Apari

Apari

(Creature)

Type

Vermin

CR

7

Environment

Temperate or warm plains

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Alien Archive, pg(s). 14

Aparis are a species of eusocial vermin that can be found on numerous planets. Each apari hive consists of millions of tiny constituents and the apari itself, which serves the constituents as both queen and living hive.

Appearance

Aparis are gigantic beetles home to milllions of grain-sized grey maggot-like constituents. These constituents are shaped by the apari's chemical neurological signals into myriad forms as necessary for the hive to function.

Ecology

Apari constituents forage for rotting organic material, while the hive itself is a predator. Sometimes, they combine their efforts: the hive tears into the prey, letting the constituents enter and tear it out. Due to their mutability, aparis are resilient to disasters like flooding or extermination from an intelligent species.

When an apari produces too many constituents, it roots itself in the core of its territory while the consituents either ferry parts of its key biological systems (including half of its maggot core), or forage for the nutrients needed by the child apari. When the new apari is mature, it and its parent split the territory from that core, never working together or directly competing. All aparis are chemically linked, so constituents from a dead hive can join a new one. In this way, supercolonies of aparis have taken over whole worlds.

Habitat

Aparis can be found on numerous planets despite their lack of intelligence; according to fossil records, this diaspora preceded the Gap, and their original homeworld is unknown. It is theorised that they were either spread by a spacefaring or planehopping race, or are the descendants of a spacefaring race that lost intelligence. In either case, modern aparis can only colonise new worlds with the help of an intelligent race. In the Pact Worlds system, fried apari grubs are seen as a delicacy by some cultures.