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Fantasy Insectopia - Lore

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SilverFlight

SilverFlight

Tende altum, volare altius
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Guide to choosing your species

It took me way longer than it should have to realize that not many people know the scientific definition of a species, and when choosing your bug, this is actually really important, so here is my crash course on animal classifications:

The classification system is a way to categorize all life in relation to all other forms of life on earth. It's a tiered system that describes the groups of animals based on their evolutionary relationship with each other. Animalia is a kingdom, within that kingdom, Arthropoda is one of the phylums. Arthropoda is the group we'll be working with in this RP. That includes all insects, and arachnids, millipedes, centipedes, isopods etc. But, each one of those classes actually has several orders, and in those, families, genera and then finally, species.
classification-system.png
Technically a single species is given a 2-part Latin name, so, a honey bee's name is Apis mellifera, "Apis" is the genus, the species is "mellifera". There are other honey bee species besides mellifera, like Apis dorsata, cerana or florea. Honeybees are in the family "Apidae" which includes all other types of bee. The order is hymenoptera, which includes wasps, ants and sawflies. The common name of a species doesn't always line up with its scientific name. Example: The European honey bee is Apis mellifera and includes some of the subspecies of honeybee, but the African honeybee is a subspecies, just one: Apis mellifera scutellata.

**Note, do not worry if this seems like a lot, if you have a picture of a bug you would like to play, I can probably ID it to species for you, or at least to genus.

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  • ((Map coming soon))

    The edge of the forest is an ideal place for a city: it is protected from the brunt of storms by the gnarled oak, slender birch and towering pine, it is open to the bright gifts of the sun. The stream’s gentle course tempers the hot days and soothes the chill of the night. The earth is soft, humus and moss make it perfect for walking, and even better for burrowing.

    The fields beyond the forest hold a kaleidoscope of different blooms, and the tall grasses protect worn trade routes to and from the city. There are many old logs, decaying and hollow, that provide spaces for bazaars and homes nearby. Some of the field grass has been cleared for farming where precious tiny shoots and little mushrooms are grown for sale in the town, and plants are cultivated to raise livestock like aphids and hard-shelled scale bugs. The forest is cool and quiet; it holds the morning mist, and filters the sun’s light into an ever-moving cascade of green. Up in the treetops there are still more homes, many flying insects live here. Honey bee hives, wood beetle burrows and many flies make their nests in the safe embrace of the canopy.

    Deep into the forest a set of stone caves guard rare lichens and fungi that have rare properties highly-coveted by potion masters and healers. Some of it is luminescent and used for decoration, but only the brave dare go retrieve it, for there are monsters lying in wait in the darkness.

    The fields have their own dangers; great titans with four carapace-crushing hooves the size of boulders. Most in town simply call them “hoofers”, but the clearings they form in the tall grass make traveling a little easier for large caravans.

    Beyond the field, about two days’ travel for any land-walking bug, is a pond where the dragonflies dwell. There are many others that share this land, but it is fiercely guarded by the winged warriors and strangers provoke much suspicion.

    Food in the world:
    Most bugs rely on a diet of plants, nectars and fungi, but there are also a slew of arthopods that are not sapient and used as farm animals: Aphids are farmed for their meat and their honeydew, silverfish provide a great source of protein for carnivores in the city. Slugs and worms are reared in Sunhaven and Barrowlore and their meat when smoked or tenderized is commonly used in stews and dried for travel.
 
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Honey bee

  • Honeybees live in what function as city states in their hives, overseen by a single queen, but governed by collective consensus. There are several thousand sisters and up to one hundred brothers, or drones.
    The colonies tend towards strict, organized discipline, with roles assigned by age, experience and talent. The youngest sister bees take on tasks within the hive, caring for children, serving drones and crafting honey, bee bread, repairing and expanding the hive and taking care of accounts and the treasury. The older bees are warriors and foragers, cartographers and explorers and they provide escorts for the caravans into Sunhaven. The sisters are the fundamental basis for hive society, and are seen as the most valued in the hive.

