--Greg
Sam Elliot wrote:
>
>
> Adept:
> The only female scorpion man in published Glorantha (that I know of)
> is Rana the Scorpion Queen in Lords of Chaos, and she was a human
> woman before being devoured and given her new form. Rana looks like a
> perfectly nice looking human woman (from the waist up), but that's not
> to say that the average scorpion queen has to even be recognizable as
> female. I doubt they breastfeed their young or anything like that.
>
> I'd expect your average scorpion queen to be a bloated monster whose
> distended abdomen fills a few hundred metres of tunnel. Much like a termite
> queen. Somewhere, at the other end, she is popping out mini-scorpion men at
> the rate of twenty or so a day. She either has sperm stored up from twenty
> years ago (cf leafcutter ants) when she had her nuptual [well... ants and
> termites have the nuptual flight, these creatures could have something
> altogether more gruesome] or she has a "king" like termites do.
>
> The "scorpion man" we know is just a solider caste with delayed reproductive
> capacity (as in termites rather than ants) and in this respect is
> totipotent; it can become male or female. You don't want to see the other
> castes, it is as well they are hidden. You need to exterminate the entire
> nest or those non-reproductives will start breeding (cf termites).
> Scattering the scorpion men is also no good as you'll suddenly have a
> hundred nests (cf termites).
>
> Sometimes, there is more activity than usual and all the nests in the region
> (e.g. Dragon Pass) suddenly unleash swarms and swarms of reproductives. They
> might even have wings which they later discard as they look for suitable
> nest sites. They land in your food and generally make a terrible mess,
> though trolls have a great time catching them and gobbling them up.
>
> Sam.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
--
Sincerely,
Greg Stafford
Issaries, Inc.
1942 Channing Way, #204
Berkeley, CA 94704
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