Meta-Class: The Monster

I don't know if anyone is already doing this or if it is even a good idea but I am experimenting with something i am tentatively calling a meta-class, a set of classes which share particular attributes and characteristics across a broader theme. In addition to their unique features, they also possess options accessible to most or all of them to some degree. For me, this helps organize them into a coherent and delineated set of archetypes while retaining customization, but I'm flying by the seat of my pants here so bear with me.

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A Primeval Sinner or a Demititan are direct replications of the path the Titans took to maintain their power when their preferred prey dwindled. Kill your kin and consume them. Simple and clear cut. But even this can be done wrong, performed perversely. And humans, ever curious creatures that we are, experimented.

Make no mistake, Primeval Sin can be a terrible thing, but it is no more addictive than eating to avoid starvation. Each consumed corpse, each growth in might, is a conscious choice. Even when the consequences for stopping become fatal, it is only ever the pang of starvation, not the need of the dependent. The mind remains lucid so long as it is sated, and diminishing returns are no concern.

Not so for monsters.

A monster is the result of attempts to alter the act of Primeval Sin through Gnosis, sorcery, or fixation on the numinous qualities of a specific kind of tissue, or the result of someone in a deranged or delirious state consuming human flesh. The road to Daimonhood is narrower than one thinks, and given the exponential slaughter required for such a path to bear fruit, there are many who seek another way.

Everyone knows how to sin properly. You either have to do it wrong by mistake, or be taught by one who already holds the secret. That is, if they teach it and not force it on you.

Here are five generic monsters, and two special ones.

Unlike the Primeval Sinner or Daimon classes, Monster templates are earned via XP, representing you spending effort to unlock the powers inherent to your new form. You can be a monster with Primeval Sinner templates, but you cannot become a Demititan as a monster.

I'll say this again, an average human can be processed into 50 rations, if we're just talking flesh.

Monster

You have indulged in Primeval Sin in a way unorthodox. Your spirit has warped in ways your body was not shaped to accomodate. Something has gone wrong. A shortcut to power has been found. A dangerous one. You are a deviant, an abnormality. A monster, one people rightly fear.

But you are also strong. Between a mere human sinner and the vaunted demititan, there lies the monster. For all your tragedy, all your horror, all your dark potential, you may well be a more sustainable ruler than those who would return to the days of the Titans.

If you can stay sane, that is.

Flesh Eater

You did everything the way it is normally done. You killed, you ate. It should have worked. It didn't. Maybe you were too mad, maybe you were too drunk, maybe you were too young, maybe you panicked as you did, and somehow twisted something up in your soul. 

You can unlock this class by consuming human rations while deeply intoxicated, in the throes of a deep emotional fit, or while suffering from a psychological break or schizophrenic episode or other mind-altering psychological condition. A Flesh Eater can also psychologically break captives to make them like this, or willingly guide them through the process. They proliferate in times of war.

Vital: You are swollen and malformed with life. You are broad-bodied and thick-boned. You have no innate Miracle to violate Worldly law, so your body is built to withstand your girth. If you reproduce with a human, your children will be Ogrish, and if with another flesh eater, they are born with the same Template A as you. Your Fixation is fresh meat, same as any Sinner. You need 1 ration a day to stay at Stage 1, 1 a week for Stage 2, 1 a month for stage 3, and a month without for Stage 4. You can Fixation Points for every 5 excess rations consumed at stage 1.

Starting Equipment: None.

A. Choose the form of a Wretch, Hulk, Skulker, Giant, or Master, automatically take Life, Fixation

B. Choose from Heavy-Headed, Many-Handed, Mono-Eyed, Long-Armed, Semi-Quadruped, Great-Eyed, Hirsute, Long Digits, Larval Young, Swollen Ribcage, Fertile, Webbed Limbs, Two-Faced, Termagant.

C. +1 MD or take a B Template ability again.

D. +1 MD or False Demititan, Purgation, or take B template ability again along with Patriarch/Matriarch.

Heavy-Headed: You have a 1d12 bite attack, your head is twice as big and hangs from your thick neck and shoulders.

Many-Handed: You may choose between one normal-sized arm or two small arms for every template of flesh-eating monster you have. A normal arm is a normal arm, small ones can't use weapons but can grant advantage to climbing, grappling, and dextrous tasks.