    The drone brothers rarely do any of this work, and instead hone their skills as athletes in races and games, and take up arts and culture as their central passions, writing books, poetry, plays, creating art, tapestries and elegant fixtures for the hive. There are usually several drone historians to chronicle events and keep records. They have been known to dabble in science too and often wander away from the hive for long periods of time, learning new knowledge to bring back to their hives. Some of the sister bees do dabble in arts and history, but generally these are seen as lesser pastimes, though still important. The drones are treated very well, despite not having many rights or freedoms in the hive.

    The queen, though mostly a figurehead, is revered as a sacred being and is called “mother” by most. A queen has multiple drone consorts that were either gifted to her by other colonies in political alliances, or else won their place by competing for her in ceremonial races held between colonies.
    These drones seem to be able to tell which children are theirs and usually give them preferential treatment over others, male or female. If the drone father of the bees is absent, those bees are generally valued less in the hive.
 
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Hercules Beetle Lore;

The Hercules Beetle culture is one of strength, compassion, hard work and dedication. The Hercules beetle people are strong-willed and steadfast. They are the people of substance. The Hercules Beetles are diverse and strong. They are persistent and enduring. They are one of, if not the most, steady and adaptable people on the planet.


Despite their protective nature, they do not deny that they evolved from a rather violence driven culture. This does not affect them in the world today, but they do still maintain some of the traditional practices and rituals of their long forgotten, violent past. Specifically in rituals performed to thank the earth for their power to be strong.


Jaloja is the ritual of thanks. In this ritual all the males of the community will participate in a tournament of wrestling during the Autumn harvest. This tournament is to determine the strongest and luckiest member of the community that year. That person will then give thanks to the Earth for the power to protect others that was given to the entire community that year. After which they will have a community feast to show gratitude to other members of the community for the hard work that they have done this year.


Finnika is the holiday of love for the Hercules Beetles. It is during this time that males of the community will begin to collect. They will collect precious rocks, decorating a claimed tree. This tree and all other trinkets, rocks, food and any other thing they decide to lay at the base of this tree is given to the partner of that specific male Hercules beetle. This is considered a gift of love. A physical statement of giving one's entire self to another. It is customary that on this day, it is decided whether or not it is time to move into a shared home. As such Finnika is a much anticipated holiday.


The Krimga Festival is one day a year, deep in the summer months, that the Hercules Beetle people are self centered. This is a day that is dedicated to the people flaunting the two things that they are prideful about on their body. This festival is to celebrate the cephalic horns and/or thoracic horns of a male and the colors of the wing coverings on females. This festival. It is a day to show off the physical beauty of the people within the community. It started long ago as a day only for the Hercules Beetles, but they have allowed others to join the festival for hundreds of years. As such, this day is a major celebration for Sunhaven and is highly anticipated.

The Hercules Beetle's are community driven. They pride themselves on their community and the place that they live. This does not mean only Hercules beetle communities. They take pride in the entirety of their land. It does not matter what species you are, if you find a Hercules beetle in your community, they think of you as family and will do anything to keep you safe, which is why most places covet their community of massive Hercules beetles. It is because of this belief that the Hercules Beetles think they were given their magic of affecting the weight of soil, dirt and Stone.
 
The Kischkin have been around for centuries, or so they claim. They don’t interact with many other species, so there’s no actual way to confirm that they are as old as they say. They consist of platycryptus undatus jumping spiders, with the very largest coming to a three centimeter legspan and the smallest remaining at a tiny one and a half.

Their tribe consists of over a hundred and fifty spiders, although few of them have lived past their sixties. Once they grow too old, the tribe makes their way to a town and leaves them there, regardless of whether they want to or not. The only other option is death, so they view it as a mercy.

