User:GoldenYak/Dark Hive

The Dark Hive is one of the myrmec hive-clusters, located in the deep canyons of Rakari. Within the myrmec scheme to rise up and destroy the inhabitants of the surface world in the name of their dark master.

Dungeon Journal
In the deep canyons of Rakari, the myrmec race has built their sprawling hive-clusters, seeking to spread their insectoid influence across the Voidlands. The myrmec will not be stopped by diplomacy - only overwhelming force will blunt their spread. Within their greatest stronghold, Chozek'Myr, the Dark Hive, their matriarch directs the hosts of the myrmec swarm. The Alliance and the Horde must strike down the very heart of the swarm to spare the Voidlands from the myrmec's destructive spread.

Background
Long ago, before Rakari fell into the Void, it suffered infestation by an Old God who fell out of the darkness and sank its tendrils into the crust of the world. The Old God spawned forth hideous monsters, insectile fiends and slimey giants, as expressions of its will. Sensing the danger the entity presented, the inhabitants of Rakari, from mortal races to elemental beings and Wild Gods, gathered and attacked it, ancient primarl rivalries set aside in the pursuit of survival. The savage alliance accomplished what no other world had before - it drove the Old God to retreat, tearing itself free of the world and fleeing back into the darkness.

However, while the Old God escape, its insectile spawn remained, burrowing deep within the world and plotting their revenge. The insects developed into the race known as the myrmec, and as they grew and spread throughout the underworld, building their black shrines and altars to chaos, the powers of the Void grew and surrounding Rakari. In time, the world was swallowed by the Void and almost totally destroyed. The last fragment, the worldshard of Rakari within the Voidlands, is all that remains. And still within its subterranean depths, the myrmec survive in their great hive city of Chozak'Myr, continuing their black rituals in praise of their Old God creator.

Storyline and Encounters
The entrance to Chozak'Myr, called the Dark Hive by the enemies of the myrmec, is a colossal mass of sculpted mud and stone, bedecked with the alien carvings and geometries of the insect-spawn of the Old Gods. The structures on the surface are only a fraction of the hive city, and much of it lies beneath the surface. Adventurers must pass through winding tunnels and bridges shaped from the stone of Rakari, festooned with carvings, altars, murals, sculptures, and other examples of myrmec architecture shaped in praise of the Old Gods. The most common element in the art seems to be representations of immense, monstrous hands clutching and grasping.

As adventurers make their way deeper, the tunnels become wider, eventually leading to a series of vast open chamber. Oozing insectile grubs and slimey egg-masses fill room after room - the brood-pits of the myrmec, where the next generation waits and grows. In the final chamber is the myrmec queen, Re'gal Maligna, mother and ruler of the myrmec broods. She stands before a vast altar depicting a hundred hideous clawed hands, the myrmec interpretation of the Old God who created their race and who charged them with the destruction of all that's good - the being known only as He Who Shapes.

Zekichak the Blooded

 * yell

A hulking myrmec warrior who has survived many campaigns to the surface world. The rakai people fear this dreaded insectile fiend. Her body has grown massive over the years, sprouting spines and hooks that make him a terror in close-quarters combat. She is accompanied by a brood of her strongest battle-sisters.



Skitterak the Seer

 * yell

A wiry myrmec spell-caster, gifted by the Void with power over arcane and elements alike. Skitterak has twisted and corrupted elemental entities into wicked servants of the myrmec.

Ikkis

 * yell

Myrmec legions are typically made up of females, with males being much fewer in number. The mighty Ikkis is an example of his kind - large and powerful, but with little brains. Ikkis rampages around the lower chambers of the Dark Hive, crushing any intruders with his massive talons. In his fury, he may wind up bringing down the entire tunnel on the heads of his foes.

Maalg The Molded

 * yell

In the face of invasion from the surface world, the myrmec priesthood has made an appeal to darker powers. Calling upon their vile deity, He Who Shapes, the myrmec receive an answer in the form of one of the Old God's favored children - the hideous Maalg the Molded, one of the shapeless. This great beast seemingly has no fixed form - his proportions constantly shift and distort, and his great fanged maw never ceases its insane howls.

Re'Gal Maligna

 * yell

Mother to the myrmec and devoted servant of He Who Shapes, Maligna is prepared to sacrifice every last one of her children if it means fulfilling chaotic master's insane whims.

Upon Maligna's defeat, the myrmec broods retreat from their hive, doomed to dwindle into extinction. Maligna cries out upon her death that the hands of He Who Shapes will soon fall upon her slayers, and that he will make of them a horror beyond imagining.