[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/MGIK9Hn.png[/img][/center]
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/TwQvYvo.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][h2]Summarised History:[/h2]

[b]In 2423[/b] the beginning of the [b]Orduin Empire's[/b] death blow would be dealt to it by an invasion from the southern seas between Ishtar and the continent of Lanaan. Having fought so long against invaders from the north be it elves or beastmen, the southern invasion would prove to be deadly for the once mighty human empire. But what of its invaders? The Hive Empire of the Chitijians, simply put, is a foreign empire spanning the exotic and alien southern continent of Lanaan. This alien empire is in fact a great hegemony of varied and interbred insectoid and arachnid races, many having been made eusocial as the hive-empire has assimilated these races into its chitinous whole. From its beginnings were the continent-spanning conquests of the half-breed and wasp-like Asg, who's invasion of the Orduin was initially devised as a round-about strategy to bind the once viciously warring Lanaanish colonies and hives together, who had only recently been unified prior to the invasion and who's armies only decades before were killing each other rather than humans.

While the initial invasion of the Orduin was a massive success, catching the already unstable and fracturing human imperium completely unprepared, and even reaching and sacking the empire's capital in a lethal beheading strike... The Chitijians would succumb to their simple inability to understand the human race and its mind. Once the Chitijians assassinated the Orduin Emperor and his family, the eusocial, insectoid hive-queen leadership of the Chitijians assumed that the humans as a whole would immediately fold and surrender. Instead, a long and bloody war of attrition followed, and the Chitijians who's strength lied in its vast ground armies mostly stuck in its Lanaanish territories was pushed back steadily, till restricted to just its coastal conquests in southern Ishtar.

For the following passing centuries, the Hive-Empire would struggle with its new lands and human subjects and the alien mindsets that divided them. Of particular note were the catastrophic failed attempts at which the Hive-Empire pursued the integrating of humanity into eusociality. cultural shocks, communication troubles, economic mismanagement and other problems spawned from the wildly different natures of man and bug, and some of these would be so terrible as to spawn famines, anarchy and peasant revolts - the concept of a 'peasant revolt' being alien, unfathomable to the Chitijians. The Hive-Empire would only maintain its control of its Ishtari lands at all due to the completion of its great landbridge between Ishtar and Lanaan, the newest wonder of the world built by filling in the former Lanaan Strait - a construction that would fortunately be completed in time to allow the Hive-Empires vast armies to cross over into Ishtar and finally put down the Great Rebellion of 2605, the latest of the human rebellions that spawned from yet another attempt at forcing humans into eusocial hive-cities.

Fortunately for the Hive and unfortunately for most others, the landbridge now acts as a guarantee that for the foreseeable future, the Chitijin presence in Ishtar will remain.[/center]

[center][h3]Map[/h3][img]https://i.imgur.com/2PFbmsi.jpg[/img][/center]

[hider=Species]
[b][h2]The Chitijianack:[/h2] [/b]The Chitijianack are the consisting peoples of the Hive-Empire. They are not and never have been native to the lands of Ishtar, having lived for eons on the continent of Lanaan, and only now live amongst the Ishtari due to their partially-successful invasion of the late Orduin Empire. While most foreigners of little knowledge of the Chitijianack see them as a single race, In truth, the Chitijianack are not actually a single-species but a family of related insectoid and arachnid species that due to the influence of certain races within this family, particularly the mixed-race Asg, have been over millennia capable of interbreeding with each other. The Chitijianack are overwhelmingly eusocial in nature, as the eusocial species within the family have spread their eusocial nature through interbreeding - however some non-eusocial sub-species still exist. 

It is believed by the Chitijianack that in the ancient long-lost past, they were once a single united race ruled over directly by a ‘god-mind’, a collective consciousness that had each of their bodies as mere parts of a single whole, but some great (and to those who worship this god-mind, tragic) event caused the fracturing of their consciousness into the separate yet linked eusocial peoples of the present day.

