted themselves
eastward, igniting the First Exploratory War (known
among the humans as the First Chitin War).
The First Chitin War
The First Exploratory War began in the mountain
passes through the Spiked Range where human miners stood their ground against encroachments by Yellow Krikis warriors. Until that time, the miners dug out
tin and iron without incident and hauled away the ore
along wilderness trails toward markets further east and
south. The Yellows, unused to resistance to their expansion, resolved to clear the passes by force; in the first few
months, yellow warriors slaughtered many hundreds of
unprepared and unsuspecting miners.
Equally determined to protect their valuable mines,
the human owners recruited several ‘shtuka ranpalt,’
or pike regiments in the Makadan style, armed with
shtuka from nearby Gathush and bolstered them with
thakal lancers and mercenary troops from several other
cities, including Torqual and Pharanor. Rank-and-file
Krikis warriors associated the red-cloaked human Gathusine pikemen with their long-hated Red Krikis enemies, spurring them to greater violence against the
humans. (From this initial confusion spawns a lingering
racial hatred with many Yellow Krikis still believing all
humans to be in league with the Reds.) Three years of
bloody back-and-forth fighting ensued, including desperate struggles in the deep mines for which neither
side was prepared. The Yellow Krikis warriors eventually withdrew down the western slopes and back to
their hives to ponder the complexities of independently
thinking enemies.
Human captives suffered the most after the war’s conclusion. Having only known intraspecies conflicts, the
Yellow Krikis expected the humans to assume the placid
role of drones, since captured drones always maintained
their roles without regard to color. The humans thrust
into that unusual role had neither the inclination nor
skills to function in the hives. Their insectoid captors resorted to more stringent and even brutal methods to correct their puzzling behavior (or lack thereof) until their
numbers dwindled to nil. The inhuman tales brought
back east from the minimal escapees horrified all, hardening human hearts still further against the inscrutable
Krikis, now temporarily pacified on their frontiers.
The Second Chitin War
Forty years later, the yellow hive royalty authorized
another expedition through the same passes and pur-
