“ Termites, in certain places, make homes that can be eight meters high and only a half meter wide. They are built facing North to South to take advantages of the suns travel, maximum heat in the morning and evening and little in the afternoon. Imagine grassy plains with vertical structions facing a certain direction all over the place. Ambush? Maze? New creature? Larger structures?”
“ In the Middle Ages, and even up to the early twentieth century, most of Europe's executioners were related: the Sansons and Deiblers in France, the Pierrepoints in England, etc. The reason for this was that, it generally not being socially acceptable to, well, kill people, executioners and their children could, generally, only marry other executioners or <i>their</i> children.
The parallels with massively inbred, Hapsburg-style dynasties are obvious- imagine a rather clever but politically inept satirist noting this, and being sentenced by the latter to a meeting with the former; even worse, imagine a dynasty of deranged and deformed executioners- think Texas Chaisaw Massacre with government funding.”