While there are dozens of Chitijianack sub-races, the most well known and populous of these to the people of Ishtar can be categorised into the Uvi (Ant) , Asg (Wasp), Asr (Bee), Vry (Spider) and Gho (Beetle), as well as the infamous though significantly less populous Pyl (Mosquito) people. The Hive-Empire’s most populous sub-race are the Uvi, though its current God-Empress is of the Asg, as the Asg people were those who conquered the disparate colonies and hives of Lanaan’s antiquity, as well as possessed the strongest ability to crossbreed and more importantly transfer pheromonal commands across sub-races.

[b][h3]The Uvi[/h3][/b][img]https://i.imgur.com/qJftRqA.jpg[/img]
Physically, the Uvi are biped and typically possess four arms, though some Uvi sub-races possess only two arms. They are covered in strong natural chitin armour, enough so that the standard Uvi soldier is often not provided any armour at all, wearing only pheromone-drenched rags or ‘loin-clothes’ or alternatively flags, as well as their weapons and shields. The Uvi are also well known for their impressive feats of strength and stamina compared to their base size, a human sized Uvi possessing the strength comparable to a large Orc for example.

The vast majority of the Uvi consist of lower-level castes made up of infertile female drones. Males are typically winged and when not making up the harems of the ruling Gyne Caste are usually regimented into elite aristocratic air-formations, as well as occasionally filling in managerial, economic or academic purposes. The Uvi, like most of the Chitijianack are matriarchal in nature, and despite males being of an elite caste, it is the fertile reproducing “Gynes” that make up their rulers, and only those of the Gyne Caste that can transition into becoming Queens of colonies. 

Some Uvi sub-species also possess ‘fertile drones’, which tend to possess more individualism and personal-awareness than regular drones. Uvi drones otherwise typically will become increasingly docile in the event of a colony’s queen’s death, to the point of not resisting someone actively killing them or simply starving to death. Drones are famous for their obedience and discipline even to the point of loss of self-preservation, Uvi drones in particular are feared for their ability to form structures out of piling on each other and linking their bodies. 

Like other Eusocial Chitijianack, the Uvi suffer from ‘deviancy’, in essence a kind of mental illness that occurs in a minority of their species. Deviancy usually appears in the form of strange and usually unproductive behaviour, idleness, strange reactions to pheromones and at times self-destructive behaviour.

The Uvi are omnivorous and capable of eating nearly anything, including even dead Chitijianack. That said, the Uvi typically eat according to seasonal tastes (often set by their queens or Gyne), rotating between fruits (and other sugary substances), plant saps, and meats. 

[b][h3]The Asg and Asr[/h3][/b][img]https://i.imgur.com/nr4keiT.jpg[/img]
Like the Uvi the Asg and Asr typically are bipeds that possess four arms, however beyond this they are notable for their wings, powerful stingers on their abdomens and very potent pheremones - so powerful that humans can even smell and be affected by them (but, unfortunately for the Hive-Empire’s social engineering attempts… not enough to become eusocial by any means). While known to possess weaker chitinous armour and natural strength compared to the Uvi, The Asg are renown as masterful conquerors and air-knights that through cunning, diplomacy and rapid strikes unified Lanaan, as well as spread eusociality through their ability to interbreed with their Asr cousins, and later even the Uvi and Pyl peoples. 

The Asg’s abilities to interbreed with other races have also enabled them to ‘steal’ the biological traits of the other Chitijianak peoples, such as Asg-Pyl hybrids with bloodsucking probscois or Asg-Vry hybrids with spinnerets. Like the Uvi, the Asg and Asr are mostly infertile female drones led by a minority of Gyne Princesses who, one per colony, can become a Queen. Males of the Asr and Asg are less prominent than with the Uvi as all females possess wings, nullifying the males advantage as elite air-knights - as such, male Asg and Asr are typically regulated to breeding purposes, often being divided up into harems for the Gyne and Queens. The Asg and Asr peoples while similar differ in some manners. 

