The Monoptae - a single species with a ridiculously diverse range of shapes and sizes depending upon the individual's function within the Hive society... a Hive society entirely dedicated with rabid zeal to their screamingly insane religious beliefs. Each Monoptae Hive believes with utter, absolute conviction that it is in possession of the One True Thing that is the Ultimate Thing of the Cosmos. This thing can be any inanimate object from an old bit of string to a haybale, an entire castle to a small, unremarkable pebble, a broken statue, a twig, an old sheep skull, a flagstone, a water jug, ANYTHING.
This wouldn't be so bad (perplexingly mental but hardly a problem) except that each Hive repeatedly changes its group mind as to what the One True Thing is. If one of their wandering scouts catches sight of another pillar or brick or wagon or sack of grain or mushroom that it suddenly thinks for utterly unfathomable reasons is the One True Thing, the entire Hive will abandon the former One True Thing which is clearly now false and heretical and all go and cluster around the new One True Thing which they believe in with the same total zeal they believed in all the thousands of former One True Things.
Naturally, they will then totally exterminate any and all other living things in the vicinity of the One True Thing in order to protect it from Unbelievers.
So, if they suddenly decide a fountain in the middle of a town is the One True Thing, before anyone knows it a vast army of rubbery, one-eyed freaks is invading the settlement, slaughtering everyone in sight.
Anything between a few hours or a few months later, they will suddenly find another One True Thing which they will now be convinced is the absolute, definitive, truly true One True Thing and invade somewhere else in order to have it. If you're lucky, they now think a grain of sand in the middle of a desert is the One True Thing and will go and sit harmlessly in the desert to worship it. If not... they might think your cottage is the One True Thing and trample all over you...
The Destroyers act as the shock troops of the Monoptae Hive whilst it's invading, destroying all in their path (kind've as the name suggests) and having the strength to tear entire buildings apart. When settled about this week's One True Thing they act as guardians for the One True Thing itself. The Destroyers are the largest and most dangerous of the Monoptae forms encountered so far, but as they keep evolving, there could be yet nastier types still to come.
The Warriors are the main rank and file of the Hive, near mindless as individuals, blindly slaved to the worship and defence of whatever One True Thing they're obsessed with this week from all Unbelievers and Heretics (which is everyone but themselves). Ranging between six and seven feet tall, they're all hippopotamusly ugly freaks and they reek too.
The Monoptae Beasts are fast moving, savage quadrupeds generally employed as hunters and foragers for the Hive, ranging further from the current One True Thing in their scouting duties than most and thus often responsible for suddenly spotting the next One True Thing and becoming instantly fixated and overcome with its Oneness and Trueness beyond that of any of the worthless, false things worshipped previously, the entire Hive thus empathically aware of the new One True Thing and heading for it en masse - much to the distress of anyone in their path.
The Nodes are the focusing intelligences of the Hives, though "intelligence" may not be quite the right word for something blindly and rubbishly slaved to the worship of an old rowing boat until abruptly becoming even more zealously convinced of the need to worship a certain tile in the floor of a castle five realms away and so on and so forth. These bloated horrors are usually to be seen directing the Hive's invasions from behind the protective hordes of their legions.
All in all, these shockingly mental zealots are one of the worst cabals of lunatics who can ever come crashing in on your home. Refusing to accept any Unbelievers (any life but themselves) within an average zone of about five miles around the One True Thing they will ruthlessly massacre anyone and anything within that area. And then go and do the same somewhere else two weeks later when they decide the proper, actual, definitive One True Thing is actually a completely different thing in a completely different place.
Reasoning with them is completely impossible and, though utterly debased and insane, as an army they are ferociously efficient, able to overcome most enemies with ease.
There are only two certain ways of stopping a Monoptae Hive. One is the presence of a certain Renegade Demoness who, having long ago identified them as Obvious Spleens, tends to crump on sight any and all Monoptae she encounters.
The second is the rare occurrence of two different Monoptae Hives both deciding that the same perfectly ordinary boulder is the One True Thing at the same time and both converging upon it. They will utterly destroy each other to the last creature in order to possess the useless thing. Equally, should two Monoptae Hives come anywhere near each other whilst believing in two DIFFERENT One True Things, as you can't have two One True Things at the same time, they will both instantly identify each other as Heretics and thus savagely destroy each other to the last creature in maniacal sectarian fervour.
All in all, most creatures throughout the realms just hope their toothbrush or their front door or whatever is never erroneously identified as the One True Thing by these rampaging mentals. More than once, people have fled before an advancing Monoptae Hive only to find the monsters pursue them relentlessly across the face of the world because the beasts have decided the jacket the pursued creature is wearing is the One True Thing...
Retour en haut
I have of course heard of the association of the word "spleen" with anger in English, but I don't understand where that association comes from, since in Galenic medicine the human spleen was thought to produce black bile (also called melancholy), not yellow bile, which was thought to cause anger and came from the liver. Nevertheless, I understand that bit of Lucirath's terminology now. And the creatures are quite impressive, I should say.