Mono-Eyed: Your normal eyes are covered in faint depressions of flesh. A new eye opens in your forehead. Gain 1 MD.

Long-Armed: All your weapons count as having extra reach.

Semi-Quadruped: Your movement speed is doubled, but standing up is an action.

Heavy-Headed: You have a 1d12 bite attack, your head is twice as big and hangs from your thick neck and shoulders.

Great-Eyed: You have large, wide eyes. You can see in non-magical darkness so long as there is any light.

Hirsute: You are covered in thick hair. You take half damage from the cold, and do not suffer from rolls that would otherwise be impeded by cold. You have advantage on stealth in thick foliage.

Long Digits: You do not need to test climbing.

Feral Young: You make feral infants by having children and witholding their Fixation until they go mad, and training them as weapons (stats as 1 HD, no armor, 1d6 bite attack + any other B template you took). They take as long to make as normal human infants, and they are loyal as prized warhounds.

Swollen Ribcage: You can emit a scream which stuns people in a 15 foot cone. You can hold your breath for [template] hours.

Fertile: You will bear or sire 1d4+1 children if you reproduce, halved for Giant, doubled for Wretch.

Webbed Limbs: You have webbing to aid in swimming, the speed of which is now doubled.

Two-Faced: You can spend 1 fixation point to your human form, or into your human form if you never had one. This lasts 24 hours unless you do it sooner. The process involves encasement in a grotesque cocoon of glistening mucus, and takes 1 hour. When the 24 hours are up, you become paralyzed and start to pupate. In your human form, you won't be recognized as your monstrous form unless you do something really obvious that would out you.

Termagant: Halve your HP if male, double it if female. This applies to all children you have, which will be born male 4-out-of-5 times. Males also mature in a quarter of the time, and their lifespan is reduced by three-quarters.

False Demitan: You may choose a Primeval Miracle from the Primeval Daimon class. Using it costs 5 Fixation Points.

Purgation: At such heights, in such a state of flux, you find you can amend your initial failure. You melt into a bloody sludge. You crawl out of it as your human self, with 4 templates of Primeval Sinner if you did not already have them. You lose all Flesh Eater templates and the levels which they gained.

Patriarch/Matriarch: Any children you personally have will have 3 of your templates in Flesh Eater. Their children will have 2, and their children 1, and those will have Ogrish children. 

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Blood Drinker

 

Flesh was too slow, too inefficient. How much could a human eat in one sitting? And for what, to paint a target on your back? To spend a thousand years slowly growing? No no, there are better ways. Blood, hot blood, fast, like an engine's fuel. You can get a lot out of that.

You can unlock this class by consuming 100 rations of human blood within a month, specifically, without consuming any other part of the body. They often arise among the aristocracy, noveau riche, and some more adventurous mages.

Ghastly:  You have a deathly pallor or a grayish tinge. No matter the form you take, you're not grotesque, you're eerie, sleek. If you don't look like a person you're all long and sinewy. Your Fixation is fresh blood, drained from the source. You don't need to kill, but you do need cattle, thralls. You need 1 ration a day to stay at Stage 1, 1 a week for Stage 2, 1 a Month for stage 3, and a month without for Stage 4. You gain Fixation Points for every 2 excess rations consumed at stage 1. A human can produce 1 ration of blood safely, gaining a point of exhaustion for that point and 1d6+exhaustion every point after until death, and 10 total can be exsanguinated (from an average human).

Starting Equipment: None

A. Choose the form of a Wretch, Hulk, Skulker, Master, or Lure, choose Life or Undeath, Fixation

B. Choose from Transfixing Gaze, Discorporate, Bestial Domination, Wings, True Sight, False Mortality, Terrible Aura

C. +1 MD, Enthrallment, choose another B template ability

D. +1 MD, Scion of the Night, choose another B template ability.

Transfixing Gaze: You may spend a Fixation Point to paralyze a mortal as an action, for one turns within your line of sight, if they are facing you. The difficulty is tuned to template, with templates equating to a common, difficult, and epic test respectively. Another Fixation Point must be expended to continue the effect.