The Asg usually prefer smaller hives to the vast Uvi-like hives of the Asr and are also more aggressive. Asr are renown architectural masters, and many of the Hive-Empire’s most prominent cities in Lanaan were built by them. The “Human Hives” that the Hive-Empire attempted to build in Ishtar for their human subjects were also built by the Asr, but these cities now are mostly half-destroyed wrecks defiled by the autonomous human governing bodies there. Asr and Asg Gynes are somewhat infamous for their tendency towards infighting - a tendency that is instinctual to the point that Larvae Gynes must be separated at birth, else they attempt to kill each other soon after exiting their Larvae-stage, and some even in the Larvae stage. 

[b][h3]The Vry[/h3][/b][img]https://i.imgur.com/bKTD8fy.jpg[/img] 
are a centauroid-type arachnid people possessing six legs and two arms, as well as spinnerets and poison. Originally non-eusocial and mostly solitary, the Vry existed as isolationist tribal kingdoms and principalities that held off Uvi and Asr invasions for millennia in Lanaan’s hyper-dense web-invested southern jungles, until finally falling to the conquests of the Asg. Since their conquests, the Vry have been over time assimilated into the hive, and after discovering that the Asg’s cross-breeding and cross-pheromone abilities worked on even them, the Vry slowly lost their individuality and too became eusocial, even eventually gaining Gynes and Hive-Queens, something the Vry never once possessed - having once been built around small ( though mostly still matriarchal) family units somewhat similar to Humans. 

While now mostly eusocial, the Vry’s caste structure is more unstable than the naturally eusocial Uvi and Asr, and their drones are mostly still reproductive and males are significantly more common. Deviancy rates amongst the Vry are also more common (cannibalism in particular is a problem amongst the Vry), and the Vry at times still have vestigial remnants of their odd practices, including at times familial bonds between smaller family units. 

[b][h3]The Gho[/h3][/b][img]https://i.imgur.com/CE9SkKf.jpg[/img] 
are very large biped beetle-like people with two to four arms and possessing extremely thick chitinous armour. quite odd amongst the Hive-Empire in that they are both mostly non-eusocial and are very patriarchal in nature, immediately separating themselves from the overwhelmingly matriarchal nature of the rest of the Hive-Empire. The Gho are solitary in nature, sometimes forming small family-units in essence the same as a human. The Gho come from distant fortress city-states deep in Lanaan’s distant mountains or on islands, who are mostly autonomous vassals of the Hive-Empire, similar to some of the human communities the Hive-Empire now maintains in Ishtar. The Gho are mostly present in the Hive-Empire as mercenary soldiers and knights used as shock troopers, and as such are renown as a race of warrior-elites. The Gho due to being both patriarchal and non-eusocial are one of the few Chitijian races that have undergone independent communication and exchanges with humans - though most of the time they enjoy fighting the human armies of Ishtar.

[b][h3]The Pyl[/h3][/b][img]https://i.imgur.com/kc9p9Wz.jpg[/img] 
are biped and either two or four armed and winged people with long sharp proboscis’ infamous for their diet including the blood of even sapient people, including other Chitijians and more recently, humans. Like the Vry, the Pyl were once non-eusocial, however the Pyl voluntarily joined the Asg as their first confederate early in their conquests, as the Pyl at the time were on the brink of extinction due to periodic genocidal campaigns against them by the Uvi Empires and Colonies of antiquity. While having become eusocial and gaining their own Gynes and Queens, the Pyl do not possess infertile female drones as normal, and instead are dominated overwhelmingly by males, with a small minority of females. Furthermore, the Pyl continue to possess an incredible lust for blood, particularly after they found human blood to be a delicacy. The Pyl are particularly loyal to the Asg due to their joint-history, though are adverse to the Uvi and Human subjects of the Hive-Empire. Pyl’s that have drunk large amounts of blood tend to glow brightly in the shade of the creature’s blood they sucked dry.
[/hider]

[hider=Government and Society]
[h3]Eusociality:[/h3] The Hive-Empire and the Chitijianack in general are most defined by their nature as eusocial beings. Eusociality in this context refers to the peoples of this empire being divided into biologically determined but highly cooperative castes, often built around the specialisation arising from either them being fertile or not, and built around extremely centralised, collectivised and hierarchal cities known as colonies or hives, typically ruled over by a singular fertile queen (per-colony). A significant majority of the hive-empire's populace belong to the infertile drone caste, that possess stunted awareness to such a degree that they are often considered by some non-eusocial academics to 'not actually be sapient' and more akin to very intelligent animals. The reality is more nuanced than this, particularly with reproductive-drones or deviant drones, but this is the case in summary.

