The world was brand new and the continent of Altus was his to forge into something wonderous. Barnabus smiled happily as his mind had already conjured up images of his glorious victory. He could not recall who had started these games but he knew why they continued. The concepts had completed their role in creating and maintaining this universe and had no directives to do anything else. They were bored and had power. The games were a natural consequence to this fact.

Barnabus and Carthus were two of the youngest fully realized concepts and had not yet had the chance to play many games. So, while winning the competition only gave them bragging rights, it was still worth it for the younger of the greater gods. He did not know who the oldest was but he had a felling it was the old crone. She seemed to take charge of everything but her greater concept had to pull from order and leadership at the very least. His own concept pulled heavily from conflict related concepts. He enjoyed this challenge because it called to a deeper part of his persona. He never even considered a method other than conflict to resolve this challenge. If he had known the approach his counterpart took, he would have greatly approved. However, he had an idea that he wanted to try based on the lessons learned in the last game he played. He had yet to win a competition against the older deities except once against the kitten. However, he did not feel as though that should count as the kitten got bored after a few millennia and just swatted everything on the board. When the board was a planet — that just meant everything was wiped out. So, while technically a win. It was not a victory.

Barnabus considered the land first. It was a vast continent with many different biomes that made up the biosphere of this hemisphere of the world. He did not want to change the biosphere to suit a species because he wanted a species that would be able to live, and more importantly battle, in every type of environment. So, he had to rule out most ectotherm species that he really liked. The tended to go dormant if temperatures dropped to low. He was not opposed to endotherms but they just didn't look as intimidating in his opinion. He looked through the many species available and decided to use some build points to create a new species. He wanted to somehow merge the benefits of his favorite insectoid species with a characteristic of other endothermic species. The ability to convert energy to regulate temperature would be beneficial. They could remain ectothermic and utilize the free energy of the world to regulate their body heat. This would give the species access to their typical traits and the ability to use mana would also somewhat empower them. However, the use of the world's mana in their bodies meant that there would be very few spell casters in their ranks. The few there would be would not reach the power of other species in pure spellcasting. It was a trade off but one that Barnabus found acceptable. He understood the benefit of capable mages on the battlefield, but with the insectoid breeding tendencies and their generally powerful bodies he didn't see the issue being overly dire.

A vast amount of his build points were used to generate the creatures to his liking. He had to create several variations as he wanted a bit of diversity amongst them. Then he placed his insectoid races into the world. He was happy for a bit then realized he did not create enough biodiversity for them to survive. He wanted to save a large enough amount of points to advance their society but with creating the races from scratch he did not have enough to do that and create a better environment. With a sad sigh he built up the biodiversity to allow for a complex food web. With the remaining few points he created the only 3 world deities these creatures would need. The Mother, The Warrior, and The Worker were instilled into the minds of every Insectoid and soon enough the proto-deities were formed.

The next few millennia were rather quiet. The Insectoids were just trying to build up their nests and hives and were content within their societal roles. The workers worked. The warriors protected and fought. The queens generated the next generations and ruled the. Everyone had direction and there was no discontent in the ranks. It was one of the reasons Barnabus liked these races. They knew their purpose and they lived up to it. When a hive or nest birthed another queen, she was given a few handmaidens, workers, and warriors then sent out to create her own place. Most hives or nests also kept several queen prospects in hiding for if anything happened to the queen, the colony would live on.

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Everything seemed to be going well for Barnabus. Nearly 12,000 years of evolution and the insectoids had expanded throughout the continent. Their were species in every biome and thanks to the energy bodies they even started to evolve to better fit the area in which they took up residence. It was also around this time that Barnabus noticed a problem. The oldest hives had expanded to the point where they encroached on some of the newer hives lands and it caused confrontations at these areas. The workers would fight over the resources they were sent to gather which causes soldiers to get involved and escalations like that could only be stopped by the queens. Unfortunately the queens would often stop the conflicts too late which ended up created massive casualties. This was devastating to the smaller colonies usually, as they needed the numbers they lost. Furthermore, opportunistic nearby queens would try to take their land and resources for themselves when they were weakened.

Barnabus did not like the conflicts he was seeing throughout the insectoid lands. He knew the queens would eventually come into conflict but without an outside enemy the creatures fought amongst themselves. The flyers were based off a type of predatory wasp and tended to be aggressive toward the ground bound species. Many times a group of flyers would attack the land bound only for a massive army to follow them back to their hive. If the hive was not large enough it would be decimated. Many would survive if the queen managed to escape but they usually failed to leave before they were swarmed. The largest of the hives held a few thousand before the structure became to large to support itself. However, the smallest of the land bound colonies had nearly double that amount of workers and soldiers. This eventually led to the largest hive's queen deciding that the next few queens she spawned would be subordinate queens and they set up a hive empire that spanned a few thousand square miles. With their larger sizes and flight abilities they were able to successfully hold onto their lands.

The insectoids found themselves at a tentative truce when the time frame was nearly completed. They managed to build city like structures both above and below the ground that while minimalistic served their purposes well. They had clearly defined lands and culled each other when the need arose. Barnabus was happy with their numbers but he understood their nature. They needed to expand and there just so happened to be a continent that was ripe for the taking. It was time to summon forth the heroes and let the game truly begin.

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Empress Kalrixa Phlorispectra sat upon her great throne looking over her empire through a large glass sphere that her priestess held aloft. The colony was thriving but she had birthed another queen this cycle and there was no more room for them. The area's were well established and war within this area was inadvisable. The casualties would be catastrophic for all parties. She was just resigning herself to kill the new queen for the good of the tribe when a soft glow overtook the priestess next to her. A loud droning buzz came from her as the majestic voice of the Mother spoke out over it. "A new land with vast resources has been found to the east. Grow the hive and colony take this land for the three. We leave with you our champion. Unite the Insectoid as one and inhabit the whole if this realm." The droning sound stopped with the voice and the soft glow faded from the priestess who slumped as though she were exhausted.

A whistling sound filled the air along with the faint sound of someone screaming. A moment later a burning figure burst through the hive walls and slammed into the audience chamber floor. The Empress jumped to her feet in alarm but calmed her self and stared down regally from her dais as the being rose. Her guards quickly surrounded her and the intruder but the Empress held them back with a wave of her upper arm. The creature was quite a bit larger than those of her kin but had a similar four armed two legged frame. Its exoskeleton was green and it had two large scythe like weapons sheathed at its hips. Its abdomen was long and she could see that large wings sprouted from its thorax and laid over the abdomen. Its face was a bit angular but not unpleasant to look at. It was quite similar to the rest with large segmented eyes on a rounded face. Long antenna protrude from its forehead. It has a long thin nose that slopes upward away from its mouth. Large mandibles protrude from just under its ear at joint of the upper and lower jaw. It was a strange Insectoid. One she had never seen before. The words of the Mother made their way back to the forefront of her thoughts and she realized this must be their new champion. She started to speak but was interrupted by the newcomer who groaned and stood up shaking its head. It looked around in a mix of wonder and confusion. It took in the creatures surrounding it and titled its head in apparent confusion. It grunted a laugh. "Looks like that goddess was right. New world cool. It looked down and inspected its limbs. "I guess I just didn't expect to have been Beesekaied."