This House Belongs to the Bugs!

The Chiiyuk are a race of sapient insectoid aberrations that live on one of the far planes beyond the material realm. They have a commensalist (and sometimes mutualistic) relationship with the various mortal races they have come in contact with; namely, their eggs are incapable of hatching and their larvae are incapable of growing strong enough to pupate without being in psychic proximity to a large number of other sapients. Therefore, the Chiiyuk have set up hatcheries near the largest population centers, where the eggs will incubate in the communal mind stream of the local populace and thus emerge from their shells with a basic understanding of their local area.

These strange creatures look frightening to most mortals, as they are essentially very large, very heavy, armored insects. However, despite their appearance, they are an incredibly curious and friendly people whose primary drive is to learn as much as possible about the mortal world around them before they must return to their home plane and prepare for the next generation.

Upon pupation, a young Chiiyuk has gathered enough information from its hatchery zone to determine what it would most like to explore in the nearby mortal world. It will then devote the majority of its time studying this particular subject, taking copious notes (both mental and physical) to take back to the colony in their homeworld.

Examples of Chiiyuk Foci:

• A particular school of magic
• Mortal cuisine local to their region
• Local flora and fauna of the nearby environs
• Mortal visual artistic movements
• Mortal armaments and battle techniques
• Styles of music and/or specific instruments
• etc... There's a Chiiyuk for just about every interest, and vice-versa!

Chiiyuk are, in general, a peaceful race. They are, however, fiercely competitive about their studies. If two Chiiyuk in the same general area have overlapping fields of study, there will be fierce verbal (and occasionally physical) struggles until one admits that they are the lesser-informed of the two and decides to change their focus. Chiiyuk take these foci very seriously, as they see themselves as archivists and preservers of fleeting, impermanent mortal cultures; since they are unable to connect with the "hivemind" of their home world after pupation, they are solely responsible for the knowledge they obtained, and see it as a near-sacred duty to learn as much as possible and protect this information fiercely until they are able to return home.

For a Chiiyuk to die on the mortal plane, thus taking their knowledge with them to the grave and denying the Colony, is an extreme taboo. Individuals who die on the mortal plane are seen as irresponsible and reckless Chiiyuk, and are thereafter subject to full erasure from the collective mind. No one will remember one who would not bring their memories back home.

Because of this, however, some Chiiyuk also become fiercely protective of their local area and the mortals within it. It is not uncommon for a Chiiyuk to get involved in defending cities under siege, or even rushing to defend a mortal from something as mundane as a mugging. Chiiyuk, after all, gather information about the mortal world because, as a culture, they love the impermanent, wild nature of the mortals so terribly much. Someone who manages to befriend a Chiiyuk (which is not exceptionally difficult) will never find a more fiercely loyal companion. Someone who chooses to lie to a Chiiyuk, however, particularly about their chosen focus, will find an enemy for life.

Lifecycle and Reproduction

Chiiyuk have only a single "sex" and no real concept of gender roles (though mortal genders have been the source of much scholarly study and debate). Thus, all Chiiyuk are technically capable of producing eggs--however, it is a rare individual that chooses to do so, as it is ultimately the final journey a Chiiyuk will ever make.

The Chiiyuk can live an indeterminately long time on their home plane; time does not affect them the same way as it does in the mortal realm. The physiology of the Chiiyuk make it so that they must experience the conditions on the material plane to hatch properly and gain enough strength to be able to pupate correctly; Chiiyuk who are hatched in rural areas often fail to thrive due to a lack of psychic resonance to "feed" from as larvae. However, due to their strange anatomy, the material plane becomes actively hostile to their bodies after a period of time. It is physically impossible for a Chiiyuk to survive more than fifty to sixty total years on the material plane, and those who get upwards of forty start experiencing exponential degradation.

An elder Chiiyuk who decides to clutch must spend a long period in "contemplation" within the Chiiyuk archives, where they reminisce fondly about their own time on the mortal plane and also consider what "holes" in the research require attention. After a certain period, the Chiiyuk clutcher attains a burst of "enlightenment," accompanied by a flush of hormones that begins to change the body of the Chiiyuk to accommodate for eggs. In this clutching stage, the Chiiyuk is the strongest--and most volatile--it will ever be. Once it feels the presence of eggs, the Chiiyuk will set out to the mortal plane again, where it will find an appropriate hatchery site for the next generation.

The clutching Chiiyuk will then establish a safe perimeter for the eggs; this varies wildly from clutch to clutch, and depends on the life experience of the Chiiyuk who has chosen to lay. Often, however, these nest sites will be covered in elaborate traps, magical distractions, and, occasionally, "tamed" wildlife that the Chiiyuk has determined will pose no threat to the eggs but will defend the territory fiercely. Often, a Chiiyuk will choose an abandoned building, preferably one with a cozy basement to protect the eggs from undue interference. However, a clutching Chiiyuk is also capable of using their own bodies to secrete a hard, waxy material that they may use to build their own chamber to host the eggs.

