Though I'm rather late to the party, I'll tell you of my version of the people of Adamant, shamelessly stolen from a combination of the Zerg from Starcraft, the Bohrok from BIONICLE and the "Locust" part of the Locust Crusade.
The People of Jade
"Once, there was a smith-king who was very skilled but not very liked, some would even call him unlikeable. The one thing that this smith-king liked, was the act of creation, he created many weapons and tools and much more that would go down in history, but that is another story. This is a story of the chittering of insects, of life from jade, and of a single smith-king's hatred and despair.
Now, this smith-king was very lonely, for all of his brothers and sisters hated him and mocked him and laughed at him, so one day when he walked a stroll through the Creation under our Creation, he found a big deposit of jade, now since this smith had helped build the Creation under Creation, this did not surprise him, for jade was the natural way.
But inside the jade, he found those folk so fair from the outside of creation, mighty Rakshasa princes and their hundred concubines and hundred warriors and many merchants, all frozen inside this single block of jade. At first, the smith-king was curious, and he spent much time examining it, and all his children, who were ministers in his kingdom looked at it and marvelled. And they all thought it was beautiful.
A single cockroach was out walking, and the smith-king saw this and asked of it "go fetch me a locust", and the cockroach had to obey this, for the smith-king was very powerful and it did not want to anger him, so it ran all the way to fetch a locust, and they both ran all the way down in those deep, dark, winding tunnels again.
And the smith took the locust, and he made of it a hammer, and said "now, the spark of genius is lit!", and the smith took the cockroach and made of it a chisel and said "may it burn 'til my work is done!".
And hammered and chiseled at the jade until he had brought out all of the concubines and all of the warriors and all of the merchants and their prince and all his splendor.
And he saw that they were dead, so he made something new of them.
He brought a hundred locust wings, and a hundred shells, and a hundred scything mantis claws, and many other wonders, and he set to work.
And from the hundred concubines and hundred merchants, he forged four Workers, and they were the first of the Worker Caste.
And from the hundred warriors, he forged two mighty Soldiers, and they were the first of the Soldier Caste.
And from the mighty prince, he forged a single Artisan to be the first of the Artisan Caste.
He then spoke to the Workers and said "Here, I bless upon you, the compound eyes of the flies, so you may see. I bless upon you, the carapace of the cockroach and the diligence of the ant and the devotion of the scarab."
And it was so.
He then spoke to the Soldiers and said "Here, I bless upon you, the eyes of the wolf spider, so you may hunt and kill. I bless upon you, the scything talons of the mantis and the wings of the locust and the strength of the goliath beetle."
And it was so.
He then spoke to the Artisan and said "Here, I bkess upon you, the wings of the dragonfly, so you may be raised above your kin. I bless upon you, the body of humankind and the carapace of many thousand insects."
And it was so.
And finally, the smith-king said to them.
"To you, Worker, I grant the gift of Tools. You shall work and toil, to bring the jade-folk many bounties."
"To you, Soldier, I grant the gift of Dogma. You shall act with perfect coordination and unshakable devotion."
"And to you, Artisan, I grant the gift of Faith. You alone shall bear the spark of genius, and you alone shall know that you always act with nothing but the highest intentions."
And the Great Maker saw that it was good."
So my Jade-folk are human-sized (and bigger) insect creatures that create hives in the depths of the world below, controlled by alien, but still so terrifyingly human Artisans who always act with the very best intentions (because they know that, don't they?), that command hundreds of huge, mantis-ant-goliath beetle Soldiers who watch over even more delegations of Workers who slowly dig through the ground, aimlessly expanding tunnels deeper and deeper into the darkness.
