R*z!'ah (<rr> <high click> <z> <low click> <break> <ahhh>)

the ancient and benevolent Queen Mother of the S*la'vn Matriarchy

Queen Mother R*z!'ah (a.k.a. the ancient mother)

ADDENDUM: this record has been altered by Council edict to permanently remove and erase all instances of the name of the Yaatu Parikaa, so that she might be utterly forgotten by history, even if her deeds cannot be.
R*z!'ah is the ancient Queen Mother and progenitor of all S*la'vn, pronounced "skla'vin" by most humans. She is not only the oldest known sentient creature on Ashvaarya, but the first known sentient being to have arrived in the world by a Cult of Terra incursion. The exact date is not known, but it is believed to have been in the late 40s pre-Sunder. It is even possible, though unlikely, that R*z!'ah and her attendants were stranded on Ashvaarya by the direct action of the cursed *REDACTED* herself.
For her entire life, R*z!'ah has been a staunch and stalwart ally and friend to humanity, and even with the Lashaan before their unmaking in the Sunder. Even after that dire event, the skla'vin and humanity worked together to rebuild their societies and explore Ashvaarya in search of remnants of the Lashaan. When those efforts were eventually given up for naught, still the two races co-operated and R*z!'ah, the great Queen Mother, and her daughters and growing hives, supported and allied themselves with their human friends.

Physical Description

Body Features

Skla'vin general taxonomy could generally be described as insectoid with mammalian and reptilian elements. Describing them in detail however can be difficult as those details can be so malleable and variable, not just between each "caste" but between generations and even individuals.
As the oldest and most revered of her people however, and as the Queen Mother, R*z!'ah is generally considered to be the baseline or standard template from which all the genetic variations have been made to and by her descendants over the centuries.
Like all skla'vin, R*z!'ah is a decapod, with six limbs serving as legs, and four as arms. She also has the universal intraskeletal body structure overlaid with thick, rubbery skin and ligaments, used to aid in temperature control, exceptionally fine motor function, and as a significant source of the being's environmental sensory information. She has the ten compound eyes of various sizes and functions, the finely tuned mouth parts and respiratory venting along the front of her head as well as the auditory sense organs along the sides. Her "face" is extremely different than that of modern workers or even the newest generation of Queens. They have had their head and sensory organ structures adjusted to better match the appearance of their close friends and allies: humans. While the efforts of these genetic alterations by the Queens is impressive and much appreciated, they have certainly not been able to fully soften the average Austurian's instinctive reaction to their first skla'vin, even the latest generation of smaller two meter bipedal workers.
The initial reaction to meeting R*z!'ah has often been abject terror however. Only the most stalwart and senior of Councillors and Administrators are granted audience with the Queen Mother, though this is as much for their own sake. R*z!'ah's appearance is unique to her, and follow the traits that defined generations of the slave Queens on her home world. R*z!'ah is so large, with so much of her body mass dedicated to genetic programming and egg production and her three sets of legs entirely atrophied, she is utterly incapable of locomotion and has very limited capacity for movement generally. She is three meters tall, but twice that in length, with approximately half her mass dedicated to reproductive organs, and the majority of the remainder being her staggeringly massive brain and strangely ribbed and articulated cranial sac. With her head and upper body nearly fused, she has some limited movement in what could be considered her torso. Only her main and auxiliary sets of triple-jointed arms have full movement and articulation, and she uses them primarily for feeding herself and gesticulating dramatically while lecturing one of the younger Queens.

Physical quirks

Much of the biological functions of the S*la'vn species are similar to humans and native Ashvaaryan life. They have specialized internal organs, require oxygen to breath, caloric material for energy, and even have a kind of sleep cycle (though it is more akin to hibernation).They also have similar sensory experiences such as a generally similar range of vision and hearing, though both are generally geared towards slightly lower frequency ranges than humans. They have a sense of smell and taste, but both are extremely limited and the sense of taste is far more dedicated to texture. They also have an added capacity for external sensory perception. Their skin can detect incredibly minor changes in temperature and humidity and even the force and direction of airflow around them in three dimensional detail. In even moderately enclosed spaces, i.e. in their hive halls, they can often "sense" others movements simply by their effects on air flows and currents.
The Queen Mother, with her unique ancient physiology has some quirks that set her apart from most of the rest of her species. Of course the most obvious of these is her overall massive size and her almost vestigial legs. Her first three daughters, the Great Queens, are still over 3 tonnes each, but they have functional legs and they can move themselves around over extremely short distances in very small bursts. Like her daughters and granddaughters, but unlike workers and warriors and the latest generation of queens, R*z!'ah has three functioning hearts. One, the smallest, is responsible for her central thorax and organs, the largest is in her massive abdomen and supplies blood flow to her great reproductive organs. The final heart is the most complicated and is actually located and responsible for her unprecedentedly large brain. So complex and highly task specialized is a Queen's brain, that she has the power to consciously direct blood flow and nutrients to particular sections. What would most accurately be translated as "mind pump" is not just a large muscle for pushing blood, but a complex system of valves for directing and controlling it.

