Do you think that a giant anthill containing an entire subterranean civilization of sentient ant-people would be a fun setting for a game?
How would you envision a location like this? I've thought of having a bunch of ant tunnels that lead to some kind of huge inverted "ant city" that's really just a gargantuan abandoned temple left behind by some kind of progenitor race.
Would you want to go to Bugland on a quest?
>>48059873
I'd be down for that. Though I'd worry about the ant people society. It's either drones with only one real NPC(the Queen) or you just re-skinned dwarves.
If you can find a middle ground between the two it could be interesting.
I think a hive city could be a very interesting setting for a handful of adventures but probably wouldn't be an appropriate setting for an entire campaign. But that's just like my opinion, man.
The great thing is there is an established hierarchy that parallels the caste system we're all familiar with already. The Ant Queen rules unquestionably, her princess brood vie for the throne or seek to establish new hives, the soldiers can be their own knighthood order, and the drones form the serfdom.
It's more unique than the traditional Drow and Duergar subterranean setting that seems to be the staple.
My vote is for Umberhulk inquisitors or royal guards.
>>48060253
I kinda like that idea, the soldier ants being like a knightly order, drones being peasants etc.
I think they might also have some of their unintelligent "cousins" as servants too, such as giant mindless ants that serve their more advanced brothers, perhaps.
>>48060075
Your point about ant society makes sense, I also don't want them to be a copy of dwarves or anything like that.
The way I see it, a colony of sentient red ants is built on the foundation of war and knowledge, with soldiers guarding the home as the more intelligent upper-level ants discover new kinds of magic for the good of the Queen and all her subjects.
To further draw a distinction between Ants and Dwarves, the Ants have little care for material goods, and only use precious gems and the like to trade with other races at various specified zones, something kind of like how China used to trade with the Dutch, maybe.
I'm not sure what Ant-people would think of the other races, but seeing four adventuring humans being led through their colony would certainly turn some heads, seeing as most ants have probably never even seen another race before.
>>48060776
Not to get too magical realm-y but you could have the Queen be a mindless breeding machine that is just pumping out pheromones that affect the colony.
You could have some sinister shit going too, like those spiders/wasps that disguise themselves as ants having actually taken over the hive and controlling the Queens pheromone output to pacify anyone who suspects. It could be some crazy espionage plot hook. Nobody would suspect that when they are told they are going into a giant anthill.
>>48060950
Fucking Ant-Hill political intrigue. This is amazing.
I need to start thinking about this some more.
>>48061104
I recommend reading up on the SOTS Hiver race.
Some good ideas there.
http://wiki.swordofthestars.com/sots1/Category:Societal_Characteristics_--_Hivers
>>48060075
Sorry to say, but the "mindless drones with a hive-controlling queen" is a way less plausible setup than OP's.
For starters, the queen doesn't control the colony, she reproduces for it. She's the ovary, not the brain.
The concept of a "hive mind" refers to the entire swarm /collectively acting like an intelligent organism, not a single individual dominating the rest with its superior will. That being said, ants have a lot more individuality than most give them credit for.
I'd expect a good setup would involve one of two conceits:
>The colony consists of semi-intelligent individuals with varying degrees of individuality and intelligence all living in communism. There is a "diplomat caste" that function as sentient NPCs for interaction with players and other outsiders; they are fully sentient, but are still subservient to the colony.
>There is only one NPC, and that is the Colony. The Colony acts more like an alien god than a "person."
Only good bug is a dead bug, anon.
>>48060253
Do you have an artist for the illustration? Reminds me of the Edge Chronicles or those Leviathan books.
Anyways the biggest problem is how rigid anthill society is, you'd need to take serious artistic license to make it not the blandest hive of drones ever, and even if it wasn't how would player characters who are not ants from that colony get into the hive, isn't it quite well-guarded?
How about
>mini players need to get to some underground location
>hear the anthill tunnels struck something, it was deemed uninhabitable and the section is abandoned
>to get through the hive players need to discreetly and periodically kill drones or the class of worker that they wish to imitate and drench themselves in their scent to avoid detection
Short of giving individual ants personalities you could have a certain caste of ants retain free will in order to manage the drones and have a disgruntled one ask for the aid of the party to discreetly overthrow the current queen without throwing the colony into chaos.
I'm still not sure if the players are tiny of if the ants are huge or if that even matters.
Maybe worker ants are lured away from the colony with sugar and doused in horomones/pheremones that override their colony loyalty at which point they're coralled like cattle and used asbmounts and you could find a way to rope the players into that.
>>48059873
>Do you think that a giant anthill containing an entire subterranean civilization of sentient ant-people would be a fun setting for a game?
>How would you envision a location like this? I've thought of having a bunch of ant tunnels that lead to some kind of huge inverted "ant city" that's really just a gargantuan abandoned temple left behind by some kind of progenitor race.
Have you ever played Super Mario Land 2?
>>48061716
>For starters, the queen doesn't control the colony, she reproduces for it. She's the ovary, not the brain.
The concept of a "hive mind" refers to the entire swarm /collectively acting like an intelligent organism, not a single individual dominating the rest with its superior will. That being said, ants have a lot more individuality than most give them credit for.
Please god, read this. Hive mind is fucking terrible, and is not at all how eusocial insects work.
>>48064074
>Anyways the biggest problem is how rigid anthill society is
The fuck are you talking about? Ants are not zombies or something. Studies have shown individual ant in a colony have different tolerance levels to things like hunger, uncleanliness, and environmental conditions like heat and moisture. Some ants do some task more than others, some are better at a given task than others, and they don't always line up with ants good at a task being the ones doing that task. See pdf for more on dead beat ants mooching off productive members of the colony.
>>48064097
Nope
>Summer is here lmao
I played Xbox games as a child.
>>48065008
>doesn't know about emulators
Anyone read the Dreamers by David Eddings? Remember the Vlagh?
>>48059873
You know, /tg/ actually made a setting called Bug World a while back. Not sure if ants were in there, but you might wanna search the archive sites for it if you're interested.
