Riders
One of the benefits of living alongside gigantic ants is that when they molt, they shed gigantic carapace. Korashi ants, like their tiny cousins, must molt as they grow, discarding their smaller carapaces for the newer, larger ones forming beneath them. For the soft, endoskeletal humans sharing their living space, this is a tremendous boon.
Tools, weapons, armour, food (after considerable boiling and seasoning) - carapace can be made into all of these things and more; and so the mounted legions of the tribe are rarely wanting for equipment.
The creatures that once dwelt within these carapaces also serve as the tribe's beasts of burden and steeds of war, their riders scuttling forth upon ant mounts, clad in shaped organic armour.
Some outsiders have asserted that such abundance of utility from the tribe's insect companions has left them technologically backward, and that constant fraternisation and identification with insects has left them culturally stunted. The former is perhaps true. The latter is not - their culture is reasonably rich; just misunderstood and unseen by outsiders (though both the Hive Kin and said outsiders are largely happy with this state of affairs).
With so much tough, flexible carapace, the tribe's need for metals is reduced. As a result, this has left their metallurgy quite simple, and limited in its output. And as Korashi ants are able to eat and digest virtually anything that isn't a mineral, and then be slaughtered as needed for food, the development of hydroponics and other food-growing techniques have not flourished (though the tribe has agriculture, it is mostly an adoption of the subterranean fungal cultivation the ants themselves have been performing for thousands of years).
And with an ever-present, constantly replenished source of excellent riding beasts, they have far less incentive to build or procure mechanical vehicles. What need have they for such things, when their riders can advance at speed towards an enemy sandship, clamber up its sheer sides, and board it in a storm of thrusting spears and snapping jaws?
Original lineart by Lailamon, background is Creative Commons media
Hive Kin
Tools, weapons, armour, food (after considerable boiling and seasoning) - carapace can be made into all of these things and more; and so the mounted legions of the tribe are rarely wanting for equipment.
The creatures that once dwelt within these carapaces also serve as the tribe's beasts of burden and steeds of war, their riders scuttling forth upon ant mounts, clad in shaped organic armour.
Some outsiders have asserted that such abundance of utility from the tribe's insect companions has left them technologically backward, and that constant fraternisation and identification with insects has left them culturally stunted. The former is perhaps true. The latter is not - their culture is reasonably rich; just misunderstood and unseen by outsiders (though both the Hive Kin and said outsiders are largely happy with this state of affairs).
With so much tough, flexible carapace, the tribe's need for metals is reduced. As a result, this has left their metallurgy quite simple, and limited in its output. And as Korashi ants are able to eat and digest virtually anything that isn't a mineral, and then be slaughtered as needed for food, the development of hydroponics and other food-growing techniques have not flourished (though the tribe has agriculture, it is mostly an adoption of the subterranean fungal cultivation the ants themselves have been performing for thousands of years).
And with an ever-present, constantly replenished source of excellent riding beasts, they have far less incentive to build or procure mechanical vehicles. What need have they for such things, when their riders can advance at speed towards an enemy sandship, clamber up its sheer sides, and board it in a storm of thrusting spears and snapping jaws?
Hive Kin
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