Valaara

The Crawling Queen works its will on insects, arachnids, and other vermin. Swarms with malign sentience, worms that consume victims from within, cultists that slowly become insects—all of these delight Valaara.

Source: Rising from the Last War

Individuality is a curse. Every day, it fills you with disappointment and doubt. But within the Hive, you will always know your place, always know your purpose. Join us. Forget your past. Forget your pain. And help us build a better world.

The daelkyr Valaara works with insects and all manner of crawling vermin. Its children are all around us, listening in the walls and consuming our dead. While it creates new and deadly forms of insects and arachnids, Valaara also experiments with insect consciousness, spreading the mind of a humanoid across multiple bodies. Victims of Valaara’s delusions may believe that they are insects transformed into human form, or that they are being controlled or consumed by parasites. Its most widespread cult calls itself the Hive; members of this sect surrender their individuality to serve the collective, with mammals acting as if they’re insects. The question when dealing with the Hive is whether it’s solely a delusion and the victims can be saved, or whether the cultists truly have been consumed from within by Valaara’s children, and are simply wearing human shells.

Beyond the Hive, Valaara’s cults invariably interact with insects in some way. Some believe they are receiving divine messages hidden in the buzzing of insects. Others cultivate massive hives of telepathic insects or create charnel pits as a breeding ground for maggots.

Valaara has no established domain, but its cults often spring up in the sewers and middens of major cities. It prospers in places where insects and humans both thrive. Despite their shared affinity for vermin, the Children of Winter druids despise Valaara and its cults; they seek to preserve the natural order, whereas Valaara’s creations are anything but natural.

Forces. Valaara created the carrion crawlers, and any sort of unnatural insect or crawling vermin could be attributed to the Crawling Queen. Valaara doesn’t associate with dolgaunts or dolgrims. Its primary servitors are thri-kreen; it is constantly twisting and evolving them, and they may be slightly different each time they’re encountered. Swarms, spiders, scorpions, and other similar creatures can be found with Valaara’s cults. However, as with all the daelkyr, Valaara takes natural things and makes them unnatural. When using a relatively mundane insect as a base creature, consider what you can add to making it unnatural. This could be a mystical ability, but it could also be abnormal intelligence or a cosmetic detail—perhaps the insects of the swarm are bioluminescent, and the fluctuating patterns of their glowing carapaces has an almost hypnotic effect; when the creatures fly, the buzzing of their wings sounds like maniacal human laughter.

Gifts. Valaara creates chitinous armor and living weapons. It creates symbionts that burrow into the flesh of the host; two of its gifts are the throwing scarab and the spellburrow, both presented in chapter 7.

Character Ideas. A druid using the Circle of Spores (from Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica) could be reflavored, with their Halo of Spores presented as an aura of insects. A character might believe they are one of Valaara’s children—an insect transformed into humanoid form, either as an experiment or as a scout sent out to gather information.

Story Ideas. A plague of unnatural locusts is stripping the land; what is drawing the insects here? A sect of the Hive is spreading through a squalid part of town, but are they preying on innocents, or are new members joining of their own free will? An insect follows the adventurers, whispering their secrets; is it a single warped creature, or just one drone from a telepathic hive?

Source: Exploring Eberron Ch3

Valaara is known as the Crawling Queen, the Watcher in the Walls, and the Keeper of Worms. It’s said that you can hear Valaara’s voice in the rustling of roaches and the keening of locusts. In some tales, Valaara crafts worms that crawl through the ear and consume a creature’s brain; in others, when its maggots devour a corpse, Valaara can recreate the victim in its Deepest Hive. No one knows what Valaara wants, but its minions could be all around you even now, crawling in your walls and moving beneath your feet.

Chitin Consciousness. Valaara embodies the alien nature of insects in all aspects. Valaara’s symbionts may be formed from chitin, but it also has creations like the spellburrow and the throwing scarab (detailed in chapter 7)—insects that burrow into the skin of the bearer. Those touched by Valaara may undergo a physical metamorphosis and manifest insect traits, but Valaara’s touch can also transform the mind. Some who hear the whispers of the Crawling Queen become fascinated by insects, while others suffer more dramatic transformations. Valaara’s most persistent cults spread by forming a hive; one creature becomes the queen, and others touched by this cultist find their original personality and desires fading, consumed by the need to fulfill their purpose in the hive. Usually this effect is limited, a psychic connection that only binds a few people; but in a few cases, this psychic contagion has been virulent and contagious, consuming entire towns.

Valaara’s Minions. The cults of the Crawling Queen are described in detail in chapter 3. Valaara doesn’t use dolgaunts or dolgrims; rather, it often transforms humanoids into insect forms. These creatures use the statistics of thri-kreen, driders, or umber hulks, but their appearance can vary dramatically; a group of servitors could be roach-people as opposed to the typical mantis form of the thri-kreen. In other places it works through consuming worms, producing creatures with the statistics of spawn of Kyuss. In general, Valaara may employ any sort of creature thematically related to insects or worms, from simple swarms and giant spiders to carrion crawlers, ankhegs, remorhazes, or even purple worms. But these monsters should be seen as a starting point. Like all daelkyr, Valaara is constantly experimenting and creating new things. Imagine a purple worm with malign intelligence and psychic powers, or teleporting ankhegs that burrow through the fabric of space.

Source: ExE Chapter 8