Discorporate: You may spend a Fixation Point to become a dark mist which may climb as high as your full height above a surface. You may slip into any place gas could go, and resolidify at will. Anything which would dissolve or disperse a cloud of gas will require a CON check to retain your form, difficulty being context-dependent. If you fail, take 1d12 damage and gorily recongeal.

Bestial Domination: By spending a Fixation Point and feeding a carnivorous Worldly beast a drop of your blood, it will come to serve you. Every week, another drop is required to retain their loyalty. They can follow basic commands like "kill anyone in this valley who isn't with me" or "follow me and attack anyone not wearing a red sash" and so on.

Wings: You have elegant chiropteran wings growing from your back. They may be hidden under a cape. You may fly as per your movement speed on land.

True Sight: You can see in natural or unnatural darkness. By spending a Fixation Point, you can see spirits and invisible creatures for [template] turns per point.

False Mortality: You may spend a Fixation Point to completely disguise yourself as a mortal for [template] hours.

Terrible Aura: You may spend a Fixation Point to reveal your inhuman nature to prompt a morale check from mortals who see you, or to gain advantage on intimidation tests. This effect lasts [template] turns.

Enthrallment: Expend a Fixation Point to infuse your blood with your spiritual presence. Those who are fed your blood afterwards become bound to you. So long as you do not force them to act against their principles (kill someone, betray a loved one, etc for example) they will consider you a friend. If challenged, they must pass a difficult WIS test to break free. In order to retain this, they must be fed your blood (and a Fixation Point) every week from then on.

Scion of the Night: If you spend 10 Fixation Points and feed a mortal human three drops of your blood over the course of three nights, they become as you are, gaining your initial choice in template and following your path as they gain more. They are considered Enthralled, but without the need to spend Fixation Points thereafter. They may still make a WIS test to resist you if your treatment of them is exceptionally cruel and they are not somehow madly and suicidally devoted to you by their own will.

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Bone Gnawer

You were too slow, or maybe you were desperate. It was mouldering when you found it. But you wanted it anyway. Now look at you, you're mouldering too.

You can unlock this class by consuming 5 rations of rotten human flesh without consuming fresh flesh, which will reset the counter. This requires a difficult WIS save to do, as it is disgusting, unless you are starving, in which case it may be done freely. Bone Gnawers will also lock people up and throw rotting flesh in their prison, trying to get the victim to break and join them. They proliferate in times of famine.

Cadaverous: You are grayish, sallow, or putrescent greenish in color. Your eyes are milky. You look diseased. Your teeth are yellowed, long and pointed or wild and jagged. Even at your best, you look unclean. You hunch, you hiss, your breath ranges from foul to just... off. Your Fixation is rotten offal. You need 1 ration a day to stay at Stage 1, 1 a week for Stage 2, 1 a month for stage 3, and a month without for Stage 4. You can Fixation Points for every 5 excess rations consumed at stage 1.

Starting Equipment: None.

A. Choose the form of a Wretch, Hulk, Skulker, or Lure , choose Life or Undeath, Fixation

B. Choose from Ungainly Flight, Terrible Claws, Burrower, Crunch, Lantern Eyes, Vermiculated, Necksome, Snouted, Long-Armed (as Flesh Eater), Semi-Quadruped (as Flesh Eater)

C. Skin Taker, and choose another B template ability

D. +1 MD, Throne of Bones, and choose another B template ability

Ungainly Flight: Chiropteran wings sprout from your back. You may fly at half your movement speed on land. Or, you may have your arms themselves become wings (you keep your fingers). You may fly at your movement speed but any armor you wear is reduced in protection by one degree, as it cannot cover your arms.

Terrible Claws: Choose a status effect for your new 1d4 bite and clawing attacks; agony, fear, or paralysis.

Burrower: You can dig through loose soil at half your movement speed, and scrape through stone at a rate of 1 inch a day.

Crunch: Fold your body into an empty space a quarter of your total height in height and width. It takes a turn to get out. You look like a mess of rotten leathery laundry that limbs, eyes, and teeth pull themselves out of.

Lantern Eyes: You can see in non-magical darkness even if there is no light, and see in magical darkness if you allow your eyes to emit a visible glow.

Skin Taker: If you eat an entire person, you can become that person for [template] days. You don't know anything they know beyond vague emotional sensations (ie personal preferences), you just look and act like them, down to the subconscious ticks. If you "ride" (just go with the flow and gently steer yourself somewhere) it you can fool people who don't ask too many questions. You can violently rip out of your false skin like rotten flesh from an overripe fruit whenever you want to.