Typically speaking, the caste system has three stages of determination. The first two stages are assigned at birth, where the Queen (and sometimes Gyne or Reproductive Drone) deliberately decides to birth either a reproductive or non-reproductive egg of either male or female sex, automatically assigning it between these categories. A female reproductive egg for example has the chance of becoming a Gyne - and as such eventually a Queen. After this initial birth, the eggs are sorted and then during the collective nurturing phase and education, Larvae and youths become obsessively committed to certain behaviours and activities, partially due to biological instincts and partially due to pheromones and societal education. From this obsession and teachings a 'point of no return' is reached, and the eusocial individual enters a specific behaviour-group Caste, such as Drone, Soldier-Drone, Nurse, and so on.

The 'obsession-fixation' that defines the membership of a Caste is seen with a willingness to commit to repetitive actions, lack of boredom, deriving happiness by carrying out that fixated task (e.g. a Nurse-Drone that compulsively derives happiness from feeding Larvae) or unhappiness or restlessness from not performing or accomplishing this task... or alternatively performing unrelated tasks excessively. This obsession-fixation is much stronger in the infertile drone-castes than the higher fertile castes, though even Gynes and Queens possess this tendency towards obsession and fixation to a lesser extent. 

[h3]Queens:[/h3] The Hive-Empire of the Chitijians can be described governmentally as a 'eusocial matriarchal feudal monarchy'. In the past, the Chitijianack typically did not have more than one queen per colony/hive, thus a single queen per nation-state. A number of Chitijianack species such as the Asg and the Uvi-Hii, a Uvi sub-species more infamously known as the "Slavemakers" became mighty ruling people because they learned how to successfully build a multi-queen empire. The current Hive-Empire while officially having a designated 'Empress' of sorts in [b]Messaphespia-Asg-Chalayanit[/b] of the capital Chayalarajashur Hive, in reality she is actually more of a 'first amongst equals' of the various queens of the Hive-Empire, having successfully conquered the other colonies and hives but otherwise leaving the queens in charge of their colonies. 

The primary original purpose of a Queen was as a breeder, long before the Chitijianack formed sapient civilisations and were still a hive-mind like swarm of creatures. Queens would, with assistance of a colony's male population, produce the vast majority if not all of a colony's offspring, usually at a very rapid rate. With the loss of the hivemind (the god-mind), the Queens achieved full sapience and intelligence, and wielding their pheromones and ability to selectively birth offspring of certain characteristics became the absolute ruling leaders of the Chitijianack races. 

That said, while the Queens are now the rulers and administrators of the empire - they are also highly sedentary, both due to their size and also the fact that their original purpose as breeders has not disappeared... as such, it is left to the Gyne Caste to more practically engage with the empire's extensive borders and territories outside the confines of the colony-hive cities. Queens very rarely lead armies and almost never leave the borders of the empire (or really even their colony-hive), they do not command operations or projects so much as they can from the confines of the queens chamber in a hive and so on. As such, the Gynes are practically speaking often considered the ruling caste and face of the empire, and foreigners often see the Gynes as the Hive-Empire's leaders, particularly since very few humans or elves have ever actually seen a queen.


[h3]Gynes:[/h3] The Gyne Caste, also known as "Gyne Princesses" are the favoured, fertile daughters of a queen. Without the limitations of the drones and possessing considerably more individuality, but not physically limited to a single hive or colony like a queen, the Gynes are usually the primarily observed leaders of the Hive-Empire. They command the armies, represent the queens interests beyond the colony-hive, oversee developments and generally act as upper-middle managers. Gynes also act as governors and administrators for settlements that are too small to possess a queen, particularly military fortifications or trade posts of significant importance. Gynes as such while technically speaking are 'royalty' and a sister of the Gynes will undergo a metamorphosis into a queen should the queen die, are more akin the the Hive-Empires aristocracy. This is particularly the case in that often Gynes are not very familial to each-other, as Gynes often must be separated very soon after hatching and raised and educated separately, else their instinctive desires to kill their sister-Gynes get in the way. Gynes are capable of meeting together and cooperating without trying to kill each other, however this is due to lengthy education and distancing, and even still they tend to view each other with degrees of distrust. 

