Thri Kreen

> Actually I meant they wouldn't even remember (through legends or whatever) 
> that they "came from the stars" (which is what I presume you have decided
> occured to populate so many planets with thri-kreen).  The thri-kreen I use 
> in FR have no such memories and find hunting the savannah quite natural (as
> they should).

	In the musing and speculation department, I can think of two explinations
for this one.
	Option one, it could be that the original TK colonized Toril *very* early
in their space exploration, even before they were a major player in the
space lanes.  The result is that TK have been living on Toril for so long
that any records of their coming from somewhere else have been lost to
time.  A variation on this could be that some Thri Kreen were moved to
Toril from 
Sri-Knna by the Juna or the ancient Reigar.  Why the Juna or ancient Reigar
did this has been lost to time, and the TK were too primative at the time
to make the connection.  (This would have been around 20,000 years ago.)
The Juna might have even used powerful magical methods to move them around.
 The primative TK may not have even known it was happening!
	It might make for a cool campaign if some TK adventurers find a wrecked TK
ship or some Spelljamming artifact in a cave somewhere, and this sets them
on the trail of discovering their races true origins.  This could have some
interesting effects on the TK of Toril.  	Option one point five says that
some Toril TK know that they came from the stars, "at some point," but
collectively they don't care.  They adapted to life on Toril so well that
their racial origins has little or no importance to the average TK.
	Option two could be that Toril is the original homeworld of the Thri
Kreen!  The Juna, Reigar, or someone else, lifted Thri Kreen off of Toril
(for reasons of their own) and put them elsewhere.  But if this is the
case, the Thri Kreen are native to Toril, and always have been.  Sri-Knna
and Ji-Trinan, the two worlds at the center of the "Empire of the Celestial
Mantis" were essentially colony worlds, even though their TK polulations
were far greater than that of Toril.
	It might be that some members of the TK race embarked on colonization
because Toril was "crowded."  With all these demi-human, human, and
humanoid societies competing for pieces of Toril, the TK wanted a space
where they could live as they chose, free of extensive competition from
others.  So instead of trying to conquer a large portion of Toril (though
they may have tried that), they opted to look for a new home world.
Sri-Knna and Ji-Trinan were the results.  (Sadly one of those worlds was
ripped apart, and the other is now a lifeless ball of rock, but that's
something else.)
	One of the worlds the TK colonized would have been Athas, perhaps by
accident (crash?) or it was used as a penal colony. %}  This was before
Athasspace (or Darkspace) became inaccessable, of course.  The harshness of
that world gave the Athasian Three Kreen some rather disturbing character
traits.  If a Torilian Thri Kreen were to meet an Athasian Thri Kreen,
he/she would probably be horrified at the behavior of their wayward cousin.
 And as "Thatotherguy" mentioned, Athas is the exception to every rule.
That's why it shouldn't be used as a model for a Spelljamming culture.
<evil grin>

	Are their guidelines for Thri Kreen characters in any of the SJ sources? I
forget.  If their isn't, the Dark Sun guidelines would be a good place to
start for the mechanics, but the end result will be *very* different.
	It's possible that the Rastipedes and Xitchel are related to the TK.  I
find it more likely that the three races are descendants of a single parent
race.  This parent race is almost certainly extinct, though artifacts,
ruins, and other remains of this civilization are certainly out there
somewhere.  Good adventure seed for a party of Thri Kreen, Xitchel and
Rastipede characters, eh?
	Finally, regarding the Thri Kreen forging alliances with their traditional
foes, like the elves, Spelljammer tends to play games with this kind of
thing as it is.  The roster of "good guys" and "bad guys" can be very
different in space.  Take the Vodani wars for example.  A lot of races,
traditionally at odds with one another, put aside their differences in the
face of this common enemy.  (Ok, the Beholders kind of blew it at the last
minute, and the Neogi have never played fair with anyone, but those are the
exceptions.)  
	My point is, I don't think it's unreasonable to have local alliances
between Thri Kreen and Elves.  The two sides would probably keep a healthy
distance from one another though: "You stay on your ships and we'll stay on
ours."  There is a strong mistrust between the two races, but neither one
of them are stupid.  If co-operation is mutually beneficial, and there are
sufficient common interests, they will co-operate.
	As for the narrow-minded nature of the top brass at the IEN, then wouldn't
*officially* approve such a thing.  That's not to say that the local elven
IEN commandant won't exercise "situational logic" to justify working with
the local Thri Kreen states to keep the local Neogi flotilla in check.  In
a case like that, the IEN brass would probably look the other way.


Richard
==================
Richard J. Pugh, Technical Services Librarian (GCI)
rpugh@??????.com  /  rjpugh@???????.net
http://patriot.net/~rjpugh/
"Just Say NO to Windows 98."