Giant Bees (Codex)

Name: Giant Bee

Genders: Almost Exclusively Female, save for a few Drones in each hive.

Hair: Typically black, or black with vertical yellow strands.

Eyes: The eyes of Workers, Drones, and Warrior Bees eyes are glossy black orbs, while the Fertile-Caste and Queens can change their eye-color at will, and may even alter the appearance of their pupils and irises at will, to better entrance their targets. Some of the tainted hive-clusters are rumored to have slitted cat-like eyes, but those few who have gotten close enough to see them have never returned.

Height: The average bee is roughly five feet tall. Drones are typically much shorter, but are rarely seen outside the hive. Warrior Bees can reach seven feet in height, and are fearsome when riled. Queens are by far the largest, at up to thirteen feet in length, though much of a queen’s body-size is dominated by her reproductive systems. Fertile-Caste tend to be of average height, anywhere from five to six feet tall.

Appearance: Bees are fairly human-like in appearance, save for their wings and bloated abdomens that extend off the back of their bodies, just above their buttocks. They have small antennae that protrude from their foreheads and large almond-shaped eyes. Bees also have chitinous coverings on their hands, forearms, feet, and lower legs. From a distance the black exoskeleton resembles latex gloves and boots. They rarely if ever wear clothes, though their thighs are covered with downy yellow fuzz. Their skin is unanimously a yellowed but very tan color, with darker black strips near their hips, biceps, thighs, and abdomen. All bees save drones have visible stingers.

Sexual Equipment: Queens have many vaginas along their abdomen, which ends in a large ovipositor. All the other bees save for drones are female, with a single human-like vagina. Fertile-Caste bees also have a retractable ovipositor that is flexible, bulbous, and constantly lubricated. It is located on her abdomen just below her stinger. Drones are the only male bees, and their gender is obvious to anyone who finds them. Though small in stature, their maleness is nearly as big as their torso. Few are ever seen, as without the constant sexual release a Queen can provide, they die.

Reproduction: Once eggs are suitably incubated they develop, they are ‘birthed’. Usually the entire incubation and birth takes place from a victim’s rectum. Once exposed to open air, the eggs hatch, releasing thousands of regular-looking bees. These bees are the larval form of giant bees, and will gather resources for the hive for the first four to five years of their life. After stockpiling plenty of resources, they will grow dormant, and be sealed into the hive-wall to mature. A year later, an adult giant-bee will emerge.

Social Structure: Bees are divided into castes – the workers maintain the hive, the warriors protect the hive from the incursions of monsters and demons, the Queen produces the eggs, the Drones keep the Queen’s eggs fertilized, and the Fertile Caste bear the Queen’s fertilized eggs into the wilds to find suitable incubators. The bee social structure is rigid in the extreme, and the only bees that enjoy anything resembling leisure time are the Fertile-Caste, though they don’t see the harm in laying their eggs.

Special Attributes: Bees have a venomous stinger that can dispense either a paralyzing toxin, an aphrodisiac, or both. The strength of each toxin varies based on the bee’s caste, and some of the more specialized castes may lack one of the venoms. The exact nature and distribution of the venom between castes is unknown.