awl-luhk-sahr
I am Oluxar : They are Oluxar : It is Oluxan : This is about the Oluxar
Also known as Wastewalkers, The Swarm
I am Oluxar : They are Oluxar : It is Oluxan : This is about the Oluxar
Also known as Wastewalkers, The Swarm
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The desolate wastes of the Sphere are home to many strange and terrible creatures. Amidst the wastes on many worlds stand tall Hive-Cities of stone and salvage inhabited by the Oluxar, insectoid creatures who stand dominant among all the creatures of the wasteland. Living in great colonies built atop the ruins of ancient cities, Oluxar have a highly structured society centered on a Queen whom all within the city serve. The Queen is attended by nobles, scholars, and magicians called K'Tiva. Worker drones called K'Tui do all the manual labor while soldiers called K'zhent protect the city and their Queen. Hunters called K'varyk venture out into the wastes in search of food, resources, and salvage that could be of use while K'jora craft salvage into goods that drive the economy.
Peaceful ScavengersWhile these scavenger-folk may seem sinister and alien to many, their hearts and destinies are no less noble than those of any other Mortal. Outside the hive, Oluxar are often treated as monsters, despite their obvious intelligence and capability for Mortal speech. Many of the more urbane folk tend to fear Oluxar for their inhuman appearance and inability to display typical mortal emotions and social cues. Yet despite their fearsome appearance and the dreadful stories told about them, most Oluxar are peaceful by nature, and their Hive-cities rarely war with anyone. Oluxar are primarily scavengers, going to great lengths to avoid conflict and only fighting when no other option remains.
The LIFE of an Oluxar
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"Meat from the legs, arrows from the bones...don't throw that away, we can use it!" |
Social Insects
The Oluxar are highly social, and their cities are each ordered into a strict hierarchy based on biology. Even the (exceedingly rare) Oluxar who do not hail from one of the great Hives are born with an innate sense of community and an instinct to place the good of the tribe above their own welfare. Without a second thought, an Oluxar will lay down his life for the good of the hive, not because his life isn't valuable, but because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. It should be noted that an Oluxar can come consider non-Oluxar as part of the hive, especially those he spends his time around and forms relationships with.
Oluxar don't express their emotions or display social cues the same way that other Mortals do. Their faces are expressionless, nebulous, and insectoid. Instead of using facial expressions, Oluxar communicate their emotions and show proper social cues through scent. Such scents are incredibly nuanced, complex, and articulate a vast array of thoughts and feelings. Their fellow Oluxar detect and understand these subtleties as easily as one Mortal can read the mood of another with a glance. Even with years of experience, non-Oluxar simply don't have the olfactory capacity to differentiate the myriad of subtle notes to an Oluxar's scent. Most Mortals who deal with Oluxar just complain that they smell strange.
Oluxar don't express their emotions or display social cues the same way that other Mortals do. Their faces are expressionless, nebulous, and insectoid. Instead of using facial expressions, Oluxar communicate their emotions and show proper social cues through scent. Such scents are incredibly nuanced, complex, and articulate a vast array of thoughts and feelings. Their fellow Oluxar detect and understand these subtleties as easily as one Mortal can read the mood of another with a glance. Even with years of experience, non-Oluxar simply don't have the olfactory capacity to differentiate the myriad of subtle notes to an Oluxar's scent. Most Mortals who deal with Oluxar just complain that they smell strange.
THE HIVE IS ALL
It's exceedingly rare for anyone to encounter an Oluxar outside the context of their Hive. Life in the wasteland is such that a lone creature does not survive for long, thus the Oluxar have only become masters of their realm by banding together. They stick to a strict social hierarchy in which one's lot is decided at birth and each individual is fully expected to lay down their life, rights, and freedoms for the sake of the Hive. Adventuring Oluxar are either exiles or specially chosen to go on a mission for their Queen. One will almost never encounter a lone Oluxar that can freely come and go from the Hive.
insectoid
The Swarm have unique bodies that walk upright as other Mortals, but are mostly insectoid with a thick exoskeleton, a compound set of eyes, mandibles, antennae, and six limbs which are controlled separately from one another. Most Oluxar are proficient in using all of their limbs at once, wielding multiple weapons or tools in union or keeping a spare arm or two free for other tasks. Those who practice for war often focus on toughening up their exoskeleton to serve as natural armor, bolstering the defenses of any light armor they choose to wear on top of their hard-plated carapace.
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INSECTOIDYou have two pairs of arms, allowing you to equip extra weapons or shields, carry more things at once, or keep open for utility purposes. You have Disadvantage on all social Feats made to interact with non-Oluxar.
AdvancedYou can use an Asset to unlock the Advanced version of Insectoid which gives your thick carapace the capacity to act as natural armor, granting you Advantage on all Defense Feats against conventional (non-magical) attacks while you wear Cloth, Light, or no armor.
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kuh-joor-uh
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Merchants, craftsmen, and artists with an eye and talent for beautify. K'Jora occupy an important niche in Oluxar society, functioning as the sturdy backbone of a Hive's economy. Their job is to restore or re-purpose everything that is brought into a Hive through trade, theft, or scavenging. All day long, the workshops of the K'Jora are buzzing with activity as the artisans and merchants break down items into valuable components or restore them to new life for use or for sale. As artists, K'Jora are passionate creatives...yet as business-bugs, they are inherently practical and approach everything with a mind to risk versus reward. Before any adventure, engagement, or task is to be undertaken, the K'Jora must ask...how much will this cost in effort, coin, time, blood? And is the cost worth the reward?
