Kaulvrex

ECOLOGY

Environment any temperate or warm land
Organization solitary, pair, or hive (3–12)

Ancient insectile beings engineered kaulvrexes as a servitor species with proficiency in combat. They are highly adaptive creatures and can live and thrive in all but the most hostile environments, a feature that allowed them to serve as their creators’ proxies in wars (sometimes between the creators) on a variety of planets. Kaulvrexes emancipated themselves from their makers helped in part by a devastating disease that wiped out most of the creators while leaving kaulvrexes untouched.

They retained their warlike instincts but generally refuse to fight one another en masse, preferring champions to settle disputes between hives. They also retreated to more inhospitable locations on the worlds where they were stranded and maintain a distance from other habitations.

Kaulvrexes gather in hives led by a kaulvrex who becomes agendered when it assumes leadership.

Sages who study kaulvrexes do not know whether this transformation was “programmed” in by their creators to prevent romantic distractions during battle or the kaulvrexes developed this after the won their freedom. Kaulvrexes of both genders serve equally as soldiers and workers. Their bodies adapt to the role they currently carry out. Soldiers’ carapaces harden, and their musculature increases, while workers are weaker, but their third arms are defter. An individual kaulvrex usually remains in a specific role for its entire life but switching between roles is not uncommon. Kaulvrexes who specialize in their roles take class levels, with soldiers preferring fighter or monk (or, extremely rarely, barbarian), and workers choosing rogue, expert, or other skill-based classes. The most commonly encountered kaulvrexes are soldiers, who protect the hive or hire themselves out as mercenaries. Kaulvrexes who work outside a hive develop strong bonds with their partners and allies and adapt their communication to the languages spoken by other species. Among other species, they often develop odd phrases meaningful to their shared experiences and use these to replicate the chemical communication they otherwise share with other kaulvrexes. Non-kaulvrexes view this as a propensity on the kaulvrexes’ part for developing “inside jokes,” and react with a level of amusement.

Typical kaulvrexes stand over 6 and a half feet in height and weigh nearly 250 pounds. They have relatively short lifespans, appropriate to their engineered nature, with the longest-lived specimens reaching the age of 50.