D&D General Hive Mind Evil?

[Zardnaar]

As the title says.

Basically if you had sentient giant ants or other insectoid race. They'll eat anything and consider humans and other humanoids as food?

How about if humans crossed a river (into their territory) and adventurers killed some.

As a response a queen (or 10) has breed up a large number of warriors and can win any war via attrition if nothing else.

The hives can't feed themselves except by expanding into humanoid lands. The humanoids can't feed them even if the PCs try for a diplomatic solution eg pay compensation with livestock.

Assume the hives also match the humanoids for magic whatever the magic level is. The Queens can breed Spellcasters.

What if the nom nom wars were also a consequence of the PCs being level 2 or 3 and killed the ants as part of an earlier adventure a'la B5 Horror on the Hill.

 

[keynup]

Evil would be having a choice and doing something that causes suffering.
Are the insects more efficient than humans?
Do they farm crops?
Do they farm meat? If so does that include humans?
How much individuality do they have? If not much then kill a couple wouldn't only cause that threat to be stopped. But if individuals more so than they might want revenge.

 

[Zardnaar]

Evil would be having a choice and doing something that causes suffering.
Are the insects more efficient than humans?
Do they farm crops?
Do they farm meat? If so does that include humans?
How much individuality do they have? If not much then kill a couple wouldn't only cause that threat to be stopped. But if individuals more so than they might want revenge.

I would imagine they are essentially hunter gatherers restricting their numbers to a sustainable level.

 

[Richards]

But would a giant ant society bound together with a hive mind consider the slaying of a few drones to be significant? Sure, if the PCs were continuing into the ants' territory and using up their resources - or worse yet, if they killed a queen (who really matters to the hive) - I could see them going into a battle frenzy. But part of the deal of a hive mind with drones is that drones are interchangeable and rather insignificant; as long as the ant colony as a whole wasn't in danger I think the loss of a drone or two is just a part of normal day-to-day business.

Johnathan

 

[Zardnaar]

But would a giant ant society bound together with a hive mind consider the slaying of a few drones to be significant? Sure, if the PCs were continuing into the ants' territory and using up their resources - or worse yet, if they killed a queen (who really matters to the hive) - I could see them going into a battle frenzy. But part of the deal of a hive mind with drones is that drones are interchangeable and rather insignificant; as long as the ant colony as a whole wasn't in danger I think the loss of a drone or two is just a part of normal day-to-day business.

Johnathan

The Queens are sentient and would perceive intruders as a threat.

Not sure on how sentient the drones are. The hive mind might be more for communication.

 

[Oofta]

A lot of ant species will wage continuous war on other ants, so I guess the question to me of evil vs neutral is partly going to depend on that. Do they hunt down and kill other sentient races to reduce the competition? Then for all practical purposes they are evil. Do they just hunt to survive and simply don't distinguish between sentient and non-sentient? Then that's leaning more towards neutral for me.

Ants can do a lot of amazing things you might want to consider for flavor including disguising themselves as other types of ants through scent, take slaves, paralyze enemies to feed on later, bringing back dead bodies (or just the heads) or even act like parasites that invade a society to live of of their food and so on.

 

[Zardnaar]

A lot of ant species will wage continuous war on other ants, so I guess the question to me of evil vs neutral is partly going to depend on that. Do they hunt down and kill other sentient races to reduce the competition? Then for all practical purposes they are evil. Do they just hunt to survive and simply don't distinguish between sentient and non-sentient? Then that's leaning more towards neutral for me.

Ants can do a lot of amazing things you might want to consider for flavor including disguising themselves as other types of ants through scent, take slaves, paralyze enemies to feed on later, bringing back dead bodies (or just the heads) or even act like parasites that invade a society to live of of their food and so on.

Yeah may not be ants just used it as an example.

Just an idea atm.

 

[D1Tremere]

Evil would be a subjective label based on human cultural norms that would no doubt be retroactively applied to the ants in order to make it easier to incur upon their territory. Even if they are sentient, the Ant queens would have their own way of thinking and cultural norms that would likely be very alien to humans, so there is no telling how they would label the situation or even if they would.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I don't see why being a hive mind changes anything. It's still a question of what the motivations and the goals of the hive mind are. It doesn't really matter what the condition of the individual is, hive mind or otherwise.

 

[Umbran]

I would imagine they are essentially hunter gatherers restricting their numbers to a sustainable level.

So, I don't see how, "restricting their numbers to a sustainable level" is consistent with "cannot feed themselves except by expanding into humanoid lands". If they need to expand, their current situation is, by definition, not sustainable.