There are small city-states of Bee-kinden in surprisingly many places. They are a quiet, industrious people who do their best not to trouble their neighbours. Bees work tirelessly for Spider overlords in the south, and cling to the inhospitable western coast. Most of all, however, Bee-kinden are slaves of the Empire. They are an Apt people, but they lack the fierce martial fervour and ambition of the Ants, and especially of the Wasps. The Bee-kinden of Szar, especially, are key to the Empire's western expansion. With their queen held captive in the Emperor's harem they are reckoned more loyal to the Wasp throne than most Wasps themselves.

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Scorpion-kinden live lives of violence, greed and savage joy. Raiders, traders, slave-takers and mercenaries, they can be found making a brutal living across the Empire, the Spiderlands and the eastern Lowlands. Clawed and belligerent, they respect only strength. For the old, the weak, the infirm of purpose, there is only death or flight. So it is that a few more enterprising Scorpion-kinden are found scratching a living beyond the reach of their kin. There is no other way for them to enjoy a long retirement.

The Moth-kinden were once the dark masters of the Lowlands, holding the lesser races as their slaves. Then the revolution came and their power was broken by the new weapons and machines that their former subjects devised, and that they could not understand. Now, centuries later, they plot and argue in their mountain fastnesses, clinging to the ancient magic that failed them. Libraries of hidden knowledge surround them, the secrets of the dark ages before the revolution, and all of it unable to restore their world to them.

Industrious and adaptable, the Beetle-kinden are the Lowlands’ great innovators, forever labouring to improve their lot. Merchants and artisans, scholars and artificers, their tireless drive for progress has driven forward the boundaries of technology and trade through an interplay of philanthropy and ruthless self-interest. Beetles truly embody the best and worst of the post-revolution world, finding new heights of altruism and new depths of greed.

A relic of the dark ages before the revolution, Mantis-kinden were once the great fighting power in the world. Even though their time has passed and they field no armies and seldom take an interest in the world, they remain unequalled killers, swift and deadly beyond any other kinden. Now they keep to their forest strongholds and brood over all that they have lost. Honour is everything, to the Mantis-kinden. Their stories are filled with blood and tragedy.

Diminutive Fly-kinden live everywhere in the Lowlands and beyond. Clannish and pragmatic, and unrivalled in the air, they form a thriving underclass wherever they go: cheap labour for the Beetles, servants for the Spiders, military scouts for the Wasps. Fly-kinden are the world’s great opportunists. Fly-kinden will work for anyone, believe in no grand causes, and can thrive and prosper, in their small way, where any other people would be crushed underfoot.

The military power of Ant-kinden city-states has dominated the Lowlands since the revolution. Using their Art to link minds, to fight and work together with flawless discipline, they would have conquered the world by now, save that they reserve their most abiding loathing for Ant-kinden of any other city but their own. Renegade Ants, those who wish to do anything other than follow orders, live bitter, lonely lives cut off from the minds of their fellows.

Art by David Mumford

The elegant and machiavellian Spider-kinden rule a vast coalition across the sea, where they live in luxury and riches un-dreamt of by Lowlanders, or at least their women rule, and their men do as they're told. Spiders are their own worst enemies, however, and the great Aristoi families are constantly scheming to bring each other down. Those that misstep in the Spiders’ complex dance of intrigue either fall or flee, and the Lowlands is littered with political refugees hiding from the retribution of their enemies.

Art by David Mumford

The Wasp Empire is scarcely three generations old, born when the chieftain of one hill-tribe grew strong enough to force all his neighbours to bow the knee. The Wasps have flown from strength to strength since then, embracing new ways of war, conquering cities and enslaving entire kinden. Now, their war with the Dragonfly Commonweal brought to a satisfactory conclusion, they look to the divided and unsuspecting Lowlands for their next campaign.