Anexoren Hive
I was born by the light of the stars. The Masters - the Thramorri as you call them - needed no light in their citadels and so none was spared for their slaves. I never knew the one who birthed me, nor the one who sired me. They were old when I was born, and so were taken as food shortly thereafter. I had known no other live than servitude. I cannot read nor write, I can do no sums. I can hear, I can touch, I can see, and I can obey. The Masters trained us for little else.
I grew up in Anexoren Hive, though that is not the name I knew it by. It is difficult to pronounce, you must force your tongue back in your throat to approximate how the Masters speak it. They called it 'Aaghneix'aureein', which means 'Southernmost Reach' in their tongue. It was built upon the bones of an ancient slave-breed - human - city from before the time of Ascendance. Anexoren Hive is made of large clusters of homes for the Shadrechi and their Khorg servants, and enormous hollowed-out spaces where the esek swarms roost. Above all other buildings rise the towers of the Khybim. They do not often deign to walk amongst their inferiors and so are rarely seen on the streets.
We are expected to memorize our daily routes, as their are no lights to guide us. In some few places there are glyphs that glow with pale light and we use them to guide us. Until I was full-grown, my duties were to tend to our pen's mushroom farms where they grew near the pits where we threw our waste. It was an easy job, though I do not miss it now.
I have been rescued for many years. I am happy to be free, but sometimes I think about Anexoren still. Sometimes I miss the stars of my birth.
Redeemer Taben, liberated slave of Anexoren Hive and initiate of the Redemptionists out of Thalinspire
Demographics
Like most Thramorri hives, the majority of the population is made up of the human-sized Shadrechi. Most shadrechi households have at least one khorg servant, though many have at least two. There are also several thousand esek, though they are rarely counted as part of any census. Finally, there are the Lords, at least one hundred Khybim who occupy both the highest echelons of Thramorri society, and the tallest towers.
Government
There is little in the way of government. The Lords of each hive gather in council, where they issue decrees designed to consolidate their own authority. Among the Shadrechi and the slaves, there are few laws beyond those governing the proper transfer of slaves or goods. Hierarchies are established though violence or strategy, and this state of affairs is encouraged by the Khybim.
Defences
Most Thramorri hives maintain standing armies to defend against incursions by other Thramorri hives. Aggression from human-occupied lands are rare, but territorial expansion by rival hives is relatively common. Anexoren Hive boasts a standing army of nearly one thousand shadrechi, with khorg heavy units and three full weaponized swarms of esek. It is easily a match for most of the regional hives, though the Ascendant Hives remain absolutely dominant.
Industry & Trade
Anexoren Hive is considered something of a regional metropolis among the Thramorri nation-states. It sits close to a relatively densely populated region of humanity, making it a prime slave market. The markets also make it attractive to traders from more distant hives who peddle their wares to slave traders, buyers, and Thramorri Lords looking for curiosities.
The hive has a small but thriving mining industry, which requires a near-constant influx of slaves for labour, and its quarries produce some of the finest granite to be found anywhere among the Dark empires.
Infrastructure
Each hive possesses the infrastructure one might expect to find in cities of similar population, but all manual labour in these places are done by human slaves.
Architecture
Thramorri Hives are somewhat inaccurately named. They are not solid structures, but sprawling cities that rise like an inverted funnel from the ground to the cluster of towers at their centre. To an outsider, they resemble twisted reflections of Spire cities. The buildings are separated by roadways, but the Thramorri use the secretions of enormous worm-like creatures to build elevated pathways that coil and snake their way up and around the central towers. The paths connect to the partially-collapsed towers of ancient Dawn cities and bind them into a multi-tiered jumble of dwellings and terraces.
Type
Citadel
Population
~ 8500 Thramorri, ~18,000 human slaves/livestock
Related Ethnicities
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