Rowa (World Guide, Sapient Species) (Patreon)

Rowa

The Rowa are a sapient insectoid species hailing from Rowa Prime, located in the Rowa Core Prefecture of the Feyli Empire. Their lower bodies are grub-like, and they slither around while often trailing an almost invisible sheen of aphrodisiac laden slime behind them. Their upper bodies resemble ants, and they have four chitinous arms, each ending in a three fingered claw-hand. They live in vast hives which are ruled by a 'queen', and may have tens of thousands of individuals of the many rowa species.

All true rowa are fundamentally sexless, including the queens. As a species, the true rowa reproduce using lesser rowa species to perform both reproductive tasks as well as most menial and/or delicate labor. All members of these lesser species have been transformed from sapient mammalian humanoids. They retain very little concept of their former selves, and their overall mental capacity is quite dull. They exist only to serve the needs of the hive, and those needs are all they really know. Of the dozen or so lesser rowa species, only four are seen outside the confines of the hive: the soldiers, the male and female worms, and the worker drones.

Rowa soldiers are huge, ant-like beasts with six massive, armored legs, four clawed arms, and eyes all around their heads. They can carry and use a variety of native rowa living-technology weapons, as well as spit a sticky slime in order to snare captives. Soldiers are exclusively transformed from male captives, and are noted as being particularly dull. Absent active orders from true rowa commanders, they typically won't react to any stimulus. This weakness can be exploited by killing the true rowa in charge, and retreating until the soldiers have completed their objectives. Then one can move in for the kill without any fear of retaliation.

The two sexes of rowa worm are the reproductive organs of the rowa species. Created from male and female subjects, respectively, they exchange reproductive fluids using their transformed oral organs. Most eggs laid subsequent to these copulation are infertile. Once every few months, a fertile egg will come along, and these will hatch into true rowa.

The rowa worker drones are diminutive insecticide-humanoids with grub like bodies, and ant like faces and lower limbs. Only the fleshy folds within their mandibles hint at sexual characteristics, though the creatures are actually completely sexless. They are created exclusively from female subjects, and perform numerous minor tasks outside the hive. Few and far in between in the old Rowa home hives, worker-drones are found in far greater numbers in hives where contact with outside species is routine. Unlike most other rowa, the worker-drones are generally seen as non-threatening, as well as being both visually and olfactorily palatable to most other sapient species.

The subjects who's transformed selves now populate the known rowa hives largely came from captives acquired during the Rowa conflict, a war that spanned the years 4555 to 4576 and resulted in the complete absorptionof the Feyli Imperial Narri Thread and Aylin Rift Prefectures into the growing Rowa dominion. The exact origins of the conflict are still unclear to this day, though it is generally agreed that the Feyli Empire had nothing to do with initiating it. The Rowa only targeted the Empire in the belief that their assailants had come from it.

The Feyli Imperial Navy failed to blunt the Rowa offensive. The attack only petered out when the Rowa had become spread too thin to both maintain the war and hold on to the territory that they had gained. A negotiated peace followed, on that involved the Empress Sharie Maya Feyla offering herself to become a rowa worm in exchange for the reigning Queen's submission to her daughter. This act took place on 17.9.4576, ending the conflict and adding the Rowa Core, Rowa Thread, and Rowa Rift Prefectures to the Empire, though these would be governed largely by rowa, rather than Imperial law. The rowa were also required to stop growing spacefaring vessel-creatures, and almost complete disarm, giving over all weapons to the Empire for study.

Since the peace, a number of rowa hives have been established elsewhere within the Feyli Empire, most notably near the Imperial Palace on Feylin, and in the ruins of the old Macharri Naval Base in Mashiva, on Maria. In these cases, the lesser rowa making up much of the hives' populations have come entirely from willing volunteers. This was made possible thanks to new xenoexperience laws, permitting aliens such as the rowa to market their often transformational wares to fully willing subjects.