Bieneren (bee-ner-en)

Basic Information

Anatomy

A dimorphic, arthropod-like humanoid species. They are also uniquely one of the few female-only species in the world, and like the rachtoh, operate with a complex reproductive method.
Bieneren are typified into two actual creatures: the ruling queen-mother, and then her half-sapient offspring.
The overarching similarities between them exist in that both are humanoids with exoskeleton-and-skin bodies. The chitin covers harder parts of the body, while the fatty tissue areas are left toward being pure skin. Their chitinous faces lack a nose, and the lips are more like W-shaped ridges than something soft.
They both have compound eyes, with the center refraction (what a human might call the pupil) being darker than the rest. Two antenna jut out from the forehead, easily a foot in length. The whole of the body is covered head-to-toe in very short, fuzzy hair, giving them a supremely soft and bumble fuzzy appearance.
The queen-mother is always a large humanoid. Her enlarged breasts are always larger than her drone daughters, serving as a kind of status symbol in itself. Her hips are generally wide, though smaller queens err toward being slender. The head hair is the most pronounced, easily extending in a flowing mane down to her lowest backside if it isn't cut short.
Like her drone-daughters, a protrusion hump on her back houses the muscles for her large, crystalline insect wings, which when at rest, seem like a regal cape. Her antenna are larger and more pronounced, coming with a jagged appearance compared to her daughters' smooth ones. Above all, the queen-mother is a queen, and her physique and mannerisms suit both roles perfectly.
The drone-daughters are half the size of their mother on average, varying between small or medium. Their bodies are sexually functional, and their breasts tend to be in the A-C cup range, with slightly flat but feminine hips. Like their mother, they have a protrusion hump on their backs that controls their crystalline insect wings. They are overall light and athletic seeming, fully adapted to their role as active caretakers, fighters, and harvesters.
The color range of their body is typically in the yellows and oranges. Bands of colored body fur can appear, and take on complimentary or opposing colors, depending on the genetic lineage of the hive. The eyes of the bieneren also vary greatly, entirely dependent on genetic lineage–and so, having virtually any color possible. Both these behaviors serve as strong and consistent visual identification for individual hives.

Biological Traits

Mana Sensitivity – The bieneren need copious amounts of mana to sustain themselves, and they are supremely adept at sensing where viable mana is.
Aerial Flyers – All bieneren can fly via a source of instinctual magic, as their wings are too ill-suited to move them naturally otherwise.
Herbivores – Bieneren eat mana-rich plant matter and some 'animal products' such as milk exclusively.
Environmentally Non-Adaptive – They cannot live outside their native environmental range, easily freezing or overheating to death without technological help.

The drone-daughters, by far and large, inherit traits from their queen-mother.
Overall, the bieneren body is very active in labor of some variety. The queen-mother's near constantly active birthing needs place consistently high stress on her. Similarly, the non-stop work ethic of the drone-daughters means there is often very little downtime afforded to them that isn't simply eating or sleeping. How each hive handles these issues varies, with some being slower and allocating time to de-stressing, while others power on through. Regardless, their bodies are often overworked, so relaxation, massaging, and other physical indulgences are a premium luxury.
Their wings are virtually insensate, with only serious tears and damage registering to them. The muscular hump that controls them, though, is much like any other muscle group.
The mouth and tongue are especially sensitive, suited to detecting spoiled foods and sifting out desireables. Overall, this enhances the bienerens' effectiveness as farmers, as the drone-daughters can easily detect the different stages of plant growth.

Genetics and Reproduction

For the drone-daughters, although they possess functional sexual organs, they are completely infertile. In essence, the only reason they can even participate in the act is because it can be used to generate mana for consumption.
For the queen-mothers, there is some complexity in what they do. They are capable of taking in sperm and impregnating themselves, which transforms a growing drone-daughter into a princess-daughter. They are also equipped with an ovipositor, which can implant other fertile females with eggs. If these implanted eggs come into contact with viable genetic material, they will fuse and create a proper pregnancy for a princess-daughter. Otherwise they tend to disintegrate, though it isn't impossible for a host mother to birth drone-daughters of a queen.