Gynes that have been away from the pheromones of other Chitijianack for too long will, given time, begin transforming into queens - a biological instinct that has ensured the survival of their various races.
[/hider]

[hider=Religion]
[h3]Caesaropapism:[/h3] The Hive-Empire practices caesaropapism as the Chitijians are naturally inclined to view their colony’s local queen as a mother goddess-like figure regardless of institutional religion. While there have been attempts to make Messaphespia, the Queen-of-Queens of the Chitijians into a kind of God-Empress, the reality of the situation is that the Chitijians now rather venerate their local colony’s queen as a deity that exists within a pantheon of fellow queen-goddesses, with Messaphespia too distant for her pheromones to have the same impact on distant colonies as her own personal demesne. This mother-goddess queen worship is typically quite familial in nature, and is defined by the relationship between the ‘colony-children’ and their benevolent-mother.

A second and more esoteric religion amongst the Chitijians is God-Mind worship, venerating the ancient collective consciousness that was lost eons ago, and perhaps even wishing for its return. Due to the natural inclination toward Queen-worship, these God-Mind worshippers often have either deviant tendencies or otherwise go through great mental efforts to fuse their natural queen-worship with God-mind worship. God-Mind worshippers tend to practice extreme collectivism, bending their eusocial bonds and connectivity to such extremes as attempting to become ‘one’ again, and sometimes try to bend their caste roles so to form a 'single organism in many bodies'.

Finally, the Hive-Empire’s conquered non-eusocial subjects, such as its human populace, continue to worship local deities and follow native religious practices. Attempts by the Hive-Empire to spread its queen-worship to humans have mostly failed alongside the general catastrophic failures of attempts to implement eusociality on humanity. Some fragmented deities of the client Lanaanish non-eusocials, such as the Gho and Vry, also exist in a greatly reduced form. Uchitagnisk, the Ghottish war god, is still worshiped in the Hive-Empire.
[/hider]

[hider=Culture]
[h3]Language Barriers:[/h3] The Chitijianack peoples speak numerous languages... all (except one) of which are extremely difficult for humans to understand, let alone speak. Similarly, the languages of the humans are also just as difficult for the Chitijins to speak and understand. Only a very small minority of linguistic genius' can safely claim to be able to understand and speak both a human and Chiti language, and for this reason direct spoken communication between man and bug is a tightly controlled exchange monopolised by organised translators of that very same linguistic genius. While there exists an alternative, known as agsteh, this language is actually a foot-based form of dance-like sign-language, invented by the Uvi as an early means of communicating with other non-Uvi peoples of Lanaan. While also very difficult for humans to understand, it is significantly more learnable and understandable than the inhuman chirps, clicks and buzzes of the spoken languages. 

Further complications arise from the fact that until very recently, the Chitijianack did not use written language, and instead used a form of pheromone-based saturation language where they embedded scents of various kinds into woods, clothes and sponge-like stones so to convey messages akin to writing. Most of these pheromones are unreadable to the average human, with only a few very potent Asg pheromones being able to be smelt by humans. As such, the Hive-Empire to deal with foreigners or its own human subjects had to either learn existing human languages, or, more recently, experiment with the creation of a new and currently pictographic-like language that would be printed onto the pheromone-saturated messages.

Because of all these translation and communication issues, it is very common for translators, transcribers, interpreters and linguists to find employment with or concerning the Chitijians. Gho mercenaries in particular are famous for while being able to read and write in human languages, to have a human aide accompany them for the sole purpose of listening to those around them and to write messages to the mercenary so he may comprehend events.

