Choja

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Choja have a dark coloured, segmented exoskeleton similar to a mantis, however they are usually between 3-6ft at the shoulder, 5-10ft tall, and roughly between 4-10ft from shoulder to rear. They have 6 limbs, with 4 legs and 2 arms similar to those of a human. They have an insectoid face with short mandibles on either side of their toothed mouth, tinted black compound eyes, and a prehensile tongue, but no nose. They smell using their tastebuds similarly to a snake. They have both an exo and endoskeleton, though they lack ribs, and their spine is welded to the back of their thorax. Choja breathe both through their pores, and through their mouths, having both lungs and trachea. This makes them much harder to suffocate, although not impossible, but also more vulnerable to airborne toxins. Worker and soldier Choja both lack wings, however weavers have thin, dexterous wings that can manipulate their silk either directly or through light gusts of wind. The weavers’ wings are extremely colourful, but cannot support their weight. Queens have small, dark, vestigial wings, suitable for a Choja of ordinary proportions but not for ones of their size. They can fly while young, but after they start laying they gain too much mass to support themselves in the air. Drones have the largest wings, being able to fly throughout their entire lives. Their wings are a shimmering black, and thicker than normal so as to be less fragile. Weavers are the smallest of the Choja, being built for delicate work. Workers are the next smallest, but are much stockier than the weavers, out-massing them almost by a factor of 2. Soldiers are larger than workers, and are of roughly the same build except for having much stronger chitin. Drones are far larger than all but the Queen, and have extremely strong chitin and muscles, including wing muscles, causing them to have a noticeable ‘hump’ at the base of their wings. Queens grow much slower than the other castes, growing from the size of a weaver to the size of a drone during their adolescent stage, before their first laying triggers a growth spurt that grounds them, roughly doubling in mass before their growth slows to what the hive can support. Choja queens do not die of old age like other castes, instead they continuously grow slowly larger, eventually entering a stage of rapid mutations as they run out of space, until they start to envelop and consume the structure of the hive, become a genius loci and eventually gaining the ability to control their mutations.

Genetics and Reproduction

Choja are generally genderless, except for Queens, who are always female. They can however choose to form both male and female genitalia, with copulation being seen as a bonding activity between couples. Jumping the gender barrier is common amongst those who choose to be gendered, although it does require molting, and around a week. The female of such a coupling will sometimes ask the Queen for an empty egg if food is plentiful, proceeding to fertilise it with her partner. The couple will then raise the resulting offspring, who will work in the hive as fits their talents, breeding back with the Queen or with other hybrids to either slightly alter one of the existing castes or create an entirely new caste.

Growth Rate & Stages

Choja are lain as eggs, hatching after 7 months into nymphs. The nymphs then grow rapidly, reaching adolescence in 4 months for workers, soldiers, and weavers. Drones and queens take around 8 months to reach adolescence. They only gain full sentience as adolescents, and grow mentally into adulthood alongside their bodies, which rapidly slow their rate of growth, taking 4-5 years to grow the final 20%. Once they reach adulthood, weavers, workers and soldiers die after around 40 years, while drones die after 20, and queens can live forever. As queens never fully stop growing, a Queen is said to have left adolescence after their first laying. Queens have a massive amount of control over the genetics of both themselves and their offspring, however it can take millennia to gain the full extent of that control, and many never survive for that long. Queens die with their hives, often starving as they’re left without workers to bring them food, and no energy stores left to produce new workers.

Ecology and Habitats

The Choja live in large, underground hives, going outside to hunt and farm food. Choja farms are often hard for other races to spot, as they are intricately terraced and densely packed, with fruit trees and bushes holding the soil in place and legumes and other crops planted in between them. Due to their insectoid nature, Choja prefer warm and humid climates, building their hive entrances into hills in order to prevent flooding. They can prevent flooding with silk reinforcement to the walls of the tunnels, and can in fact build their hives entirely out of silk, however this would require an extremely large amount of silk and leave the hive vulnerable.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Choja are omnivores, capable of digesting almost all organic matter. They require a mix of meat and plant matter however in order to gain all of the nutrients they require. Choja can eat human rations, with the required amount depending on the caste.

