Dzerva

The nation of Dzijdzerviy, through some poorly-understood political misstep, initiated a war it could not win. Once a sprawling, gaslit hive warren optimized with wondrous machinery, the much smaller dragon-worshiping forces overcame the dzerva and drove them to near-extinction; the only escapees were the instructors for Dzijdzerviy's finest school of military engineering, the Dzerviy Foundation. These individuals are all of extremely advanced age and are thus very frail.

The lion's share of the Dzerva survivor population exists in captivity of their conquerors, including and especially their hive-queen. The Foundation is aware of her continued survival, and it is a cause of noted depression among its learned elders.

Dzerva are short by human standards, standing generally between three and four feet in height; however, the Dzerva build is typically almost as broad as it is tall, simply due to their robust exoskeleton. Their full, sensitive antennae have been described as being moustache-like, and most Dzerva possess a highly sensitive array of feathered feelers below and around their mandibles. For this reason, Vathrians often call them "beard beetles". Dzerva possess eight eyes, typically black, housed within a segmented shell 'eyelid'. As with most insects, the eyes of the Dzerva are situated along the sides of the head. Incidental qualities of their carapace do lend them a certain simulacrum of human expression; their mandibles are highly mobile and are capable of smiling or frowning (after a fashion) and there is a protrusive chitinous 'horn' above and just between their antennae, lending the appearance of a nose to humanoid observers.

Dzerva can grind most stone in their mouths and add a volume of their saliva to create an extremely robust concrete, which they specifically call betonsk in their language. Adult Dzerva have difficulty producing this concrete in any great volumes, and so typically they instead rely on the hive's nurseries as a production facility for hive-wide construction efforts.