Upon laying the eggs (approximately 10 to 15 per clutch, though clutches have become smaller in recent decades, much to the consternation of the elders back home), the clutching Chiiyuk undergoes one final transformation, becoming the ultimate protector: their bodies shift and become huge, their carapace straining to hold in the volatile chemicals that now surge within them. They lose much of their intelligence, and become single-minded defenders of their clutch. These Chiiyuk brooders are still not aggressive by nature, despite their enormous size and intimidating appearance; a brooder caught on the nest site will engage in multiple defensive and threat displays before ever engaging in direct conflict, as they are inherently unwilling to disturb the incredibly fragile eggs. Those eggs that do survive and hatch from a disturbed nesting ground often produce weaker offspring with significant physical and mental disturbances. While they can recover from this upon pupation, many will fail to thrive because of it.

When the eggs hatch, the Chiiyuk brooder dies, giving the rest of its life in service to the larvae, who will use its body for sustenance and protection in their vulnerable state. A Chiiyuk larvae is, at maximum length, approximately two feet long, and resembles a massive beetle grub with large eyes, large heads, and powerful mandibles. They are squishy, fleshy creatures who are at the peak of their psionic power; it is at this stage and only this stage of their lives that they are able to connect and communicate with the Colony telekinetically while on the mortal plane. The larvae absorb incredible amounts of knowledge both from the Colony (about how to be a Chiiyuk, mostly) and from their surrounding mortal presences. They do not sleep during this stage; instead, they enter into something similar to an Elven "trance" for most of this period of their lives, rarely moving. They do not need to eat or drink physical matter beyond the consumption of their brooder's remains, as the rest of their nourishment as larvae come from the psychic resonances that surround them. Chiiyuk larvae hatched in times of mortal strife, therefore, tend to pupate into somewhat maladjusted adults, often tending toward extreme caution bordering on paranoia.

Certain mortals have decided that Chiiyuk are a threat, for one reason or another; the most common refrain of the fearful is that the Chiiyuk larvae "eat memories." This is inaccurate; a Chiiyuk larvae consumes psychic energy, yes, and has access to a broad spectrum of information flowing across various individuals near the nesting site--however, it is only the *energy* that is consumed from this interaction. The information remains fully intact, save in the very rare case of a Chiiyuk larvae that has hatched wrong. This is an incredibly uncommon occurrence, and such larvae never survive to pupation due to their inability to correctly process the information they are receiving. Most larvae who suffer from this condition emerge from disturbed nesting sites--which, of course, have become increasingly common due to mortal interference with the nests when they are discovered, under the influence of hearsay and rumors. Often, the eggs--or undefended larvae--are destroyed by these poorly informed mortals intent on rooting out the perceived threat.

(Joke's on them, though. This researcher has noted that the larvae produce a psionic scream upon their death that can result in blindness, deafness, madness, or outright death depending on how close they have come to pupation. The pupated adults lose this ability.)

Other Features

Assorted fun details about the Chiiyuk:

1. Chiiyuk struggle with things like "lying," "telling fictional stories," and "creating mythologies," because they have no concept of deception in their own culture. For a species so deeply concerned with knowledge and learning, "fake knowledge" is perplexing. They may have accidentally started several conflicts with mortal races in the past due to not fully understanding the nature of fiction as entertainment.
2. The only Chiiyuk who stay on the material plane past their forties (and the degradation that comes with it) are those who are deeply involved in their studies and on the edge of a breakthrough--or ones who have bonded so deeply with their mortal companions that they find it incredibly difficult to let go and "abandon" them.
3. Chiiyuk are an extremely democratic species; every member is seen as important as every other, though elders tend to be given more respect due to their long lifespans and massive amounts of collected knowledge. All Chiiyuk are capable of laying eggs, but may only do so after an extended stay in the Archives after their "lifetime" on the material plane. Those who choose to go back and produce a clutch tend to be specimens of extreme physical and mental fortitude, and are often looked upon with something close to reverence by the others of their kind.
4. Though the Chiiyuk are a psychic hivemind on their home plane, and thus capable of easily communicating and sharing knowledge with one another at any time, they also have an extremely extensive physical archive of both written information and "souvenirs" retrieved from the material plane. This archive is the envy of many, and there are plenty of mortals who would do terrible things to have access to even a small portion of it...
5. Chiiyuk who reach the age of ten years old and have still not chosen a focus subject are seen as immature and irresponsible; other Chiiyuk can be surprisingly hostile toward these wayward youngsters.

Citations

1. Trust me bro