[h3]Alien Morality - Rebellion:[/h3] The Chitijianack possess beliefs and world views that are at times significantly at odds with the rest of the world, if even understandable - that said, they do in fact possess moral beliefs of their own. A prime example of this clash of moral values can be seen with the Chitijianack's views of rebellion and defiance. Rebellion prior to interacting with humanity was not known to the Hive-Empire and the Chitijianack that comprised it. The idea that drones could independently revolt against their own colony and queen was simply not thought possible, until finally faced with repeated rebellions from human peasants and nobles, as well as learning of the Ishtari realms past rebellious acts of not only sworn vassals to a lord, but of children against their own parents. 

Since these times of blissful ignorance, the Chitijianack now understand rebellion intellectually enough to understand it as a form of cardinal sin or great evil, a deeply immoral act rooted in what they see as a kind of matricidal treachery. Rebellion as such is seen as not merely wrong but 'morally revolting' in a way that, say, paedophiliac rape would to the average human. Because of this deep revulsion, the Chitijianack will view rebels as evil regardless of conditions or circumstances, even when a human kingdom would view the rebels as heroic. If a, to humans, virtuous prince returned from exile to slay his evil tyrant father and become king - it would be the prince that the Chitijianack view as evil. Due to this deep revulsion, human peasant rebel leaders against the Hive-Empire are punished very severely, being one of the few examples where the excruciating 'Incubation' method of execution is used.

In recent years however, there have been some developments of this moral position. Due to increased interactions with non-eusocial Ishtari through trade with the Tsardom of Karynia, some leaders of the Hive-Empire have started to develop theories of political understanding concerning acts of rebellion that are not necessarily 'Matricide-Treachery'. The growing 'legitimacy theory' have Chitiji advocates of this theory suggest that some rebellions are actually counter-coups or restorations of legitimate power stolen from past rebel acts, and therefore are not matricide-treachery. Another theory is the "Parasite theory', which suggests that certain states are in fact ruled by foreign agents that have hijacked a hive from within and are exploiting it for purposes counter to the hive, as some parasitic fauna attempt against Chitiji drones in Lanaan, and thus rebelling against these foreign influences are not matricide-treachery. A third (and highly controversial) theory was developed upon learning of Ishtari slavery, which suggests that a foreign slave captured and brought to a hive that then rebels is not committing matricide-treachery, since those they are rebelling against are not their own. This third theory is particularly controversial, as the implications would imply that the original humans that rebelled against Chitji rule were not committing Matricide-Treachery (though latter human rebellions would still be considered rebels).

[h3]Capital Punishment - Incubation:[/h3][img] https://i.imgur.com/Kgvv1us.jpg[/img]
Incubation is a particularly cruel form of capital punishment used by the Chitijians on those who commit what they see as irredeemable offenses. With rebellion seen as particularly immoral, human peasant rebel ringleaders have been the most common receivers of this form of punishment, though in very rare historical events - some deviant Gynes who have attempted treason in the past have also received this punishment. 

In essence, Incubation is surgical insertion of a Chitiji egg or sometimes a larvae into the body of the prisoner, who is then over weeks or even months slowly gnawed away at from within, the growing Larvae eating the prisoner alive from within. Incubation is actually a natural nursing method of some Chitijianack sub-species, though typically the Hive-Empire avoids unnecessarily growing their Larvae inside sapient beings and instead using animals or corpses. The process of Incubation is extremely painful as one could imagine - and somewhat insidiously, the Larvae within following its natural instincts will actually attempt to avoid killing its host, so to maintain its food source for a longer period of time... and thus unwittingly providing a longer period of torture.

[h3]Lack of Privacy:[/h3] In Chitiji society, the concept of privacy is relatively limited and generally speaking it is considered questionable and anti-social. Drones have no privacy at all, always living amongst throngs of other drones. Even Gynes, while considered exceptionally selfish and self-absorbed even by human standards, are in fact quite social and are nearly always surrounded by if not other Gynes or male retinue (or harem members), at the very least they will have attending drones. Similarly, Queens have no privacy despite their full sapience, and are always surrounded by others. 

