Codia

Codia isn’t a typical faction. It, instead of being an organised body of people, is a egalitarian nation of the Ews. It has no overarching government, but people do describe its management as a sort of council between all the village elders. Its citizens are predominantly the Codews, a humanoid tree-person just as capable as any Muz or Dos in their dexterity and intelligence. But, especially in the cases of Codia’s sub-kingdoms, there are plenty of other subspecies of Ews roaming the dense forests of Codia.

Societal Structure

Codia, and most Ews societies, have an ancient societal structure codified into their subspecies. Codia is a form of collaborative democracy. Society is based around a familial unit recognised as the village, which is a usually small community of Ews subspecies. In a village, there is often one Ysgews in the centre. These Ysgews form a crucial organisational role for the society as a whole, as they have the ability to near instantly communicate with Ysgews in other villages using a piece of infrastructure called The Wire.

Within villages, the Codews act as the worker unit in a sort of commune. They often create their own societal structures and organise meetings independently from one another and from the Ysgews. These meetings usually discuss matters relating to production and society. The Codews are the key unit of a Codia village.

The Ysgews are the key unit of any Ews society as a whole. Ews society is in a way defined by the interconnectedness of Ysgews through the Wire. They are often old and wise, treated with respect and authority.

Silpt

Silpt is a subregion of codia situated in the north. It is the part of codia that shares a border with the Western Neble Imperium, the Empire of the Plains, Nebcholes-Remen, and Brwrd. Although the Western Neble Imperium now mostly acts on a defensive level, holding onto previously conquered areas, it still remains a threat to Codia. The Empire of the Plains is known to be aggressive, and this aggression is taken out on all its neighbours including its only border with Codia in Silpt. Nebcholes-Remen isn’t known for its warfare but it does give ample base for other nations to attack Codia, not shying from providing its own attack once in a while. Brwrd remains Codia’s foremost enemy, and although it borders all of Codia’s sub factions silpt has a whole plethora of challenges to face making it a prime target for weakening Codia.

Silpt is an Ews faction and is structured similarly to others of its kind. Ysgews sit on the top with Codwes and Caddews acting as the worker and the soldier. In face of all its military challenges, Silpt has managed to mobilise its own force of Ews known colloquially as the Revenants.

The Ysgews of Silpt have a blue tint to them. The reason for this is not quite known, but these blue-tinted ysgews are the Letarches. Each Letarch has the ability to move the adaptive torfol of the recently deceased into a nearby empty-body of tree, making that empty-body alive.

These empty-bodies are usually dead Codews, bringing them to life again with their previous consciousness but with the harvested torfol of the dead. When a Codews is brought back in this way, it becomes a Revenant (Lethews). Random dead trees nearby can also be used as empty-bodies, usually breaking off a new form similar to the creature the taken torfol belonged to. When a new ews is made like this, it is called a Calews. Reincarnated codews and incarnated Calews often have a blue aura surrounding them, and will in some ways act more closely to the person of whom their torfol belongs. Some physical qualities of a codews might even change.

Sometimes, the emotions of the deceased can change a revived Codews or an Calews into something other than a Revenant (Lethews).  

• A wraith is created if the torfol is quite strong, or if the person behind the torfol is filled with anger for some reason. Wraiths are quite similar to usually revived Codews and Neumews, and are distinguished by their greater power, usually physical or related to the hidol.
• A banshee (Fonisews) is created if the person died in fear before having their torfol turned into a revived Codews or Dendronim. Banshees have horrific screams, and are usually powerful hidomancers.
• A Phantom (Lefews) is created if the person died in sadness. Phantoms are more ghostly ews and can phase through things. They are incredibly resilient because they are hard to hit. They are also very fast, not only because they are unhindered by terrain. 
• An Aster (Syndews) is created if the person died in surprise. Asters are characterised by the star-shaped objects in their eyes. Asters are quite good at hidomancy, usually creating explosions or bright flashes in combat. Their more extraordinary abilities are those of a fast ethereal movement akin to teleprtation and vanishment. Asters also have blue ghostly figures around them that looks like the deceased person who’s torfol brought about their incarnation.
• A Poltern (Llonews) is created if the person died in joy. Polterns usually don’t take on a combative role but instead more of a support. They often use instruments and song to egg other ews on while also in a way instilling fear in the opponent. Death in joy from war is rare, so the few Polterns that exist are incredibly loud and creative with their warsongs.
• A Moroi (Carews) is created if the person died in love, so are quite rare. Morois are assassins and have the ability to ‘lock on’ to their target. Once locked on, the torfol of the target will quickly lower in mass before eventually disappearing, which only kills those if they have a creature stone. Other than that, Morois often fully lean into this role in Silpt, specialising in stealth.

These emotion-based differences seem to suggest that there is some connection between the Torfol and the emotions of a person.

Silpt is not only capable of turning the torfol of people into revived Codews or Calews, but can do the same with the torfol of creatures if it wishes to. Usually, the torfol of creatures cannot be used to revive Codews but can be used to create Calews. Calews created with the torfol are called Ghouls and usually imitate the likeness of the creature who the torfol belonged to. The most common types of ghouls are those of mounts such as horses, or other beasts. Usually, the most powerful of ghouls are those of powerful creatures that wandered into Silpt only to be hunted down for the purpose of turning them into Ghouls.

Caddews can be revived similarly to Codews, but they can only be revived as Wraiths created from powerful torfol, or more specially as Crucio. Crucio are similar to Letarches in the way that they can revive Codews and create Animews. They are no where near as powerful as the Letarches, though, and cannot create them at the same scale.

Shurb

I want to workshop shrub

So basically, to workshop Silpt and even codia to some extent I just looked at the Games Workshop models for the tree people and kinda took it from there. It was a great base, and everything I have now is so far from the source material its barely even inspired by it.

Was thinking of doing something incredibly similar for Shurb, but taking examples from the Tyranids. First, though, I need to get a few things out of the way:

In common media, hive-minds always have controllers, and once you kill the controllers its all over. This is a sort of part of an indoctrination we’ve been subjected to where we think someone has to be on top of the chain. This is not true, in fact if you look at all real life ‘hive minds’, or eusocial insects, they’re all equals working together and the queen is basically just a baby making machine. Codia kinda works like this already. The Ysgews all work on a sort of social network where they can communicate between each other when rooted. Its not a real hive mind, but it feels like it when every village in Codia knows what’s going on in every other village almost instantly.

So here are the roles and inspirations I’m considering:

• Small and fast melee fighter
• Tiny swarm thing that bites ur toes
• Specialist shock troopers (maybe the Codews variant?)
• Standard powerful warrior (caddews)
• Medium magic creature
• Poison-based creature
• Roots based creature (may be same as poison)
• Medium specialist troopers? (Caddews variant perhaps)
• Generic medium creature (spider-inspired)
• Monstrous magic thing?
• Burrower thing
• Generic large creature
• Bigger scary thing (tervigon-inspired)
• Bigger root creature?
• Potential massive tree monster (banyan tree like?)