Ecology and Habitats

Forests; warm, humid/seasonal climates

Additional Information

Social Structure

Queen-mothers are the supreme will in any given hive, followed by their immature princess-daughters, then their mating partners (if any). Her drone-daughters serve to fulfill her directives to the best of their abilities, taking abstract orders and making them realized actions. For much of their history, the queen-mothers imparted what knowledge they could to their princess-daughters. Their mating partners were rarely part of the equation, seen as a necessary device to continue propagation of the hive.
As their cultural mind grew and they beheld the others, the mentality of the bieneren shifted. Mating partners became spouses, and their opinions more valued as a source of entertainment and education. In a sense, between the queen-mother, spouses, and princess-daughters, a microcosm of a family emerged, served by a hive full of unthinking drones.
It is necessary to reiterate the queen-mothers do not regard their drone-daughters as disposable implements. They sit somewhere in between the concept of beloved family pets and affable, eternal children.
As for the drone-daughters themselves, they tend to take care of and observe one another. Communal cleaning, guarding, sleeping, and so forth, are the norm for them. Due to their nascent link, they're somewhat aware of each other over vast distances, making ambushing or startling the hive very difficult to do. They're capable of distributing workloads and assigning break times, insuring undue stress doesn't accumulate. However, if the queen-mother dictates otherwise, they can push themselves harder and further.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Equatorial band; principally temperate environments

Average Intelligence

Queens: Human-like
Drones: Non-sapient, highly adaptable

Civilization and Culture

Relationship Ideals

The source of many a tragic tale and beautifully short sighted romance, the other species struggle to reconcile their love with bieneren drone-daughters. Barely able to imitate the notions of intimacy and love, they nonetheless have some sense about the ideas, and can develop 'some' attachment to would-be prospects. The will of the queen-mother, however, is ever present, and these bonds can never survive her demands. Thus, a puppy love can be born and crushed just as easily. Some lucky souls may find themselves integrating into the hive, however, pleasantly tended to and kept if they never step out of line.
Bieneren queens, however, are a world apart. Haughty and noble, their outlook firmly plants them as the center of the world. Their chief concern is always the well-being of their hive, followed by whatever their prospective mate(s) could offer her in turn. Lacking many social opportunities, they are ravenously hungry for conversation and intrigue. It can be, to a point, overbearing for even the greatest extroverts.
With the advent of technology, cultured knowledge, fine art, and other engineered wonders, many races have found the queens far easier to engage. The queens, in turn, have an even wider range of desires, and the luxury of being choosy. They adopt and carry aristocratic culture well, taking a step above the usual they had in the past. They enjoy a challenge–be it intellectually, or otherwise–and thirst for stimulation in their daily life. A spirited person of some learning can be considered ideal to them, especially if they bring new experiences on the regular.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

They're fundamentally divided into two aspects: the ruling queen-mother, and her drone-daughters. Together, they form a single contiguous hive. For drone-daughters, while capable of fulfilling a given purpose, and usually smart enough to work out problems, the will of their queen-mother ultimately sustains their higher functions. Without her, they fall into a comatose state and quickly die as vital functions shut down.
The princess-daughters are conceived by queen-mothers and other queens, or more commonly, other species. These princesses are cared for until the final stages of sexual maturity sets in and they begin producing their own drone-daughters. To avoid an inner-hive war, the princesses leave (voluntarily or violently expunged) to found their own hives elsewhere. Depending on the nature of this departure, the hives may end up cooperating in a larger scheme together, or become bitter enemies for life.
Bieneren culture is somewhat oxymoronic, as there are habits born of the species, but actual hives tend to vary wildly in mannerisms. Some can be violently xenophobic, while others open their doors wide, making free access to their wonders. Others prefer community-centric work with other races, while some do not care. Thus, knowing which bieneren hive one is dealing with is an important matter.
As a whole, the bieneren are easy going and intensely intimate, both as a matter of sustaining themselves and for bonding purposes. They require vast amounts of mana to sustain themselves, and procuring this however possible is an underlying imperative for every hive. Whether it is through sex, the mining of mana rich ores/gems, the harvesting of mana rich plant matter, and so on, the drone-daughters diligently gorge themselves and their hyper specialized, high mana capacity bodies.
Upon returning to their hive homes, the engorged drone-daughters release the mana for others to consume in turn. This has come to play a pivotal role for internal hive dynamics, as the drone-daughters tend to, bond, and socialize (if in a rudimentary sense) with each other during this process. Notably, the free floating mana that isn't directly consumed translates itself into a liquid form, becoming a kind of mana-rich honey. This honey is then typically stored for later consumption as the premier food of the bieneren, but it can be sold to outsiders as well. Specially enriched food, principally fit for the queens, is produced at this stage as well.
Overseeing her drone-daughters, the queen-mother's role is more one of pampered luxury and extreme boredom. Queens naturally produce sterile drone-daughters, meaning they only need to mate to produce their princess-daughters. The natural inclination of the queens makes them largely opposed to one another, and instead seek outside species to suit this need. Still, it is not entirely unheard of, and as the world has developed more, the queens have started to see each other in a different light.

