The dwarves and other creatures who live beneath the earth tell stories of the dread colonies of the giant ants. These massive insects build colonies in the mountains or beneath large sand dunes. Their breeders spread far and wide, and they wage shadow wars with other colonies. Wizards, druids, and others who can speak to ants find that they are single minded in their desire to conquer the world, and their eternal wars with other colonies. This single-mindedness is so strong that even being able to speak to ants does not start conversations. Only queens and solitary breeders will acknowledge that the humanoids even have purpose. The giant ants will only interact with humanoids if their nests are breached. Meaning that the most common interactions with giant ants is when dwarves find a cave in the mountains and then soldier ants boil forth and a war begins. Of course, it also happens that a city might be built above a hive, and sewers or cisterns being built might cause giant ants to come forth to cleanse the city.
This tendency means that signs or sightings of giant ants can cause panic. The fact that the ant nests can cover several dozen kilometers and contain a few thousand ants means a sighting in the outlying fields can foretell a doom upon the city. Mercenaries and soldiers are also hired and sent to breach the nests out in the fields, minimizing the cost in civilian life, but does make it easier for the ants to dig new tunnels, and therefore can be quite dangerous for the soldiers. In order to protect places from ants, the intelligent humanoids have found a single way to manage the ants. If there is a nest too close to a place that they want to use, they will sometimes lay food and scent trails to bring a second any colony into the space. By putting two ant groups in the same space, this means that the war will often reduce the numbers of ants to a level at the humanoids can now deal with using machines of death and fire. Some who can speak to the ants have formed actual proper alliances with the ants, the ants using the humanoid armies as catspaws and weapons. The nests who accept aid from outside do not generally treat their allies as friends or anything but allies of convenience, but the are able to recognize that they can trade, meaning they will sometimes cede territory, even for a very long time, or they will commit their workers for tasks for the duration of the war.
The orcs and dwarves do sometimes manage to live next to the giant ants due to their indifference. Skilled insect wranglers can manage the scents and smells necessary to control where tunnels are built, and to get the members of a city accepted inside the ant nest without causing conflict. By living close to the ants, the dwarves can gather metals and gems much more easily from the predug tunnels. The orcs will use the ants as transport for goods, placing saddlebags on ants on known routes through the nest, and then remove them on the other side. The lack of individual will amongst each of the ants means that they are rarely bothered about the orcs.
Chitinous Skin: The ant is covered in a thick layer of chitin which keeps its insides inside. The ant receives 3D armour to their entire body. However, this exoskeleton makes treating most wounds much harder, giving -2D to medical tests used to treat them.
Insect Body: The ant's body rests on six legs, and their body is made up of four hit locations. Head, thorax, abdomen, and legs. The low slung body makes it hard for them to move in tight spaces as well as creatures like humans, and nearly impossible for them to climb without just crawling up a large surface they can cling to. Their body does make it nearly impossible to push them over, giving attempts to push them over +2Ob.
Crushing Mandibles: Pow +2 WS 2 Add 2 VA 1 Shortest. Their heads are deadly weapons, using their mandibles. Non-warrior ants only get +1 Power from their smaller jaws. The main weakness of the ant is that their back is relatively unprotected if there's not another ant defending it.
Hive Creature: Ants work in hives, meaning that they all work toward a single goal. The ants all follow smell trails based on their function, and then help out larvae, gather food, or fight intruders as necessary. If they don't have jobs at the end of the smell trail, they will then start to search for tasks based on their role in the hive. This leaves them vulnerable to trickery from those with the right skills, and leaves their sign everywhere for those with the skill to track them. This community process however does allow the ants to spread their hives and work together in unparalleled ways.
A Burning Wheel Monster Every Week