Biological Cycle

The Choja are much less active in colder seasons, sometimes going so far as to seal entrances to the hive in winter to preserve heat in cold climates. As such they tend to mostly plan low maintenance crops over the winter, and gather a large harvest in the autumn to tide the hive until spring.

Additional Information

Social Structure

While each of the castes has a vastly different roll within the hive, none but the Queen are above each other, and most see all within their hive as equals. Couples between different castes sometimes occur, being rarer simply due to the likelihood of working alongside others of your caste, and couples of different castes can still breed.

Domestication

Sentient, though they will sometimes allow their allies to ride on their backs. they enjoy trade and are very willing to trade their silk for useful items and materials that they could not otherwise procure, but they still have their pride, and those who dismiss them as animals will quickly find themselves blacklisted.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Choja silk is of extremely high quality, and their chitin can be used to make armour. They are rarely hunted however, as retribution from the hive would be swift.

Facial characteristics

They have an insectoid face with short mandibles on either side of their toothed mouth, tinted black compound eyes, and a prehensile tongue, but no nose.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Warm, humid climates. Not found in the ‘Known World’ of Mystara

Average Intelligence

Human. Elder Queens are extremely intelligent, but only superhumanly so in regards to altering the biology of themselves and their children.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Choja have slightly worse quality of sight than humans, almost all having some degree of myopia, however they have a much wider field of vision. Their sense of touch is muted on their exoskeleton, however elsewhere it is similar to that of a human. They have a very muted sense of smell, smelling only with their taste-buds, which are more sensitive than a human’s, allowing them to taste a wider variety of flavours, and appreciate more subtle tastes. Their hearing is more acute than humans, and they can taste pheromones left by other Choja.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

They enter trade deals with other species, and sometimes domesticated animals, however they lack true symbiotes. They fall prey to many of the same parasites as other races.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Choja tend to have names formed of 2 one syllable words in Chojan. If multiple hives are in the area they may also use the name of their hive as a surname.

Major Organizations

Choja are always found in hives, unless they are exiles. Some hives do however spread their reach further, acting as messengers and information brokers between multiple hives. These hives tend to be smaller, but very spread out, often co-opting caves and underground passages for their messengers to use.

Beauty Ideals

Choja are generally sapiosexual, as there is little physical variation in appearance between different members of the same caste and hive.

Gender Ideals

Choja see gender as a minor detail, and most of them are mentally genderless, only giving themselves a biological sex if they have a partner they wish to copulate with. They tend to address most people of other races in a gender neutral fashion unless asked to do otherwise, and many of them have trouble distinguishing between the genders of other races.

Courtship Ideals

To the Choja there is not a large difference between a very good friend and a romantic partner. After rejecting or being rejected, a Choja is usually perfectly content to simply remain as friends with someone, seeing a formal relationship as merely being a way to deepen an emotional connection. For that reason, Choja courtship tends to involve long conversations, dancing between the personal, philosophical, or even just the latest gossip.

Relationship Ideals

Choja in relationships will often assume differing genders in order to make copulation easier, although sometimes they will both assume the same gender, or remain genderless. In times of plenty, couples will sometimes ask the Queen for an empty egg, and then fertilise and raise it themselves. If doing so would put too much strain on the hive however, they simply remain childless, as only the queen can produce eggs, meaning that she is required for procreation. As such, Choja see copulation as a fun and intimate bonding activity, helping each other to feel good.

