Whatever it says in whichever rules, a society doesn't need intelligence to function. IMO, it is much more interesting if scorpionmen function perfectly well (i.e. they aren't "stupid") normally. They can even be very "clever" at some things, just like, dogs, ants, monkeys, flies, whatever. I think they are an awful lot scarier, more alien, if they aren't intelligent but via emergent properties, do clever stuff. Occasionally they eat someone and become conventionally intelligent. Great - I'd treat that as an aberration with consequences beyond being bigger and meaner. Maybe it leads to some reflection. Maybe more consciousness which can mess their "society" up. I also think they are a lot scarier if the queen isn't more intelligent - she just beomes another Big Bad at the end of the level - how very dull. It is potentially more fun (in a game) if the queen is basically what she is in social insect societies - the reproductive organs. Human PC's, being what they are, try and kill the queen because they think she is the big bad. What they don't realise is that there are thirty "soliders" or "workers" who, one week later, will form the new queen and be popping babies out. Of course that could flop if you build up to a big final conflict, queenie gets killed and the Narrator says, Ha ha you haven't killed the colony, ya boo sucks. If the players (not necessarily their characters) get an inkling in advance, it could be more interesting. Maybe the way to destroy a colony is to give them intelligent victims so they start to get all existentialist.
I dunno, each to his own and all that. But, I think there is a lot more fun to be had than just having a central intelligence who is souped up; than just having a bunch of big mean mooks. I personally would be much more interested in having to defeat a colony of scorpionmen (if that is the model) by dint of sticking a spanner in their reproductive biology than by having to kill a lot of them to get the big one in the middle with more magic and kill her.
E.g. The majority of arthropods have funny issues about the sex ratios of their offspring. That is, the majority of arthropods have symbiotic bacteria (but not only bacteria) which to a large degree determine what gender of offspring they will produce. Say scorpionmen have something similar but they have symbiotic spirits which affect their reproductive biology. So, the PC's have to do something about those spirits rather than killing a load of scorpionmen with scary masteries in things. Say, harvest a load of the spirits somehow then sneak into a colony and release them.
Sam.
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