Instead of casting spells or improving their physical ability through magic, they instead funnel their energies through carefully crafter charms. They rank from weakest to strongest as follows; wood, stone, lead, gold, copper, iron, and then diamond. Regardless of material, each charm can take up to two months to craft. Every time a child is hatched, the entire tribe works together to make a metal charm from whatever mineral they have.

The Kischkin roam everywhere, whether aboveground or under it, and almost never have a destination in mind. Infant spiders are kept in webbed bags on the backs of their mothers and fathers, carried around until the parents consider them ready to travel on their own. During that time, they are taught how to speak, read and write. Once they get a little older, usually around a year and a half, they are taught how to use charms.

The Kischkin have only one diamond charm, a lantern with a permanent iridescent flame inside called the Sahlredeum. It takes an entire year of every nomad donating some magic to fully charge it, but once it is charged, it creates an wave of living flames to protect every Kischkin spider that last a full hour. It is one of only five Sahlredeum in the world, and each one performs a different feat upon activation.

Instead of a monarchy or democracy, the Kischkin simply care for each other. It is rarely out of sentiment; it is matter-of-fact and logical as far as they’re concerned. It’s not to say that they don’t have love, but rather that they take great care to choose who they care about. While they all are permitted their own possessions, greed is harshly punished, and attempting to hoard results in an immediate banishment. An inability to share brings down the survival of the whole clan.

The Kischkin never stay in one place for longer than a week, and there isn’t a single spider in the clan that can’t set up camp in less than five minutes. Some of the more experienced spiders can set up a hammock, eat a meal, and go to sleep in less than four minutes, but they’ve had to work for that level of skill.
 
Carpenter bee


  • Carpenter bee is a type of non-eusocial bee that can be found in Insectopia. They are bulkier and heavier than honey bee with solid black body and fuzzy yellow or cream color thorax. They are nectivore and feed mostly on nectar and pollens. Male and female are similar looking, but female is slightly bulkier and has shorter abdomen. Females have powerful mandible that they can use to bite and carve into wood with ease. They also possess a stinger than can deliver painful venom. Male lacks in both powerful mandibles and stinger, but they possess stronger wing muscle and is overall a better flyer than female.

    Carpenter bees usually mate for life and have strong pair bond. Females lay 1-3 eggs per clutch and the eggs take 5 months to hatch. Hatchling emerges as white, plump larva which are helpless and immobile. With good care and plenty of food, the larvae grow quickly and they will begin to gain their intelligence once they are a year old. Larval stage ends on the 6th year of age (larvae are already capable of speech at that point) and then they will become pupae. Pupae are completely motionless and irresponsive. They will be stuck in this form for 5 months without eating and drinking. After that, the full formed bees will emerge from their pupae shell. Young bees retain the memory from their larval stage and are the same size as adult, but their reproduction organ will not develop until they are 14 years old, thus they remains child-like for many years. The bees will fully mature physically when they are 18 years old.
 
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WIP
Orange Baboon Tarantula
Multitasking Baboon eyes are almost useless, despite having eight of them. However, saved by their equal amount of appendages, tarantulas are generally known for their skilful approach to tackling tasks that other people cannot achieve.
Webbing Unlike an orb weaver, a baboon tarantula's web is not as elegant or precise. Instead, they are a mass of intertwining silk mainly used for the construction of villages and ease of personal navigation.
Male and female dimorphism Adult males usually have thinner abdomens, however their standing height is usually the same to a female, depending on the species. Potency of venom is the same, however the female’s mandible strength carries a slighter advantage due to the size and thickness of her fangs.
Direction Setae on the arachnid’s legs, arms and abdomen detect movement, they are masters at knowing the wind direction which make them amazing companions to migrators, such as monarch butterflies, however navigation is not their key strength.
Work ethic It is not unnatural for baboon tarantulas to work alone, the setae on their body detect the vibrations of voice, which can be irritating when concentrating. Most tarantulas love to talk and make friends, just not when under work.
​
 
Pollen Wasp Lore

Pollen Wasps are solitary pollinators that make their nests out of mud often attached to branches, rocks, or hanging off ledges, sometimes opting to make a burrow in the ground instead. Like other wasps, the females are the ones responsible for constructing nests, usually building in concealed places especially under rocks and crevices. However, Pollen Wasps often build nests in open places such as twigs on trees. In these nests, there are multiple individual cells where eggs are laid.