Living quarters in colony-hives are extremely cramped and communal based. Drones live in small bed-capsules perfectly carved out of walls beside other capsules, with no personal rooms, usually sharing a 'common' room with their fellow working caste cohort group. While higher ranking caste members, such as male aristocrats, have their own 'apartment-like' rooms, they possess no doors or privacy measures and it is customary for Chitiji to simply walk into other Chitiji's rooms. Even Gynes with their 'private' stately rooms equivalent to a human aristocrats are in fact still communal, with a Gynes attendants living in the same room, usually in capsules built into the room's walls.

Feeding areas are large halls and common-rooms, kitchens are mass-communal areas, drones will even defecate in open view of each other (though in designated communal defecation-areas). Clothing is rare and considered aesthetic luxuries of Gynes, the 'strange human-cloths' being exotic fashions rather than means of maintaining privacy over one's form.

Chitiji that are separated from others for too long or prefer to be alone are often put under suspicion and considered potential deviants.
[/hider]

[hider=Economics]
[h3]Production:[/h3] The Hive-Empire due to a large majority of its populace being drones with limited wants and desires and who's existence is fixated on specific tasks and goals has an economy far more centrally planned than what human economies would allow, with a closer orientation towards distributionist-type economics than even feudal-lords where resources are nearly totally gathered and used by a fully aware sapient elite (gynes and queens) and then divided up and distributed to drones with little in the realm of transactions. Prior to the gaining of human subjects and trade with foreign non-eusocial nations, the Hive-Empire possessed no form of currency. Since the need for currency was gained however to deal with species less willing to accept the hyper-unequal centralised system of the Hive-Empire, the Hive-Empire now uses 'tecks', the currency of measured and weighted precious metals of the once Orduin Empire that the Chitijians destroyed. Trade between the Hive-Empire and foreigners exist, however this trade is not performed by merchant guilds or peddlers as the Chitijianack have no real 'merchant class', and instead is performed by what the Chitiji consider 'merchants' but are in fact just diplomatic emissaries representing individual Gynes or Queens, or alternatively the Hive-Empire itself as a state purchasing foreign goods. It should further be noted, while the majority of the Hive-Empire possess little to no personal wants, this is not the case with the Gynes and Queens, the former in particular often go out of their way to personally acquire foreign luxury goods from the non-eusocials.

[h3]Trade:[/h3] The Chitijianack people as a whole have little need for trade, being mostly eusocial drones - as such, the vast majority of trade performed from the Hive-Empire is transactions made from and to the Queens and, more often, the Gynes. Queens performing trade agreements and transactions are usually doing so as a representative or leader of the Hive-Empire and as such an agent of the state... however many Gynes who trade usually do so for their own personal interests, and as such the most lucrative trade of all between the Hive-Empire and non-eusocials is the trade of luxury and exotic goods, usually Gynes trading exotic Lannanish goods or some technological innovations in return for the luxury goods (what they would consider 'exotic') of the non-eusocials for their own pleasure. After luxury goods, the next primary import of interest for the Chitijianack is magical trinkets, artifacts, tomes and anything of arcane knowledge or power - as the Chitiji themselves possess little in the realm of magic or magical theory, they desire to understand and perhaps use the knowledge of others in this field. 

Exports are such typically but are not limited to spices, herbs, alchemical ingredients, exotic fruits/honey/foodstuffs, incense, tobacco, (spider) silk, cocoa and dyes, plus gunpowder technology and occasionally metals/materials when in significant surplus and not in a state of war.

Imports are usually various luxury goods including wine and other alcoholic beverages, sugar and sugar-based foodstuffs, ivory, wool, furs as well as certain degrees of luxury completed goods such as furniture, jewellery, glassware, porcelain, art and so on. The Hive-Empire as a state will also collect magical knowledge and objects from those countries willing to sell magical knowledge. Similarly but more rare are the few Gynes with magical ability (or those with none but interest in the topic) attempt to travel to foreign nations to learn magical theory from mages willing to teach them.