Vermiculated: Your torso extends and your limbs grow squat. Doubled movement in confined spaces. You are a creature of the tunnels.

Necksome: Your neck is snakelike and as thick as your head, which emerges out of it facing. You may poke your head about while keeping your body concealed, allowing you to peek into various nooks and crevices.

Snouted: Your face distends into a bestial muzzle. You can track as a bloodhound.

Throne of Bones: Monsters of your Fixation are a quarrelsome and solitary lot, sticking to little bands or living lonely lives, coming together to share meals and spread gossip. You, though, you are different. You have the spark in you to create a court of your kin. You may have [level]x2 hirelings loyal to you, who may take templates in Bone Gnawer. They are not limited to your chosen abilities, but instead determine them randomly. Bear in mind, they all hunger for their Fixation as well. If you fail to provide, they desert you at Stage 3. If not actively working for you, but simply placed in a viable location, they will provide for themselves and remain loyal, telling you gossip, keeping the peace (in the circles they run in), and spying on people. 

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Brain Taker 

Why did you do this? The voices are so loud now. You know so much. Oh why did you do this. But... it is so much. You can know so much.

You can unlock this class by eating 10 rations worth of human brain. People will not think to do this normally, and if pressed cannot articulate exactly why. It just seems... dangerous. Brain Takers often take willing (if demented) converts, particularly scholarly types. They rarely force people to join them. You need 1 ration a week to stay at Stage 1, 1 a month for Stage 2, 1 a year for stage 3, and a year without for Stage 4. You gain Fixation Points for every 1 excess ration consumed at stage 1. One brain is 2 rations.

Unwell:  You are soft like a baby's skin, and/or stretched and gaunt. Your cranium is noticeably enlarged, either in a bulbous shape or an elongated one. You may have prominent veins and pallid skin. You 

Starting Equipment: None.

A. Choose the form of a Master, Lure, Giant, or Skulker, choose Life or Undeath, Fixation

B. Choose from Guillotine, Jolt Nerves, Unbind Limits, Parasite, Secret Pawns, Nervelets, Brain Puppetry

C. Ego Siphon, +3 INT, choose a B template OR +1 MD

D. +1 MD, Conclavated Psyche OR Magi's Bane, Choose a B template

Guillotine: You can spend a Fixation Point to unhinge your jaw over an unarmored and unconscious, dead, or immobilized foe provided they're your size or less. If you can work your jaws around their neck, they'll snap shut like a steel trap, instantly decapitating the victim. You'll digest the brain and regurgitate everything else later.

Jolt Nerves: Expend 1 Fixation Point to double your movement speed and gain advantage on DEX saves until your next turn. Each additional point prolongs this by an additional turn.

Unbind Limits: Expend 1 Fixation Point and take 1d6 to gain advantage on all STR tests and be treated as having +2 STR. You may spend additional points, but each time this ability is continued take another 1d6 damage.

Parasite: You may detach from your body and exist as a head and a writhing mane of nerves growing out of your neck hole. You may parasitize decapitated bodies and puppet them. You lose your physical stats, but gain the stats of the body you possess. It must roughly fit your size, however.

Secret Pawns: Expend Fixation points to implement commands in a victim's brain, so long as they are unconscious and you can touch them. Each word costs 1 Fixation Point, except for an 'if' and a 'then' which you may use freely if you wish. An example command would be 'if knighted by king [name], then kill him', given to a rising star who would soon kneel before the throne, costing 6 Fixation Points. The victim may attempt a difficult WIS test to resist. They do not know they have been implanted with these commands, but may deduce it if you are sloppy and they are learned in the ways of your ilk.

Nervelets: You may vomit up writhing lumps of gray matter. These will gradually coalesce into spidery lumps animated by fibrous nerves. They are blind, but can detect changes in air pressure and have sensitive senses of touch. If you spend 5 Fixation points, they will gain another HD, then 10 for another, and so on. You also gain a general sense of their surroundings (if someone is near them, you'll know that, but not much else). If they die, you'll feel it, and they can attack for [HD]d4 blunt damage with their nerve tendrils.

