Author Topic: Bee folk  (Read 1535 times)

Offline ImperatorK

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Bee folk
« on: May 27, 2013, 05:59:02 PM »
Abeil, to be more precise. How does an Abeil hive look and work? I know there's probably not much official about that, so I'm open to ideas and suggestions about Abeil society, architecture and whatever else you can think of.
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Offline Chrononaut

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Re: Bee folk
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2013, 07:32:06 PM »
Beeeees

As an amateur myrmecologist (and by extension hymenopterist) Abeil intrigued me a lot as well.

First other sources to check are the Thriae, the PF update to them, in Bestiary 3, which made them into greek oracles as a society.

Anyways just basing it on what MMII said, Abeils seek economic dominance as opposed to the Formian's military supremacy. Not to mention the worker caste is fully independant and intelligent, so the Hive Mind feature is more like free wifi instead of mind control.

I would imagine an industrial disposition combined with a communal need would tend to produce clustered cities with traders flying out to neighboring towns and cities or Abeil hives to advertise. An Abeil settlement would probably be one part vertical fortress, capitalizing on their ability to fly and the focal point having a queen and a desire to rest together would generate and one part sprawling bazaar/market/souq, where visitors can see the merchants hawk their waresAbeil all seem to put ranks in survival and knowledge (nature), if I'm recalling what wilderness lore was turned into, along with regular knowledges, so it's likely that they're used to spending long times away from their hives with only their bands for company.

Discussions of subjective morality related to facism aside, Abeil Queens can direct their servants with supreme precision, which might mean a given colony specializes exclusively in things like shipwrighting, construction, carpentry, textiles, finance or agriculture. Since they appear to be more in tune with nature than Formians they'd probably not strip mine everything around them either (not unlike how bees have their niches while ants tend to overrun everything until something stops them).

Obviously when you think industrialists you think germans, japanese or detroit. Historically Islam has been strongly associated with trade, along with the british and romans in more recent times and in antiquity. So you can definately draw upon any or all of those cultures as inspriations. Heck, one Abeil family line might be a bunch of severe industrialists with a penchant for techno and metal while another are devout and religious traders with ruthless bargaining skills.

Abeil are by definition matriarichal. Depending on how close to bees you want to play them, everyone but a select few lazy and indolent drones chillin' in the palace would be female too. They'd probably find communications misunderstandings amusing or sad, when you can read everyone's mind. They would certainly communally raise children, and might not pair bond. Abeil who aren't typically sent out to deal with non-Abeil, like workers living in the colony and such might have no idea how to react or treat one of them. Heck, they might not even be able to talk at all, relying entirely on their hive minds for communications to the point that they'd need extensive training to actually vocalize anything.

The text does mention individualistic pursuits, so it's more likely a consensus rather than the Queen being the absolute dictator, and they likely don't begrudge Abeil who leave their colony for adventure, and many might send them out for trade.

I hope that helps a bit! Try to avoid the honeycomb motif, they don't make wax afaik in their entries.