Average Technological Level

Choja will use weapons and tools made from lacquered wood. Edged weapons made in this manner can be a +1 non-magical weapon due to the sheer sharpness that this technique allows, however they also degrade much faster than metal weapons. Soldiers and drones will also use lacquered armour to protect their upper bodies, which are not as strongly armoured.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

All Choja understand Chojan from birth, as it is inherited knowledge. Chojan is extremely hard for humans to pronounce, as it includes some chirping and clicking sounds that are not present in human languages. Written Chojan is a cuneiform language, with flexible grammatical rules. Some Choja also speak other languages, however this is rare unless they work and trade regularly with other races.

Common Etiquette Rules

Choja always walk through the tunnels of a hive in the manner described by the pheromone trails, and to do otherwise without great need is considered very rude and disruptive, as it disturbs traffic. They will always greet each other before touching in order to avoid surprising each other. They always bow before an adult Queen in respect and deference to her service to the hive, and have different conjugations and pronouns for each caste, and to use the wrong pronoun or conjugation is seen as a grave insult.

Common Dress Code

Choja do not usually wear clothes. Occasionally a Choja who interacts with other races a lot will drape themselves in beautiful, patterned, silk robes or a cloak, however this is usually either due to living in a cold climate or to put the other races more at ease.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Choja weave beautiful silk, and often decorate the hive with tapestries and frescoes of silk, showing events from the hive’s past. Skilled weavers are seen in a similar manner to great artists in other cultures, and hives will sometimes trade works of art between each other in exchange for food or goods. Queens have a long oral heritage, and a nymph or adolescent Queen will spend many days listening to her mother telling stories of their people’s history, until she can repeat them to her daughters. Mosaics and poetry are also commonly set into the walls of the hive, either by workers as the tunnels are constructed (in which case they are often comical stories from the construction), or as later additions by the weavers.

Common Taboos

Choja will never kill each other, and even if two hives are on opposite sides of a war, they will only fight to capture or incapacitate the other Choja, never killing them. Murder is the ultimate crime in a Choja hive, causing the guilty party to be stripped of their possessions and exiled, with a mark of shame carved into their carapace.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Choja will often trade with other species, as they lack the ability to smelt metals due to the construction of their hives. Their views on other species vary greatly depending on their hive, as queens have extremely long memories, and will remember slights or boons from centuries ago. Elves and Choja get along very well, as they can easily form a meaningful connection with a Queen, or act as a Queen often does to the other castes, remembering their ancestors and history from generations ago.

Scientific Name

Animalia Arthropoda Hexapoda Insecta Dictyoptera Mantodea Pnemona

Origin/Ancestry

Queen, Drone, Worker, Soldier, Weaver

Lifespan

16-24 years for a drone, 35-45 years for other castes. Queens do not die of old age.

Conservation Status

Sentient

Average Height

(Height at the shoulder, total height) Weavers: 3-4ft, 5-6ft Workers: 3.5-4.5ft, 5-6ft Soldiers: 4-5ft, 6-8ft Drones: 5.5-6ft, 9-10ft Adolescent Queen: 4-6ft, 6-10ft Young Adult Queen: 8-9ft, 10-12ft

Average Weight

Weavers: 50-70kg Workers: 110-160kg Soldiers: 220-280kg Drones: 750-1000kg Adolescent Queen: 120-600kg Young Adult Queen: 1000-3000kg

Average Length

Weavers: 4-6ft Workers: 4.5-6.5ft Soldiers: 6-8ft Drones: 9-10ft Adolescent Queen: 6-10ft Young Adult Queen: 10-14ft

Average Physique

Weavers look extremely skinny, workers appear stocky, soldiers vary between looking stocky and lithe, drones seem extremely large and well built, Adolescent Queens appear somewhat curvy or lithe, Adult Queens vary wildy.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Choja eyes can have almost any colour tinting the skin between the lenses that form the compound eyes, causing them to seem to have shimmering patterns of colour running through their eyes. Their carapaces tend towards darker colours, however the exact colour varies depending on the hive. They often have patterns of lines marking their carapaces in darker or lighter colours.