Gladiatorial combat has long been part of hivryn culture, evolving from a time when rogues were publicly executed as examples. After the Hivryn Sundering, each of the three hives maintained aspects of these public executions, with the Kiavehr adapting it into live training exercises that pitted their soldiers against prisoners of war. The Hrendin picked up these training exercises and turned it into a competitive spectator event for which they charged admission, and the first arena games were born.

As hivryn moved through the galaxy on trade routes, splinter versions of these events began showing up on a variety of worlds. The competitors became known as crawlers, thanks to their insect heritage, and in time the events themselves became known as crawls. Seeing an opportunity to expand, a Hrendin conglomerate stepped in and formalized the events to make them more appealing to a wider audience, eventually absorbing splinter groups into a larger league, which came to be known as the Arena Crawlers Syndicate (ACS).

Local Leagues

The ACS has a presence on most worlds, from multiple chapters in a single city, to one per continent or world, based on the population total and its popularity. Each chapter is run by a promoter who schedules crawls, hires Crawl Wardens, and provides team invitations, with a number of handlers based on size of the chapter. The handlers interact with the teams, acting as agents that try to get their teams into the scheduled crawls.

Galactic ACS

While a single commissioner oversees the ACS, that individual is the face of the syndicate partners, who actually make all the major decisions. At this level, the ACS manages the administrative aspects of both the Lattice Series and Ultimate Crawl Tournament. Chapter promoters with teams that make it into the Lattice Series step up into a very lucrative role as ACS Agents, representing these teams throughout their run.

Crawl Warden

Each crawl is run by a Crawl Warden whose role it is to set the rules for the type of crawl, determine penalties, entertain the audience (often by heckling the crawlers), and advance the event. This is often the individual or a representative of the group who designed the crawl.

Rules

For crawlers, there are only a handful of rules, most of which are dictated by the type of event.

The universal rules are as follows:
  • know and obey the rules of the Crawl
  • the Crawl Warden is the law
  • disqualification is not negotiable
  • keep the Crawl within the boundaries

Violations of these rules can have some extreme consequences, including teams or individuals being penalized and even banned from future crawls. 

Penalties

There are two types of penalties that can occur in the crawls, point penalties and disqualifications.

A point penalty occurs when a rule is violated in scoring, this can be an attack made outside a boundary, in a safe zone, etc. The Crawl Warden may choose to add points to the penalty depending on the nature or frequency of the violation.

Disqualifications result in individuals or teams being ejected from the arena, and is determined by the Crawl Warden.

Scoring

While this can vary depending on the type of crawl, there are typically four aspects of scoring, the overall time it takes to complete a challenge, the number of challenges completed, the number of kills, and the quality of kills. Challenges can be anything from clearing a room of opponents to solving puzzles to negotiating obstacles, and may incorporate multiple aspects into a single challenge.