Apparel & Accessories

Since skla'vin do not have a sense of sexuality or even social relationships in the same sense as humans and other similar species, and due to their highly robust physiology, clothing is relatively rare. Workers may wear protective equipment, tool belts, magical focus', or various harnesses in the execution of their crafts and labours, but that is typically the extent.
The Queen Mother and her daughters however do possess a sense of aesthetics, and over the centuries have directed this sense to the development of all manner of elaborately designed and finely crafted accessories. Some of this might be considered jewellery by human standards, but a Queen is just as likely to wear a "bracelet" of exquisitely embroidered linen as one of steel or copper. Their love of experimentation in the design and creation of such decorations is so extensive that hemp and flax fibre, suripaca hair, silk thread, bear and erwaan leather, and even goat hides are major imports from Austur.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Born a slave Queen to the Aeruk tribes on their shared home world of R'k'dr*s, R*z!'ah was secretly gifted with the few remaining race memories of her people by her mother, and the task of finally escaping their slavery. The Aeruk had become decadent and over confident, and R*z!'ah was able to take advantage. Raising warriors in secret, she was able to gain trust and further overconfidence from her slave keepers and eventually escape them. Carried by the great warriors she been hiding, and followed by a token group of her first worker children, she fled to the surface of the wilderness of R'k'dr*s, hoping to reach lands distant and harsh enough that the subterranean dwelling Aeruk would not follow. Much to their surprise however, and thanks to the foolishness and arrogance of the Cult of Terra, the Queen and her offspring instead escaped through to Ashvaarya, and a safety they could not have imagined.
Found eventually by the Lashaan and introduced to the still fledgling human colony of Landen, the S*la'vn were welcomed as strange and wonderous newcomers into a chaotic, if beautiful new world. The Lashaan were helpful and polite, but private and withdrawn. The humans were passionate and industrious, still building their own society on Ashvaarya, and was with them that R*z!'ah and her soon hatched daughters felt a strange kinship with. It was in those early years as R*z!'ah worked hard to adapt to her new life and build a new S*la'vn society that built a deep bond between her and humanity. She swore to repay the generosity and respect she was shown by the soft, tiny creatures.
In the centuries since, the S*la'vn people, their hives, and their new society evolved and expanded all across the southlands. And though the Queens long outgrew the need for human help or generosity, and though R*z!'ah aged and withdrew more from her public life, the bond between the two peoples warmed her hearts, and kept both people strong.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Apart from the astonishing escape from her captors on the skla'vin home world, R*z!'ah was single headedly responsible for the establishment and prosperity of her species on Ashvaarya.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

In the first few centuries of her life on Ashvaarya, R*z!'ah was entirely preoccupied with the seeding and development of her children and a new skla'vin society. As her nation and her people grew and prospered, her motivations shifted towards self indulgence and the tutoring of individual young Queens. It has been nearly four hundred years since she involved herself in the actual operation or administration of R'*dr!s'ah.

Virtues & Personality perks

R*z!'ah believes strongly in concepts of freedom, personal choice, and personal responsibility. Having been hatched and raised as a slave to the Aeruk, she was sure to instil these concepts into her offspring.

Social

Reign

The reign of R*z!'ah has lasted for almost 900 years, and there is no expectation that it will end soon. The full lifespan of a skla'vin Queen is unknown. The memory of that knowledge, if it was ever known, was not passed down to R*z!'ah's mother, and therefore not to her. The Aeruk never let a Queen live past 300, as that was when her ability to manipulate the genetics of her offspring began to fade. That ability was gone in R*z!'ah by 500, leaving it to random chance. The ability to produce eggs at all eventually faded as well by 600, which was when the Queen Mother began to lose interest in the Matriarchy at large, and began focusing on herself, and teaching younger Queens. She has lost some focus and some of her more distant memories, and she sleeps for longer and more often as she ages, but she shows no signs of decrepitude,

Family Ties

Though all her offspring, Queens, workers, and warriors alike, are genetically predisposed to follow and serve her, R*z!'ah spent many years experimenting with the genetic design of her first daughters to avoid as much genetic obedience and conditioning as possible. After unknown generations of slavery, she was determined that her people have truly free will, even if that will was turned on her. Her efforts, at least for her daughters, were successful. Each of the three first Queens hatched on Ashvaarya were born with some modicum of mobility, brilliant minds, free will, and what few genetic memories their mother was able to pass on. Such was her benevolence and love for her children, that they could do nothing but love and adore R*z!'ah in return, and all subsequent generations of skla'vin Queens have been born truly free, and come to love and respect the ancient mother in their own right.

"R*z!'ah may be a terrifying horror to behold, but I would not trade her friendship, generosity and support for all the beauty in the world."

- Marca of Port Hope, Councillor of Landen and Curiya of the Caalesh Accord (536AS)

Current Status

supreme leader and absolute ruler of S*lah Dr'!esah

Current Location

S*lah Dr'!esah

Species

Skla'vin

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Queen Mother, The Ancient Mother, Great Progenitor ... these are honorifics that have been used to describe R*z!'ah at various times by various Queens, princes, and workers over the many years of her life, but she has always been satisfied by simply being "mother" to her people.

Age

estimated 940 Ashvaaryan years

Date of Birth

unknown, estimated to be 110PS by the modern Austurian calendar

Circumstances of Birth

bred as a slave queen to the Aeruk mercantile tribes

Birthplace

unknown Aeruk tribe city, R'*dr!s

Family

S*la'vn Matriarchy

Current Residence

Hive R'*dr!s'ah

Gender

female/Queen

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

semi-opaque white-gold skin over chitinous infraskeleton

Height

3m

Weight

2600kg

Aligned Organization

S*la'vn Matriarchy

Known Languages

Though the Queen Mother's mouth parts cannot form many of the sounds needed to speak human languages decipherably, she can understand perfectly. Apart from modern Austurian, she was well versed in the older languages of the Fallen and their immediate ancestors around the time of the Sunder, such as Zwalu, Anglesh, and Portugol.