Tohra-Kren

Population: 3,975 (100% Thri-Kreen)
Government: Geriatocracy
Religions: Animism
Imports: None
Exports: None
Alignment: All
=== Life and Society ===
Thri-Kreen, known by some as ‘Mantis Men’, are cunning and intelligent warriors. In the past, when they roamed the then deserts of the Shou subcontinent, they traveled in nomadic bands, hunting prey. Since taking refuge in Tohra-Kren, the Thri-Kreen have settled down, no longer nomadic. Their city in the Great Vault is surrounded by a desert that the Thri-Kreen maintain, filled with various predators that they have traditionally hunted, including Dinosaurs.
Thri-Kreen make and use a variety of weapons, chief among them the gythka and the chatkcha. The gythka is a polearm with wicked blades at either end, while the chatchka is a crystalline throwing wedge. Production of these weapons takes place only in Tohra-Kren, and these unique weapons are generally the only ones that the entire race utilizes. Other, more traditional weapons and armors, are absent from the city, because of the Thri-Kreen’s anatomical inability to wear such items.
Because Thri-Kreen do no sleep, Tohra-Kren is constantly abuzz. Asides for tending to individual matters, the Thri-Kreen possess a hive-mind of sorts, and work to protect their city as well.
Thri-Kreen are carnivores, and though not a single Thri-Kreen has left the Great Vault, the city has never gone without food. The Thri-Kreen are intelligent geologists and biologists. Their underground city is rife with vegetation, thanks to Thri-Kreen scientists and magicians, and the Great Vault is stocked with all sorts of animals that the Thri-Kreen eat- primarily Dinosaurs- but these creatures are not hunted excessively. Instead, the Thri-Kreen hunt what they need, to ensure that the Dinosaur population stays at an acceptable level.
The Thri-Kreen of Tohra-Kren are extremely isolationist. Since coming to inhabit the Underdark, very few Thri-Kreen have left. And, those few who do leave invariably come back to their city, having left to scout the surface world. The Great Vault, for such a large chamber in the Underdark, is known to very few non-Thri-Kreen. The Thri-Kreen do their best to maintain the illusion that their society does not exist, perfectly content to live out their lives in Tohra-Kren.
A council of five individuals who seem to be neigh-immortal governs Tohra-Kren. While the race as a whole live for roughly fifty years, the Council of Elders is composed of five Thri-Kreen who are well past this age. No one knows exactly how old these Thri-Kreen are, but they led the Thri-Kreen into the Underdark when the Shou Humans began their genocidal war with the Mantis Men, meaning that these elders are thousands of years old. The Council of Elders is made up of Chak’tha (Female Thri-Kreen Psion 15 / Wilder 2), Tak’cha (Female Thri-Kreen Psion 17), Drik’cha (Male Thri-Kreen Psychic Warrior 17), Pik’ikch (Female Thri-Kreen Psychic Warrior 12 / Metamind 4), and Tik’tik (Male Thri-Kreen Druid 24), the members of the ‘Upper Council’, and ten other individuals, members of the ‘Lower Council’.
Thri-Kreen are not particularly devout. Because of their natural Psionic powers, and their insectoid-mindset, they do not revere or pay homage to any traditional deities. Many, however, worship and revere the power of nature, as it and its influence cannot be denied. There are no Thri-Kreen Clerics, but there are quite a few Thri-Kreen Druids.
=== Major Organizations ===
The Council of Elders
=== Major Geographical Features ===
Tohra-Kren is located in vast chamber in the Underdark known as the Great Vault that occupies the Underdark roughly from Utaanbeylaar to Shen Yang. While the Underdark is normally lightless, the Thri-Kreen have used powerful magics to ensure that their home in the Underdark resembles their traditional holdings from years past. Tohra-Kren itself is perpetually illuminated by magical light. The Thri-Kreen do not sleep, and they find it preferable to be bathed in light, rather than darkness. The same magic that was used to create this artificial sun also created a massive desert in the Great Vault. Unlike Tohra-Kren, the desert of the Great Vault does indeed have day and night. The Thri-Kreen chose this because other creatures exist in the desert that were introduced as prey, and require the light and darkness of the day-night cycle to function normally.
=== Important Sites ===
The Keystone
=== Regional History ===
The history of Tohra-Kren dates back years before the Great Vault was created, and the physical city built. Long ago, Thri-Kreen lived on what is today the Shou subcontinent. Thousands of years ago, the land did not look as it does today. In the past, the area was a large desert. And, it was in this desert that the Thri-Kreen lived.
While this was hardly an idyllic time for the Thri-Kreen, they did not want. They traveled together in large tribes, hunting creatures living in the desert. Being the only intelligent race in the desert, the Thri-Kreen were more or less masters of all they surveyed.
This would soon change, however, when the Heinsan people of the Spice Isles migrated west, to the mainland in –2,300. Initial contact between both sides was mired in confusion- the Heinsan people had never seen creatures such as the Thri-Kreen before, and the Thri-Kreen had never seen creatures such as the Humans before. After the initial contact between these two groups, both enjoyed amiable relations. The Humans did not come to inhabit the desert that the Thri-Kreen did, so the two races never engaged in competition for the same resources. The Thri-Kreen, and these Humans, who would evolve into the ethnic Ryukan people, lived side-by-side in relative peace. 
In –2,000 the ethnic Shou people arrived to the Shou subcontinent from another world. The ethnic Shou would soon come in contact with the ethnic Ryukan people, and would quickly go to work, converting them to the worship of the Celestial Bureaucracy, and to adhere to traditional Shou customs and beliefs, as opposed to their own. It would only be a matter of time before the ethnic Shou and the Thri-Kreen met for the first time, and in –1,898, the Shou and the Thri-Kreen came face to face for the first time.
The Shou demanded that the Thri-Kreen abandon their own culture, and submit to Shou ways. Unlike many of the Ryukan Humans that the Shou had encountered, the Thri-Kreen did not submit to the will of the Shou, and refused. After being rebuffed, the Shou declared a genocidal war on the Thri-Kreen in –1,895.
By years end, the Shou had decimated the Thri-Kreen. While the Thri-Kreen were superior warriors, the Shou had superior numbers, and eventually overwhelmed the thri-Kreen. Thri-Kreen society was also tribal in nature, whereas a central Emperor unified the Shou, so the Shou had an easier time dealing with the Thri-Kreen tribe by tribe, than each Thri-Kreen tribe had dealing with the entire Imperial Army of the Shou.
Rather than risk total annihilation, the Thri-Kreen leaders convened and decided that they would leave their ancestral homes. Because of the relative isolation the Shou subcontinent, the Thri-Kreen had nowhere else to go, however. A Thri-Kreen Druid, Tik’tik proposed that the surviving Thri-Kreen flee into the Underdark, hiding any and all traces of where they had gone. From the relative safety of the Underdark, away from the Shou, the Thri-Kreen could go on with their lives, in a vault specially enchanted and prepared ahead of time. The Thri-Kreen elders agreed to this proposal, and Tik’tik and the other Druids of the Thri-Kreen tribes began the arduous process of creating the massive cavern. By the end of the year, they had succeeded, and the Thri-Kreen feigned their complete annihilation, taking residence in the Great Vault, and the city created within it, Tohra-Kren.
Tohra-Kren exists in complete isolation and secrecy. Occasionally, Thri-Kreen scouts leave the city to learn of current events, but these scouts are careful to keep their true identities and place of origin secret.