1. Symurgh
• Description
• Species-specific genes
2. Throdama
   • Description
   • Morphs and specialization
   • Breeding and pheromones
   • Tactics

Symurgh

Half-canine and half-avian, she is a quintessence of life and prosperity, fascinating the people with grace and mesmerizing colors. It's a giant creature that is big enough to deal with a Dragon - the size of Symurgh is close to that of an adult Roc. Nobility and dignity are essential parts of her nature, so before she decides to help you, you'll need to convince her that you're worthy of her. Her natural powers are fertility, purification and regeneration.

The native world of Symurghs is Io. They prefer abundant mountain landscapes with open water sources like rivers, ponds and waterfalls. The ecosystem and Symurgh live in symbiosis: the land provides Symurgh with everything it needs while the animal increases the fertility of nearby lands being a source of a specific aura which affects all protein life forms. The initial research group discovered that this "aura" is actually a very generic type of pheromones that affect the process of cell division, making it more stable, and increases the speed of metabolism. This improves immunity, helps to recover from wounds and produce crops and offsprings faster than usual. The Mages suppose that Symurgh developed this property naturally because of the huge amount of food required to support such a large creature on a planet with scarce resources. Somehow they need to support the area where they live, or it would be devastated.

Throdama

Throdamas are social insect-like creatures from Ganymede. The name of this graceful yet deadly creature originates from the long forgotten language of our ancestors and means "jointed doe". A colony of Throdamas is called a Hive. Solitary Throdamas are self-sufficient and capable of independent living. Like many other gigantic animal species, the ancestors of Throdamas were created artificially by the human kind to help in the exploration and mastering of the alien worlds. Great strength provided by big size and advanced intelligence made them irreplaceable for the mine works, scouting, foraging and defending the human settlements and bases on Ganymede. Although the human civilization has disappeared leaving Ganymede a quite harsh place to live. Throdamas continued their evolution developing different kinds of forms and successfully taking many ecological niches without humans. Our research group has found five morphs of Throdamas.

Morphs and specialization
Morph	Description	Morph features
Worker	The most widespread and the only morph that is able to reproduce and care for young. Their behavioral patterns somewhat resemble the Earth wasps or ants who demonstrate some outstanding examples of well-organized and effective ways to solve tasks like construction building and engineering, transporting and stockpiling supplies, agriculturing etc. When the Hive is in need of specialized morphs, Workers raise them by feeding the young with specific larval food containing morph-specific pheromones.	Breedable. Produces pheromones. Artisan. Your pet is very careful and accurate crafter and does not spoil materials. The pet returns some unused materials after the crafting. Basic value is 5%, +5% bonus (up to 20%) for every 10 crafting characteristic points surpassing the crafting requirements.
Warrior	This is an aggressive morph armed with spiked forelegs and ability to produce a foul smelling liquid. The hive starts to raise Warriors when there's a need of expansion and it has to oppose the other hives or another external threat.	Not breedable. Grade 1. Spikes. Blow and Rush Damage is increased by 30%. Critical Strike chance is increased by 10%. You have additional* Attack maneuver on the battlefield. Grade 2. Grade 1 bonuses. Venomous spikes. When using Blow or Rush, there is a 50% chance to poison your opponent. Poison can last from 1 to 4 turns and reduces opponents hitpoints by 50% every turn. You have Poison Attack maneuver on the battlefield. Grade 3. Grade 1 and Grade 2 bonuses. Stench. Dodge chance is increased by 75%. You have Confusion maneuver on the battlefield.
Harvester	Harvesters supply the hive with food, building materials and other necessary gatherable resources. They have baskets on their back and middle legs that they use to collect liquids and bulk materials. The front legs are equipped with applanate "claws" that they use for digging and grinding.	Not breedable. Grade 1. Careful. Negative genes do not give you negative maneuvers on the battlefield. The amount of resources found on islands is increased by +30%. Grade 2. Grade 1 bonuses. Hardened mandibles. Bite Damage is increased by 30%. Grade 3. Grade 1 and Grade 2 bonuses. Steel muscles. Strength is increased by 50%.
Scout	This morph is specialized for exploring and moves with perfect silence. It has big feathery antennae and its body edges is covered with soft fur-like sensitive bristles to perceive the slightest mechanical and chemical stimuli. Scouts are mostly nocturnal but this doesn’t mean that they are helpless at the daylight. They just don’t like the abundance of information that is gathered by their perfect senses at that time.	Not breedable. Grade 1. Silent Pace. Critical Strike chance is increased by 30%. First strike is always a Critical Strike. Your pet has Sense of Direction ability. You have Sneak Attack and additional Move maneuver on the battlefield. Grade 2. Grade 1 bonuses. Your pet has Watchman and Scout abilities. Grade 3. Grade 1 and Grade 2 bonuses. Gracefullness. Dodge chance is increased by 45%.
Defender	Defenders are the main power that is responsible for the safety of the Hive and usually they stay at a short distance from it. Their main task is to deter the enemy until the Workers will evacuate the larvae and eggs and all the other morphs will come to help repelling off the attack. The exoskeleton of Defenders is thicker and harder than that of the other morphs. Their chitin forms the extruding plates that can easily stop an attacker and trap his limbs between the plates. Their rear wings are protected with thickened and hardened front wings to avoid the damaging of their flight apparatus.	Not breedable. Grade 1. Hardened chitin. Constitution is increased by 50%. You have additional* Defense maneuver on the battlefield. Grade 2. Grade 1 bonuses. Durable chitin. Hitpoints are increased by +25%. Grade 3. Grade 1 and Grade 2 bonuses. The body of you pet is covered with defensive plates. 30% of damage is reflected to the attacker. You have Plates maneuver on the battlefield.

*Additional maneuvers here mean that your pet do not need to have 100+ maneuver-specific stat in order to get a second maneuver of the same type. It won't receive a third maneuver after increasing this stat to the required threshold.

Breeding and pheromones

A Worker can produce only one pheromone of each type for his whole life.

Workers receive a signal from a female whe she becomes pregnant. They take her egg to the hatchery and start to care about it. If they want to raise a specialized morph, one or several Workers with ready pheromones are staying near the egg and then the larva until it becomes mature.

You can assign 1-3 Workers with ready pheromones to a pregnant female. The more Workers you assign, the higher grade will receive the morph after metamorphosis. The maximum grade is 3. You can change your mind and cancel this baby-sitting or change to the other type of pheromone until the moment of birth. After this you can't modify the chosen pheromone and cancel the brood caring for the baby-sitting Workers until the larva grows up.

Tactics

Throdama Defenders with Plates gene have a new defensive maneuver - Plates. It scores 2 points even for the attack maneuvers that ignore normal defence. Defence maneuvers can't score more points than opponent's attack points. Defence won't score any ponts if the opponent didn't attack.

The squad containing 4 Harvesters gets Locust ability. Locust gets instant bonus from the minor zones (The Crimson Tree, The Ancient Battlefield and The Old Mine) collecting the Vermillion and the silver once they take the zone.

The squad containing 4 Warriors with Stench gets Stinking Cloud ability. The foul cloud around the squad is so strong that an enemy squad gets an out-of-turn discipline degradation right before the battle.