Pollen Wasps differ from their Vespid wasp relatives by rearing their young on nectar and pollen rather than other insects, but they still consume other insects. They carry pollen in their crops and regurgitate it along with nectar when provisioning the cells of their nests, and they lay their eggs in the soupy mass before sealing the cell. There is no colony or evidence of social behavior. Each female acts independently to nest and forage for her offspring.

The male Pollen Wasps on rare occasions do help with raising the young. Females spend most of their time tending to their children but when they do have a moment to spare, they mold sap and hardened nectar.

A Pollen Wasp specialty is creating extravagant sculptures from nectar, pollen, and or other plant materials like sap. Often being a combination of the aforementioned ingredients, sugar glass is a very popular item sold by Pollen Wasps.

There are occasionally events where males and females gather to mate and trade, often working magic as well. These events take place during the first few weeks of spring when the Pollen Wasps come out of dormancy.

Pollen Wasps have temperature magic, using their manipulation abilities to aid in the making of sugar glass sculptures. They can't change temperatures drastically or over large areas, being confined to a small area around their body. They use this magic to keep warm enough in the winter and to make different foods or items.
 
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Red Wood Ants (WIP)

  • Householders in the North East are being warned to be on ...
    The Red wood ants (Formica rufa) that are presented here are larger and redder than their original counterparts. Their average height is 2.3 cm and they have longer antennae.

    Because of their history, they are often regarded as barbaric and bloodthirsty, yet strict and organised. They possess a collective mindset, where a single ant can't do much outside a group.

    The Red wood ants specialize in aphid farming, highways and the military.

    The highways of the Red wood ants are by far the safest and most protected trade routes that the trades can use. These highways of course have tolls where the ants take a small fee for the usage of the highway. When not in war, most of the ant soldiers are on patrol or guard duty at the highways. This is regarded as a boring job in the ant community.

    The Great Formica Empire:
    The most prominent and winning group of the Ant cartel war is The great Formica empire. It was created by its first empress Moswa the unifier after the Ant cartel war. The empires government and empresses have changed several times after its creation. It controls several hives across the north. Each hive has a countess, a highway connection to the capital and a reserve strike group.

    It can be described as a better version of the Soviet Union.

    The capital of the Formica empire is the fort Formica located in a dense forest north of Sunhaven. It's a giant palace built on a tree stump out of little rocks and sticks (for reference search "palace of soviets"). It houses most of the population as well as the military and political headquarters. The lower levels are the civilian accommodations, roofed plazas and shops, the middle military, weapons smiths and research and the top government and the empress. Traders often call it simply Formica and generally avoid it for its many strict rules.
 
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Probably Deathshead Moths, Coming Soon



  • Deathshead Moths are known for mingling with other bugs, trading with them and learning what they can from the other cultures. Honeybees are a particular favorite of theirs, and honey is a large part of their cuisine, which consists of liquids. As culinary syncretists, Deathshead Moths rarely venture out without a mortar and pestle to crush solid foods into something more palatable to a bug which eats through a proboscis.
    Avidly concocting things out of ingredients from different bug tribes and areas, they are traditionally cooks, chemists, and potioneers, but it is not unheard of for a Deathshead Moth to apprentice with another species of bug- in fact, it was once more common than it is now. Unfortunately, Deathshead Moths have developed a reputation for nosing in the business of other bug species, gained by many attempts by Deathsheads to gain knowledge of honeymaking, a trade known to be private to bees. It is a touchy subject for any Deathshead Moth, and one which divides them greatly.
    They do not tend to have much influence in politics, but not for a lack of trying.