Due to the geopolitical situation of Ishtar, despite being a vast trans-continental empire with a great deal of tradeable goods, the Hive-Empire has little in the realm of trading partners on Ishtar, as most of its neighbours are either hostile states defending their borders from the Chitiji invaders, wish to reconquer lost lands from them, or in general are either allied to enemies of the Chitiji or otherwise for one reason or another (such as the Chitiji's alien moral beliefs) have poor relations. For this reason, the Tsardom of Karynia, a nation with a uniquely neutral position towards the insectoid invaders and an openness to trade (despite the Chitijian's landbridge greatly gutting pan-Ishtari trade routes by sea) is possibly the greatest if not sole monopolist of trade between Lanaan and Ishtar, and so massive wealth flows through the Tsardom comparable to its neighbours. The Spice and Gunpowder trades in particular are well known to be controlled mostly by Karynian merchants. 
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[hider=Military]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/zDKnTbV.jpg[/img]
The Chitijian military, despite the beliefs of most of the rest of the world - is in fact not a shapeless horde of crawling monsters. Perhaps it has been too long since the great invasion, or perhaps the poets and actors have over-stated and altered the nature of their insectoid antagonists to better pit them against the singular heroics of dashing men. The truth however, is... far, far worse.

For while the Chitijians are known for their seemingly countless number and tendency towards mass assaults, it is not in acts of animalistic fury - but organised precision, as though acting as many parts of a great organic machine. The Chitijians are in many ways, just as capable of tactics and strategy as their human counterparts. Just as willing, perhaps even more so due to their lack of magic - to innovate with technology. It was the Chitiji that brought the fear of gunpowder to Ishtar, after all. When the skies were filled with the horror-buzzing of Asg with their lances and arrows, it was not a shapeless mass of bodies in the skies, no, but carefully drilled formations formed into V-like figures, sweeping down and rising again in lightning strikes. And so on and on, man learned and tragically forgot it seems, that their foe were no mere beastman horde - it was a regimented army much like their own, just of monsters.

[h3]Earthworks and Double-Siege[/h3]
With horror, the human defenders of the Orduin Empire found that their bug-like adversaries were just as willing to construct fortifications as they were, revealing themselves to in fact be masters of earthworks. Trenches, ditches, ramparts, stakes and mounds - and anything else worthy of transforming the earth for. Even in the midst of battle, soldier-drones will slave away to construct defensive structures and traps to funnel the enemy while building advantageous terrain for their own forces. The Chitiji swarmed forth yes, but they constructed rapid wooden forts, even building fortifications around besieged castles to solidify encirclements and to even endure attempts to break sieges by reinforcements by creating a 'double-siege'. It should be honestly to no surprise that creatures renown for building great hive cities and for successfully building the Landbridge of Lanaan would also be experienced military engineers. 

[h3]Gunpowder[/h3]
The Chitiji were the first to discover gunpowder. Always limited in their magical prowess, the Chitiji often attempted alchemy to artificially create magic without the inherent abilities. While they failed in this objective, they instead accidentally discovered gunpowder and the explosive capabilities of certain chemicals and materials... which were then applied in the great wars of Lanaan's unification, and then finally brought across the strait into Ishtar during the invasion of the Orduin Empire.

The Chitiji as such possess a number of various gunpowder-based weapons. Though mostly using the old fire-arrows, fire-lances of Lanaan's unification, the Chitiji also brought rocket-based siege engines in their conquest of Orduin, and later have started developing more intricate artillery-like engines made of bronze and some of iron, as well as carriages that carry many fire-arrows at once. Despite the Chitiji's gunpower invention, their invasion has seen the discovery of these early 'firearms' of sorts to the rest of the world, and their trade with the Karynians have facilitated the trading of gunpowder and gunpowder-based weapons and knowledge out of Lanaan and into the hands of other nations who in turn trade with the Karynians.

A particularly infamous weapon of the Chitijians is the Jiyyikvii Chariot, or simply the "Fire Carrier-Chariot", a slow (relative to horses) carriage drawn by a large Gho sub-species known as the Ghov'a, which were selectively bred into total submission/domestication by the Uvi-Hii (Slavemakers). The chariot is then armed with a small multiple-firing siege engine firing either Chitiji rockets or fire-arrows. 
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