Bee-Folk of the Floral Sea

Bee-Folk In-Depth

 

what all the buzz is about

The Bee-Folk are tall humanoids that roughly compared to centaurs, with the top half of a man and the bottom half of a bee. On average the Bee-folk are about seven feet tall, covered in bristly fur with alternating bands of black and yellow. Their bottom half are similar to a bee's with a thorax, abdomen, compete with four insect like legs, and a stinger. The upper half is like that of a human with a pair of arm with digits but with a pair of translucent wings. Their heads look roughly like humans, but have long spindly antenna and black multifaceted eyes. The wings of a Bee-Folk are too weak to maintain flight for extended periods of time, however they do allow for long assisted hops. If a Bee-Folk uses it stinger, there is a very good chance that it might die so they will only use them as a last ditch effort if their queen is under attack.


Bee-Folk live in vast wax hives. Each hive is constructed from numerous stacked hexagonal towers made from wax ruled by a singular queen. Towers can be over a hundred feet tall and a single hive may house thousands of Bee-Folk. The Hives lack windows and staircases and are difficult for any non-Bee-Folk to navigate. The Bee-Folk strictly forbid anything that may burn, generate heat, or explode from entering the hives. As such they are a paperless society, and their only form of communication is carved wax tablets.


Bee-Folk society is very rigid with little ability to change station. Most Bee-Folk are pollen-gathers and work the vast flower fields that surround their hives. At the top of the Bee-Folk social order is the queen who rules with an iron fist and honeyed tongue. The Bee-Folk live and die for their queen and the queens live and die for their hives. The greatest honor a Bee-Folk can get is to be selected to become a member of the Queen's Court; an elite inner circle make of a menagerie of the hives best and royal sycophants.


The castes represent the amount of individuality a Bee-Folk has. The queens are full-fledged personalities; one might say hyper-personalities, as their personality that imprints on all of the lesser Bee-Folk beneath her. Princesses are slightly lesser queens, while having their own full-fledged personalities they cannot imprint theirs in the presence of another queen. Nobles have strong personalities but are best seen as aspects or fragments of a queen’s personality. As one might have various inner voices or dialogues the queens have nobles. Every hive has their own system and ranking of nobles each with different titles and honorifics but the common trend is that the higher the rank the more of a personality they have. At the bottom the pollen-harvesters have next to no individuality. They cannot even grasp some of the basic concepts of individuality like ‘I’, ‘Me’, and ‘Mine.’


This personality imprinting makes it imperative that hives have the best most capable queens they can have. A Bee-Folk can never be more capable than their queen. While a noble may seem to be more knowledge or capable at a certain subject or task this is less of being greater than the queen, then it is as removing the distraction from other parts of the queen’s personality. Princesses are educated from a young age and no expenses are spared to give them the best education. Many tutors and educators are hired form the Known Seas to come and educate princess, often at the cost of thousands of gallons of honey. There are however, exceptions. Some Bee-Folk go rouge and develop their own personalities. Too much time away from the hives or exposure to too much royal jelly or psychoactive honey will warp a Bee-Folks personality.


The Bee-Folk believe that exchanging money for honey cheapens both. Only a queen may give out honey on behalf of the hive. They do this quite often, but not as exchange or commerce, but in the form of patronage. The queens long for nothing more than legitimate royal power and are quite easily charmed by anyone treating them as actual royalty which is usually done by referring to them with long winded titles and deep genuflexion, or presenting them with the trappings of royalty. This said the queens when presented with a tiara cannot tell the difference between one made from platinum inlayed with cut jewels to one made from tin with polished glass. Their court however is a bit quicker to catch on.


The hives offer little for public trade, save for wax products and a pollen cleaning service for passing ships. There is a common misconception that the Bee-Folk trade their honey, however; honey has a special place in their society and cannot be bought. The Bee-Folk however are willing to trade the honey. The Bee-Folk do not quite understand the concept of metals or currency, and refer to gold as ‘Man-Honey’ as it seems to attract their attention and they have never seen a man without a bundle of it at their side. While they cannot begin to fathom what sort of flower men gather gold from, they do know enough to keep a cache of it around as it, like no other honey, seems to sooth and pacify man.


Three products from the Hives should be noted. While the Hives produce regular honey they also produce a very potent psychoactive honey as a byproduct. These hones are unfiltered and opaque, coming in strange colors. Consuming this honey causes emotions to be magnified, highs higher, and lows lower. The Bee-Folk do not consider this to be real honey and just throw it away by dumping it into the sea or in pits. A few enterprising individuals have been collecting and filtering this honey, and if rumors hold true, some of the Hives are beginning to sell it as well.


The second item of note is Royal Jelly. This milky white substance is very important in Bee-Folk culture. All Bee-Folk, regardless of station are given this when they are just larvae. How much they are fed determines the caste that they are born in. The more Royal Jelly an adult Bee-Folk consumes the greater the sense of individuality they will have. For humanoids Royal Jelly acts as a powerful healing salve and as a cure for amnesia and memory loss. It is common belief that consuming Royal Jelly extends one life, one dose for one day.


The third item is the Bee-Folks wax. Coveted for use as candles in the Known Seas, they give of a solid and steady light and a pleasant floral smell. They are also remarkably shelf stable and will not melt or warp unless burnt.