 
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Ambush (Oxythyreus) Bugs:
  • Culture: The Ambush bugs are a very rebellious race, full of radical ideas, quickly adaptable, and most ideals differ from tribe to tribe (See Tribes) however most of them focus on cunning, creative solutions to problems instead of using brute force. Despite their name, ambush bugs are not particularly violent and prefer to be called People of Qu'attar, as the term 'ambush bugs' was used as a racial slur during the time of slavery (See History). Ambush Bugs range in a variety of colors and tend to be on the shorter side, usually ranging from 1-1.5 cm. The People of Qu'attar mostly adopt real-world Confucianist ideals, however ever since the Qu'attar Revolution (See Brief History), the rising generation of The People of Qu'attar are adopting new ideals. Due to said Confucianist ideals, religion is generally frowned upon within the race, but nonetheless tolerated. The People of Qu'attar have put a twist on the said Confucianist ideals (More specifically Neo-Confucianism) and instead of bowing to rulers, expect mutual respect for one another, and without it, then society cannot function, however, the respect and need for rituals, knowledge, and respect for parents are essentially the same.
  • Brief History: The People of Qu'attar have been in hiding for the majority of the existence and have just ended their hunting/gathering evolution recently (about 1,300 years ago) and their small tribal villages were found a long distance away from the field by explorers once these explorers found the assassin bugs with their limited technology, they took advantage of them and used them as slaves, after about 30 years of this the assassin bugs started a revolution (The Qu'attar revolution, named after the assassin bug who led most of the skirmishes against the enemy), they were successful, and joined along other insect species as equals.
  • Political Stand: Though the People of Qu'attar's political stand is deeply influenced by their culture (See Culture), other ideas such as democracy have taken form in the The People of Qu'attar's society. Elections are held tri-yearly, and candidates are usually people who have studied political sciences or philosophy, there have been exceptions. A candidate is picked from each tribe, and then each tribe votes for another candidate (not the one from their tribe), and eventually the candidates are narrowed down to one, this ruler will see over the people for the next three years and undergo the Qu'angti ritual, dubbing them ruler. The People of Quattar's culture (see Culture) also influences politics in the sense that a ruler who does not treat his people with respect should be impeached, if the leader has committed atrocities, imprisonments or public executions will be set in place. This ruler acts as council member for the council.
    • Brown Tribe: This Tribe of Qu'attar is the largest, however, most of the Brown Tribe members are in lower society. These bugs usually pose as farmers, herders, etc. The Ideals in this tribe are mostly focused on humbleness
    • Yellow Tribe: This Tribe of Qu'attar have are more focused on progress, you can find these bugs as soldiers, scholars, etc. usually mid-low society class.
    • Green Tribe: This Tribe of Qu'attar are more focused on respect and loyalty, they can be found as soldiers, politicians, etc. usually mid society class
    • Blue Tribe: This Tribe of Qu'attar is focused on knowledge, they can be found as scholars, philosophers, historians, mages, etc. usually mid society class
    • Purple Tribe: This Tribe of Qu'attar is focused on perfection, they can be found as philosophers, historians, etc. usually high society class
    • Red Tribe: This Tribe of Qu'attar is focused on equality, they can be found as philosophers, soldiers, etc. usually mid-low society class
  • Magic: The People of Qu'attar's magic is centered mostly around invisibility, and almost all of The People of Qu'attar have the ability to change their color to a small degree.
OOC note: Confucianism, or in the case of the Oxythyreus, Neo-Confucianism, is a philosophical belief it was developed by a man named Confucius in China. Most of Confucianist beliefs are based on good behavior and moral character recorded in several books, one of the more important ones being called Lunyu. One of Confucius's more well-known sayings is 'Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.'
 
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