Fierce hunters and faultless trackers, the thri-kreen are a race of insect-folk sometimes known as “mantis warriors”. They are inscrutable, alien creatures; those who do not know them well believe them to be bloodthirsty monsters. Nomadic folk who spend their brief lives roaming vast distances of the deserts, scrublands, and savannas of the south, thri-kreen are near-perfect hunters.
Personality: Each thri-kreen forms deep attachments with a handful of other individuals, regarding them as clutch-mates, companions to be defended with one’s own life if need be. All others outside this small group of companions are strangers and enemies, although thri-kreen are intelligent enough to recognize that one traveling alone in the lands of other folk would be wise to keep such observations to oneself.
Physical Description: A thri-kreen resembles a bipedal praying mantis. Its body’s exoskeleton is sandy yellow in color. Of the body’s six limbs, the lower two are used for walking, and the upper four end in four-fingered, clawlike hands. Thrikreen have large, dangerous mandibles and compound eyes. Two small antennae sprout from the tops of their heads. They wear little clothing beyond simple harnesses for carrying weapons and equipment.
Relations: Thri-kreen view themselves as noble hunters and judge other folk on the simple relationship of predator to prey. They respect barbarians, rangers, and others who live off the land and treat the land with care. On the other hand, savage and evil races such as gnolls and orcs despoil the lands that should be hunted with respect, and thus they earn the thri-kreen’s enmity. The mantis warriors generally regard city folk and farmers of other races as not-hunters, and therefore not worth their attention (but also unworthy of their enmity).
Alignment: Thri-kreen have virtually no social structure other than the clutches they form with their closest allies. The notion of sophisticated rules for social behavior is foreign to them. They are almost always chaotic in alignment, and often neutral with respect to good and evil.
Thri-Kreen Lands: Thri-kreen like it hot. They favor warm, dry climates, especially arid grasslands and plains that most other folk consider uninhabitable. Since they are a nomadic race, they make no permanent settlements and travel light, carrying little more than tools and food from camp to camp.
Religion: Thri-kreen strongly favor a druidic tradition instead of the myriad deities of other races. Thri-kreen druids serve as the spiritual leaders of the race.
Language: Thri-kreen speak their own language, Thri-Kreen, which is composed of clicks, whistles, and snaps of their mandibles. Thri-kreen player characters also speak Common.
Names: Thri-kreen make no distinction between male and female names, and they do not use a surname.
Thri-Kreen Names: Chak-tha, Drik-chkit, Kacht-ta, Kat’chka, Pak’cha, Pik-ik-cha, Ptekwe, Tak-tha, Tik-tik.
Adventurers: Most thri-kreen adventurers are barbarians, rangers, or druids—characters who do well in the wide-open spaces favored by the race. On rare occasions, a thri-kreen hunter falls in with an adventuring party and bonds with its new companions, taking them as clutch-mates in place of its own kind.
Psionic displacement is the same in effect as the displacement spell and is unique to the thri-kreen, and as a psi-like ability it has no power point cost.
Thri-kreen warriors have invented two exotic weapons that are unique to their race—the gythka and the chatkcha.
Gythka: This two-handed exotic melee weapon is a polearm with a blade at each end. You can fight with it as if fighting with two weapons, but if you do, you incur all the normal attack penalties associated with fighting with two weapons, just as if you were using a one-handed weapon and a light weapon. A thrikreen can wield two gythkas at once as double weapons due to its four arms, but takes penalties as if its off-hand weapon were a one-handed weapon, not a light weapon.
Chatkcha: This exotic ranged weapon is a crystalline throwing wedge.
| Weapon | Cost | Damage (M) | Critical | Range Inc. | Weight | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gythka | 60 gp | 1d10/1d10* | ×2 | — | 25 lb. | Slashing |
| Chatkcha | 1 gp | 1d6 | 18–20/×2 | 20 ft. | 3 lb. | Piercing |
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Source: Expanded Psionics Handbook, page 14.