History

The earliest avenues of farming were, arguably, discovered by the bieneren. Many hives center their drone-daughters on cultivating the lands around them, selectively growing mana-rich foodstuffs for later harvest. This early, bountiful wealth in an otherwise untamed world attracted the attention of many, and so the bieneren met 'the others'.
Proto-bieneren culture had no concept of 'the self', as there was only 'the queen' and 'her daughters'. If one did not belong to either, they were 'other', and the queens believed the others to be drones of a different kind. Thus, the queens willfully killed many who trespassed on their lands or failed to heed their warnings, dragging their hives into long, drawn out conflicts. Many of the earliest queens wondered why they could not find queens of the others, which made them particular about studying their enemies more.
It was only after some decades of brutal conflict did they come to understand they were, in essence, wholesale slaughtering queen-mother equivalents. There were no drones, only queen-mothers, in a complete inversion of their natural order. It took several decades, and some centuries more, before the depths of their actions penetrated the entire 'bieneren cultural mind'.
Some hives continued on regardless and were destroyed in wars, while the remainders sought peace and brokered uneasy relationships with their scarred neighbors. Captured slaves were released, and the drone-daughters were employed to help repair villages and towns with an unrelenting precision. Once they were satisfied of such debts being recouped (even if the others did not feel this way), they returned to a reclusive lifestyle. Were it not for the need for equitable reproductive partners for a queen-mother, most hives would not come into any sort of contact with anyone else for the most part.
It would be innovation and progress that caught the reclusive bieneren's attention. The queen-mothers became intrigued by how the others created buildings, art, tools, and everything else. Though they themselves, by necessity, had a methodology for creating their hive-structures, the drone-daughters ultimately only enacted the will of the queen-mother; any sort of innovation or critical thinking was solely her responsibility. Given her own isolation from other free thinking beings, this meant actual intellectual growth was vastly constrained.
Little by little, the queen-mothers reached into the cultures of the others. They learned their languages, comprehended their strange social structure, and integrated into their drone-free societies. The end result became a curious fusion of hive-and-people, where the hives would entertain the people and engage in trade at the queen-mother's whims. For better or worse, this intertwined many towns and hives together, forging a cooperative ecosystem not really seen elsewhere in the world. The disposable nature of the drone-daughters means a great deal of dangerous manual labor can be implemented without regard for life. This heavily exploitative tactic invariably strained the relationship with the hives, as the queen-mothers did not so brutally disregard their daughters in such a light. Thus, a sort of barrier was put up, a way of controlling interaction between themselves and the others. This has, over time, afforded the bieneren queens a great deal of influence.
Though ultimately falling short of truly ruling over the others, the experience, knowledge, and capabilities of hives are quite important to them. The nobility of the others, thusly, makes certain to include the queen-mothers in their social circles and intrigue. In return, the bieneren queens provide ample resources and labor, the price of which is more art and more culture for the queens to consume.

Scientific Name

Bieneren

Lifespan

Queens: 200~ years; Drones: 30~ years

Average Height

Queens: large; Drones: half the queen's size

Average Weight

Queens: Heavy<->Moderate; Drones: Moderate<->Light

Earth Origin

Honey Bees