Expanding on the Thri-Kreen

Single-classed thri- or thor-kreen psionicists may choose one of the following benefits when they are first created: PSPs - Thri-kreen are more adept at harnessing psychic energy than other races. This is due to their intense meditative abilities and their focus. Thri-kreen gain two additional PSPs per level. Primary Discipline - Thri-kreen devotion to the Way is unmatched. Therefore, when they choose their primary discipline, they gain a +1 to their MTHAC0 on all power checks in that discipline. MAC - Aside from the fact that their minds are alien to most other races of Athas, thri-kreen have minds that are virtually impervious to attack. Thri-kreen psionicists start with an MAC of 8. Attack/Defense Modes - Thri-kreen have exceptional abilities when attacking or defending mentally. They start with 2 attack and defense modes. Mental Resistance - Some thri-kreen are exceptionally resistant to magical mental invasion. Instead of the normal +2 bonus against enchantment/charm spells, these thri-kreen have a +3 bonus.

I have also created contact tables for races other than human and insect.

I wrote this history myself without the benefit of any special books on the kreen. This is a optional history of Athas that adds to the information given in The Wander's Chronicle. It does not take into account any of the information found in Thri-Kreen of Athas or any other supplement. Thus, contradictions may appear. Anyway, feel free to use this is you want. It should help explain the powers I give kreen psionicists detailed above.

While the halflings of the Blue Age lived in great cities and built vast civilizations, another race grew in power far from the sight of their diminutive neighbors. These were the kreen, a primitive race of large insects. Their language was rudimentary at best, consisting of a few clicks and wheezes. They had little in the way of civilization, as they traveled in packs that rarely met.

Among the kreen, there were many subspecies that had adapted to their special habitat. Some could climb trees are sheer cliffs. Others skated across the surface of large lakes and others burrowed. As they halflings perfected their abilities in life-shaping, the kreen perfected their ability to hunt and work as one harmonious unit. The pack would find their prey and then engage in detailed strategies to capture it. Few animals could outmaneuver a kreen pack on the hunt. The kreen hunting methods became ever more complex, until eventually the kreen had developed a basic form of empathic communication. Simple thoughts could be transmitted nearly instantaneously between members of the same pack. This ability gradually became more complex until finally the kreen could send detailed thoughts to any other kreen they had ever met. It is because of this telepathic communication that the halflings never thought of the kreen as more than a simple race with no capacity for higher reasoning. All that the halflings saw was a strange creature with no ability to communicate.

While the Blue Age entered its final stage and the halfling nature-masters attempted to disturb the basic nature of the world the kreen began to become separate species entirely. As in all things, some individuals are more gifted than others. The kreen were no exception and so the more telepathically able members began to dominate the lesser insect-men. Some of the lesser kreen rebelled and escaped the domination of their oppressors. This led to the split still seen today between the thor-kreen and the thri-kreen. The thor-kreen are those who have decided to remain "civilized" and employ lesser beings as slave, while the thri-kreen are forever condemned to wander in the hope that they will not be forced to serve the thor-kreen. Just as this rift in the kreen peoples occurred the brown tide swept across the sea and the nature-masters panicked. As sun turned yellow the great seas of the Blue Age vanished and vast tracks of dry land appeared. The thor-kreen and their slaves descended west onto a great plain of tall grasses and their began their cities. The thri-kreen moved east, beyond a tall range of mountains.

Even though the kreen peoples had split, they continued along a similar path of telepathic evolution. As their grasp of telepathy increased they began to delve into other areas of their insect minds. All throughout the Rebirth the kreen peoples developed their abilities, some gaining the ability to alter their bodies or to see remote areas of the land. Thus was born the field of psionics.

As other races saw what the kreen hunters could do they began to explore their own minds. Nearly a thousand years into the Green Age the greatest masters of mammalian, reptilian, and avian psionics were only beginning to grasp the incredible potential of the mind. It was during this time that the thri-kreen developed their taste for elf-flesh. As innumerable new races formed from the halflings the thri-kreen began to hunt them. Few provided any challenge, but some tasted better than others. Orcs and the goblin-kind were immediately recognized as unpalatable, but others, like the elves became delicacies. As the races began to become more intelligent and civilized the thri-kreen stopped their hunting parties, for fear that the elves would begin to retaliate. To this day, the thri-kreen do not hunt elves, but more than one war has been started, and more than one lost elf failed to return home. As the Green Age progressed, non-insectoid psionicists rose to power that began to rival that of the thri-kreen masters. Because the kreen life-span was significantly shorter than that of humans and elves, the thri-kreen could not spend as much time contemplating the mysteries of their minds. Thus, by the Time of Magic, thri-kreen masters were almost matched in power by non-inse ct psionicists.

The same cannot be said of the thor-kreen. These civilized insects had many slaves to do the work of building, hunting and any other task that might require doing. Thus, the thor-kreen masters could spend much greater amounts of time studying their minds. Because of this, only a few psionicists, be them thri-kreen, human, pterran, or other, could even come close to the mental might of the thor-kreen masters.

During the Time of Magic the thri-kreen were greatly overlooked. Not to say that they were forgotten, but they were looked on as inferior because they could not comprehend magic. Just as the halflings could not use magic because they were from an older time, the thri-kreen were barred from this mystic study.

Then, as Rajaat began the Cleansing Wars, the thri-kreen retreated from sight. They vanished almost overnight, and some scholars of the time believed that they have traveled to another plane to escape the ravages of the wars. In reality, they simply retreated deep into the jungles of the landscape. Just as they could out-hunt any other creature, they could also hide better than any other. They remained hidden from sight, constantly on the move from place to place. After almost fifteen centuries of fleeing and hiding the thri-kreen were all but forgotten. Some ancient texts from the end of the Cleansing Wars describe strange, massive insectoid men that were seen, only to vanish an instant later. These are more than likely thri-kreen that had been momentarily caught unawares. As the Wars came to an end and an unsteady peace returned, the thri-kreen returned to the sight of men. Ancient stories told of them, but for the most part, they were regarded as a primitive society that had been overlooked. The thri-kreen wanted no part of the follies of human civilization, and so did nothing to dispel the myth.

Only now, in the light of the new freedom of thought in Tyr, are the legends of the thri-kreen beginning to resurface. News of the vast Kreen Empire to the west is stirring ancient memories in the minds of the thri-kreen, and fear is beginning to enter into their society again.

If you want to, let thor-kreen psionicists have two of the benefits to simulate their better understanding of the Way.

Athas Armor

Athas Weapon

Athas Weapon 1

Life Cicle Thri-Kreen