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AppearanceK'Jora stand at about six and a half to seven feet tall with large, compound eyes of an amber hue. Their carapace is yellow with bony protrusions along the spine and joints. They have two long antennae which curl upwards from the top of their head. |
HomelandK'Jora can be found living on the ground levels of a Hive-City, where visitors to the city are welcomed to trade, rest, and spend their coin. Here, the businesses and workshops of the K'Jora are always buzzing with activity and flowing with goods and coin. |
kuh-tee-vuh
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K'Tiva are Oluxar royalty and nobility, the favored children of the Queen who attend to her directly. As such, they wield absolute power within the Queen's Hive-City, speaking on her behalf and carrying out her wishes. Typically, K'Tiva are the only Oluxar who are literate, educated, and magically trained and enjoy a litany of luxuries due to their station in life. Naturally, they are also the rarest type of Oluxar; a Hive of average size typically only has about a hundred or so K'Tiva at any given time. Their ranks are rife with treachery and one-upmanship as each K'Tiva's only interest in life is getting closer to the Queen and earning her favor. It is exceptionally rare for any K'Tiva to get their hands dirty as they prefer to accomplish their goals through various proxies (and thus maintain plausible deniability should a plan go awry).
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AppearanceK'Tiva are tall and wispy with a light green carapace and several antennae and other sensory fins protruding from their heads. Their compound eyes are a pinkish hue and they dress in fine clothes. Their joints bend at odd angles, giving them a distinctive stance and movements. |
HomelandK'Tiva occupy the upper reaches of a Hive City, living and dying in close proximity to the Queen. Few ever venture even a floor below their luxurious homes and fewer still ever see (or care to see, for that matter) the world outside the Hive. |
kuh-too-ee
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The heart and soul of every Hive is its workers. The K'Tui are a people born with great physical stamina, strong work ethic, and an uncanny ability to always see the bright side. They are simple folk who take great pride in a job well done, who love the simple things in life, who always do their best with a smile (or what passes for a smile among the Oluxar). While friendly and sociable, most K'Tui are also very simple-minded, preferring the purity of their work to politics, philosophy, or culture. Why worry about such high-minded ideals when there's work to be done? The K'Tui don't bother themselves with too much thinking. Theirs is to work hard, live simply, and find joy in life wherever it can be found - among friends, family, and the good kind of tired that comes at the end of a long, productive day.
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AppearanceK'Tui are tall and broad, standing at around seven feet tall, their green carapace bulging with muscle. Their compound eyes are amber in color and smaller than other Oloxuar. Stout green antennae point straight back off their thick skulls. |
HomelandK'Tui live in the lower reaches of a Hive-City, burrowing cramped homes and workplaces deep into the earth. It is not uncommon for K'Tui to visit other areas of the Hive-City when there's work or maintenance to be done and many even till the fields outside the walls of the Hive. |
kuh-vehr-ihk
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The Oluxar are many things, but most infamously, they are scavengers, scraping what living they can from whatever lands they inhabit. And in this function, the K'Varyk play a key role as scouts, hunters, and foragers, roaming the wastes in search of resources that might be valuable to the Hive. Nothing is off the table for a K'Varyk hunting party; not only are they able to think of a hundred uses for anything they might take, but they are also notoriously ruthless in dealing with obstacles and threats. The K'Varyk are masters of subterfuge and fear, using their enemy's own mind against them to win an engagement without ever resorting to violence. K'Varyk are swift, cunning, and merciless when on the hunt, stealing or scavenging anything that isn't nailed down, all for the betterment of the Hive.
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AppearanceK'Varyk are truly terrifying in appearance, standing at a spindly seven feet of grey, slick carapace. With beady black eyes, a long vertical mouth of pointed mandibles and spindly (non-functional) legs skittering from the chest, K'Varyk are quite terrifying to most Mortals. |
HomelandK'Varyk rarely spend their time within the Hive, living instead off the land where they hunt and scavenge. When a K'Varyk must return to the Hive, it is only for a brief time to unload their haul and resupply before heading back out on the next hunt. |
kuh-zehnt
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The enemies of the Oluxar are many and the stone walls of the Hive-Cities are only so strong. The Hive's true strength lies not in its many weapons, it's cunning craftsmen, or its outside alliances. The true might of the Hive is found in the courage and ferocity of its guardians, the K'Zhent. Blessed with great physical stature and a lust for battle, the K'Zhent protect against threats both inside and outside city walls. Make no mistake - the Oluxar are generally a peaceful race, preferring to resolve conflicts through diplomatic channels as this is the most beneficial (and the least wasteful) path for all parties involved. However, when a fight needs to be won, the training and ferocity of the K'Zhent is called upon and these warriors are combat-hardened from the time of their hatching until the moment of their inevitable death on the battlefield.
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AppearanceK'Zhent are the tallest and most powerful of the Oluxar, standing over seven feet high and bursting with muscle. They have large, yellow compound eyes and carapaces of blood-red with long antennae that curl outwards from just beneath their eyes. |
HomelandThe K'Zhent make their homes in the second tier of the Hive-Cities with several watch stations posted throughout each tier for maximum efficiency when responding to a threat or emergency. Wherever danger lurks, a K'Zhent is likely waiting nearby to meet it. |
