Population: 21,764,580,000
Populous: Thrikreen, Felinxes
Trades: Exotic Natural Medicines
Planets: Thrykka, Kytyka, Tykkree
Type: Sphere
The Thrykka Sphere, home to the Thrikreen is perhaps the first sphere to not only return to its original population, but to almost eradicate any visual evidence that they were ever attacked. The Thrikreen have actually improved their way of life in many different ways.
When the Outsiders attacked Thrykka, they used their Psionic powers to take over the Thrikreen. Though no one knew who the Outsiders were at the time, it is now well known that they were Drow backed by Illithids from some other realm that were trying to take over the Known Realm. At the time, although the Thrikreen had many birthing females, they had only one ruling Queen that had a psionic hive mind like connection to them all. The Illithids controlled the Queen to take over every other Thrikreen in the Sphere. They were used as the main ground soldiers of the Outsider wars, being forced into killing billions of beings across the Known Realm.
Thrikreen have since worked diligently on going against thousands of years of instinct and social structure to adapt themselves into separate Hives. They first experimented with sending out separate ships into the Realm each with a Queen on them. These ships were controlled separately from the home hive mind. These experiments were deemed successful and the concepts were implemented across Thrykka.
There are at least a hundred thousand Hives each with hundreds of thousands of Thrikreen associated to them, and each with its own Hive Queen. Although there are physical Hives cities on the home world where the Thrikreen are born, they do not necessarily stay there. They will move out to other hive, or into space and in time may link to other queens, but they always share a special bond back to their original Hive. Additionally, other Thrikreen can easily tell what hive any Thrikreen is from though most other beings think they all look the same. The Queens keep in contact with each other, however there is no one single Queen controlling a hive mind.
In a move that may seem strange to outsiders, the Thrikreen tested their new resilience by having one hive queen attempt to take over all of Thrykka. She and the Thrykreen under her were attacked and slain within one day. Although most beings don’t understand how this is a “test” as the Thrikreen were actually killed, the Thrikreen saw it as a necessary step to examining and proving their new social system functions. A temple of sorts was erected on the chard rubble of the Hive City in remembrance of their sacrifice for the good of all Thrikreen.
Although there may be some Elves or other long lived races left that still harbor some hatred toward the Thrikreen, most humans and other races consider hatred of the Thrikreen something their grand father’s felt, but not them. Most understand that they are no longer a real threat, and that they never meant to cause any of the harm in the first place. The hatred instead has been redirected to the Drow for the most part.
Many Thrikreen are extremely viscous warriors; however, they never kill their own kind without excellent reasoning and cause. They never fight unless absolutely needed, and they don’t kill in general unless they know the reasoning is sound. Don’t count on a Thrikreen to be a saint however. They understand that biting a human’s limbs off won’t kill him.
Thrykka
Thrykka has been the home world of the Thrikreen for thousands of years. The translation of its name literally means “the middle boddy” or the center section of the body. Metaphorically, it is the Thrikreen’s way of calling the planet the heart of their society. Little is known about its early history as the Thrikreen have no written history. Their short life span of 30 years at most and the fact that they are always active and never sleep makes even events from a few hundred years ago seem like ancient history to them. Couple that with the fact that they build mostly out of wood and have no social desire to keep old things around (even ships and buildings of historical importance are ripped apart and used to make new ones without hesitation) and it is easy to see how there is no knowledge of how the Thrikreen lived before they invented space travel.
The planet itself is a seemingly wonderful jungle and forested paradise. Its warm damp air and high temperatures are the preferred living conditions of most Thrikreen. The jungle is home to an extremely vast array of creatures, many of them predatory and most of them dangerous. Although the Thrikreen have adapted to live in their environment comfortably and with ease, the creatures pose problems for other races. For instance, the sting of a Morning Wisp (a 1-2 inch long insect similar to a dragonfly that is one of the more docile creatures on Thrykka) can’t even penetrate the hard external skeleton of a Thrikreen, and its venom is used to produce a mild numbness in Thrikreen for first aid purposes. A single sting to a human however usually means respiratory failure within an hour. One should also keep in mind the Thrikreen philosophy of survival of the fittest. Though they certainly will help a human friend that has been injured in an animal attack as best they can, they may also quickly concider that it was his time, or that he must not be a good enough hunter and let him die. (especially if they have not bonded with the human and become particularly attached.) Remember, thousands of Thrikreen die every single day on Thrykka, it is just considered a way of life. For these reasons the home world is strictly populated by Thrikreen with only the most well prepared and tough individuals visiting on occasion.
The Thrikreen live in hive cities partly dug into the ground and partly constructed out of wood above ground. They don’t prepare the wood into planks, but tie logs together and thatch roofs in a way that most may see as primitive and tribal. They are however master engineers in working with the lumber and can create wooden structures hundreds of feet tall. Many human engineers are just now starting to understand what the Thrikreen have known for centuries about wood working.
The entire surface of Thrykka is populated. You can not land a ship anywhere without soon running into a Thrikreen. There are human jokes about the Thrikreen selecting individuals for duty by dropping a pebble from space because it is certain to hit a Thrikreen on the head.
Kytyka
Kytyka is a little further away from the sun. Its name means “short cold trees.” It is actually a nicely forested planet with mild to warm temperatures and seasons, but the Thrikreen were of course comparing it to their jungle home world. It is the first planet that Space traveling Thrikreen discovered. Although it does not have the extremely dangerous eco system of Thrykka, it still has a large amount of predatory creatures. Imagine a nice forest filled with hundreds of thousands of tigers, snakes, rhinoceroses, etc. Because of this the Thrikreen here either live entirely underground or entirely elevated in the trees. Neither is truly safe from all predators, but it helps. Don’t forget that Thrikreen never sleep and are seldom caught off guard. It is suggested that even experienced human hunters have 2-3 Thrikreen guides with them if they want to visit the planet.
Tykkree
Tykkree literally means “cold rock.” It is a fitting description. Tykkree is the furthest planet from the sun, has strong winters, and is the only safe port for humans and other races to stop at. The main port of Etykh (not cold place) is an oasis on the snow covered planet thanks to a volcanic vent engineered by the Thrikreen.
When first exploring space, Tykkree was over looked as undesirable because of how cold it was. When the Thrikreen needed a trading port however, it soon became obvious that its two worlds filled with dangerous creatures would not be hospitable to off worlders. Tykree was not much better, and no Thrikreen likes the cold, so they dug down deep into the planets crust and created a volcanic vent that warms enough land in one spot to make a decent size city in. The vent itself is in a constructed mountain a mile or so away from the city to keep fumes away. Snow is melted by its heat and the steam generated is forced into tunnels that run under the city complex. Etykh is the only semi human formed city built by the Thrikreen in an effort to make their visitors feel at home.
Even the Felinxes will only visit Etykh. They have helped the Thrikreen set up a network of flights that bring the supplies for trade to Etykh on a regular basis.