D&D Thri-kreen Race

The Thri-kreen are an ancient and proud insec­toid race that live in the exot­ic, Egypt­ian-inspired land of دارجلا (Al-Jarad). In this remark­able realm, they share the world with oth­er intel­li­gent insects and arach­nids such as the Spi­der­folk, Vespoids, and giant bee­tles. Al-Jarad is a place where every­thing appears larg­er and stranger: the insects, the plants, even the gods. Tem­ples rise from swamps and deserts,
and mys­te­ri­ous pyra­mids pierce the misty moun­tains.

Thri-kreen Types

With­in Thri-kreen civ­i­liza­tion, there are two clear­ly dis­tinct sub­species:

• Grasshop­per Thri-kreen: These Thri-kreen resem­ble large, bipedal grasshop­pers. They are known for their speed, agili­ty, and impres­sive leaps. They often serve as hunters, scouts, and war­riors with­in their soci­ety.

• Ant Thri-kreen: These vari­ants are more like large, upright-walk­ing ants. They are phys­i­cal­ly stur­dier than their grasshop­per rel­a­tives and are renowned for their con­struc­tion skills, strate­gic think­ing, and nat­ur­al tal­ent for coop­er­a­tion. They often form the back­bone of Thri-kreen cities, forts, and tem­ples.

The two types live in har­mo­ny, each con­tribut­ing their unique tal­ents to the well-being of the entire soci­ety.

Lifestyle and Culture

Thri-kreen are nat­u­ral­ly nomadic, but in Al-Jarad, they have evolved into a set­tled civ­i­liza­tion. They live in gigan­tic ter­mite-like struc­tures built using resin, sand, and mag­ic. Many of their build­ings are geo­met­ric, sym­met­ri­cal, and adorned with hiero­glyphs hon­or­ing their gods.

Reli­gion plays a cen­tral role in their lives. Like oth­er races in Al-Jarad, the Thri-kreen wor­ship the ancient Egypt­ian gods such as Ra, Anu­bis, Isis, and Osiris. They believe their souls are weighed by Anu­bis after death, and the right­eous will be reborn as sacred bee­tle-like beings in the after­life.

Political Power

In the sacred hier­ar­chy of Al-Jarad, the Thri-kreen share pow­er with oth­er insec­toid peo­ples. They sup­ply two of the four rul­ing pharaohs:

• The Grasshop­per Pharaoh, leader of the grasshop­per-like Thri-kreen.

• The Ant Pharaoh, ruler of the ant-like Thri-kreen.

Togeth­er with the Spi­der Pharaoh (Spi­der­folk) and the Bee Pharaoh (Vespoids), they form the Four Pharaohs’ Realm of Al-Jarad. These four rulers gov­ern togeth­er in a mag­i­cal-pan­the­is­tic sys­tem main­tained by ancient rit­u­als, prophe­cies, and divine visions.

When a pharaoh dies or is replaced, a rit­u­al takes place in which the old pharaoh is sym­bol­i­cal­ly or lit­er­al­ly con­sumed a prac­tice dat­ing back to the ear­li­est days of the insect peo­ples, intend­ed to pass the pow­er and knowl­edge of the old leader to the peo­ple.

A World of Giant Insects

The land of Al-Jarad is infused with mag­ic, allow­ing ordi­nary insects to grow into enor­mous, some­times sen­tient and intel­li­gent crea­tures. Many Thri-kreen use these giant insects as mounts or beasts of bur­den from fly­ing bee­tles and wasp-like glid­ers to armored cen­tipedes. Not all insects are enor­mous, how­ev­er; small­er species like mos­qui­toes and crane flies are still present.

Stats

Thri-kreen have insec­tile fea­tures and two pairs of arms. Their bod­ies are encased in pro­tec­tive chitin. They can alter the col­oration of this cara­pace to blend in with their nat­ur­al sur­round­ings.

Although thri-kreen don’t sleep, they do require peri­ods of inac­tiv­i­ty to revi­tal­ize them­selves. Dur­ing these peri­ods, they are ful­ly aware of what’s hap­pen­ing around them.

Thri-kreen speak by clack­ing their mandibles and wav­ing their anten­nae, indi­cat­ing to oth­er thri-kreen what they are think­ing and feel­ing. Oth­er crea­tures find this method of com­mu­ni­ca­tion dif­fi­cult to inter­pret and impos­si­ble to dupli­cate. To inter­act with oth­er folk, thri-kreen rely on a form of telepa­thy.

Thri-kreen features

• Abil­i­ty Score Increase. Increase one abil­i­ty score by 2, and increase a dif­fer­ent one by 1, or increase three dif­fer­ent scores by 1.
  
  
• Crea­ture Type. You are a Mon­stros­i­ty.
  
  
• Size. You are Medi­um or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.
  
  
• Speed. Your walk­ing speed is 30 feet.
  
  
• Chameleon Cara­pace. While you aren’t wear­ing armor, your cara­pace gives you a base Armor Class of 13 + your Dex­ter­i­ty mod­i­fi­er. As an action, you can change the col­or of your cara­pace to match the col­or and tex­ture of your sur­round­ings, giv­ing you advan­tage on Dex­ter­i­ty (Stealth) checks made to hide in those sur­round­ings.
  
  
• Dark­vi­sion. You can see in dim light with­in 60 feet of your­self as if it were bright light, and in dark­ness as if it were dim light. You dis­cern col­ors in that dark­ness only as shades of gray.
  
  
• Sec­ondary Arms. You have two slight­ly small­er sec­ondary arms below your pri­ma­ry pair of arms. The sec­ondary arms can manip­u­late an object, open or close a door or con­tain­er, pick up or set down a Tiny object, or wield a weapon that has the light prop­er­ty.
  
  
• Sleep­less. You do not require sleep and can choose to remain con­scious dur­ing a long rest, though you must still refrain from stren­u­ous activ­i­ty to gain the ben­e­fit of the rest.
  
  
• Thri-kreen Telepa­thy. With­out the assis­tance of mag­ic, you can’t speak the non-thri-kreen lan­guages you know. Instead you use telepa­thy to con­vey your thoughts. You have the mag­i­cal abil­i­ty to trans­mit your thoughts men­tal­ly to will­ing crea­tures with­in 120 feet of your­self. A con­tact­ed crea­ture doesn’t need to share a lan­guage with you to under­stand your thoughts, but it must be able to under­stand at least one lan­guage. Your tele­path­ic link to a crea­ture is bro­ken if you and the crea­ture move more than 120 feet apart, if either of you is inca­pac­i­tat­ed, or if either of you men­tal­ly breaks the con­tact (no action required).
  
  
• Lan­guages: Your char­ac­ter can speak, read, and write. Com­mon, Ant and the lan­guage of your coun­try Al and one oth­er lan­guage of your choice.