The Raveis are an insectoid race divided into many subraces. The first of these are the slaves, who make up 80% of the population. Slaves have no real mind of their own and are essentially biomachines performing fairly simple functions.
Where slaves were once used to service the nest, they are now part of assembly-line production and vast enterprises. At times they link up into networks of a sort, which can be used as computers.
The second class are the warriors, split into sub-subraces: close-combat fighters — the berserkers — bioweapon shooters, and flying warriors. The third class are the enslavers, a special subrace used to seize and subdue the slaves of another hive.
The fourth are the Many-Eyes, the most intelligent beings in the hive and the brain of the race. A single hive may hold a great many of them, and it is they who form its ruling class. The Many-Eyes are not individuals, however: they are close to the Sanahaz multi-personalities, which makes them in effect a distributed brain. They also lay the eggs, while new stock is grown in birthing vats — biomachines adapted for the various members of the race.
Tellingly, the Raveis are not a standard biotech insectoid race: they actively develop industry. Their factories run on mixed industrial and slave labour.
The principal unit of organisation is the hive. A hive may be a single city or a whole continent riddled with hives. Ravei society is almost always a confederation of hives.
At the highest level, that of the Many-Eyes, Ravei society is a democracy in which power is apportioned in proportion to the population of each particular hive.
The principal fuel of the insectoid races is not benzoranj but enriched tor. It is obtained from the milk of the Ravei subrace called tor. The tor are a mutation within the Ravei race, and their eggs are a great rarity. After milking, the milk goes through fairly complex processing and becomes enriched tor (ET).
ET is used in the gipro engines of local starships. These engines are inferior to benzoranj and ktukat ones, but they are decent all the same — and far cheaper.
The Ravei race is not united: it lives amid constant conflict between its various hives. Wars of the hives are part of the political landscape. This is also one of the reasons the Raveis remain a fairly weak race — endless infighting keeps them from consolidating.
A great many Raveis have taken to mechanical weapons: a Ravei shooter with an assault rifle is an ordinary sight, and some shooters have begun wearing primitive armour as well. Fighters also turn up carrying trophy weapons and wearing trophy armour stripped from a killed enemy.
The hunters stand apart, armed with a spore pistol and a force blade: they specialise in stealth attacks and operations behind enemy lines. A hunter wears a camouflage cloak able to mimic the terrain, and a perception-enhancing band on the head that lets him operate in total darkness. The most heavily armed fighters carry an integrated bio-cannon.
The castes differ greatly in size, which is why the book plates place a human silhouette beside the figures for scale. The illustrations begin with the castes of the hive: a berserker and a Many-Eyes, a slave, a bioweapon shooter, a tor, and an enslaver.
Then come the figures from the uniform book: a shooter with a mechanical assault rifle and a chest plate, a hunter in a netted camouflage cloak with a force blade and a spore pistol, a Ravei in an Adayhar's trophy helmet and armour, and finally a fighter with an integrated bio-cannon.