Brain Puppetry: When you consume the brain of a living creature, you may spend a Fixation Point to extrude a nerve filament from your hand to burrow into their mind and attach to the brainstem. You can now control it, using your own mental stats and the body's physical stats. Each nerve filament has a length of [template]x100 meters. If it is cut, take 1d4 damage and lose the puppeted body.

Ego Siphon: When you eat a brain, you may spend 5 fixation points to learn an answer to a specific question, 10 to learn a non-magical skill they knew, and 50 to keep a copy of the person's mind as a personality you can wear. That person does not exist as a discrete entity, but as a persona you can slip on to solve problems and use the knowledge of, using their mental stats for checks. The GM will take control of your character and act as that character would, but fixated on doing whatever it is you want to do, in the manner that they would go about it. You can end this effect at any time. You can have [template]x2 personalities, removing unwanted egos to replace with new ones. for every [template]x5 hour(s) you wear a personality, make a common INT check. If you fail it takes over as your new dominant personality, and the old one becomes a persona it can wear. Are you sure this hasn't already happened?

Conclavated Psyche: You may spend an additional Fixation Point whenever you are using Ego Siphon to switch between personalities. This change is instant and seamless, and you can even argue with yourself about the best course of action, or work together with your other egos to solve problems. Mechanically, you have advantage on all INT checks and can recover from any damage to mental stats by discarding the ego you were wearing when afflicted.

Magi's Bane: If you consume the brain of a Theurge you may choose to learn one of their spells and gain all their MD. However, these MD are single-use.

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Soul Stealer

 

You are an inferno. You yearn for fuel. Your soul burns so brightly now, but it cannot sustain. Without kindling, you will dwindle. You must stay warm. You must stay strong. There is so much further you can go.

Unlocking the Soul Stealer requires one to discover a rare and profane text which details the process, and you are required to have at least 1 MD already. A Soul Stealer may also take an apprentice if you demonstrate sufficient ruthlessness and loyalty, but this is very rare.

Horrific: You are blurred slightly, you move wrong. You leave trails in the air, visual echos. Your voice is distorted even moreso than a normal member of the Living Dead. Your Fixation is souls, the numinous aether that holds the unique pattern that is a person. One soul equals 1 ration, obtained upon killing a human and spending several minutes obtaining the soul. You need 1 ration a week to stay at Stage 1, 1 a month for Stage 2, 1 a year for stage 3, and a year without for Stage 4. You gain Fixation Points for every 5 excess rations consumed at stage 1.

Starting Equipment: None.

A. Choose the form of a Master, Hulk, Skulker, or Giant, automatically take Undeath

B. +1 MD, Soul Burn

C. +1 MD, Choose Vacuous, Decapitant, or Idol

D. +1 MD, Spiritual Density

Soul Burn: You may expend a Fixation Point to treat your character as having an additional MD for the purposes of casting a spell. You may add [template] MD per spell using this ability.

Vacuous: You no longer possess mental stats and cannot be affected by spells which would target or test them. You are a gaping wound in creation, your actions dictated by a blind-sighted intellect which merely pretends at sapience. You appear like a grotesque husk lacerated by malformed bone jutting out from your husklike flesh. The blurring effect common to soul-stealers increases considerably for you, and anyone attacking at range suffers from disadvantage.

Decapitant: You have cut off your head and sealed your neck with a metal disk. A white flame burns atop it. You can see anything invisible and see souls through solid material 100 feet around you. Retain physical and mental stats. Decapitants are the classical image of a powerful soul-stealer, anyone who sees you will know what you are and must make a difficult morale test in your presence. You also have advantage on intimidation against mortals.

Idol: You have placed your soul into a great metal idol, of your design. Often it is made of gold, and regardless will cost 1000 GP. You lose all physical stats and cannot interact with the physical world save through magic and by shouting commands in your human voice. You have natural AC as plate, and are immune to slashing or piercing attacks. In order to move you will need a wagon or palanquin and people to transport it.

Spiritual Density: When reduced to 0 HP, expend 1 Fixation Point and regain half of your total HP. 

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False Angel

You didn't consume the flesh of a human, but of an angel, the spiritual effluvia of Heavenly miracles. You acted precisely as the rites of Primeval Sin demanded, but fed on something holy and eldritch, and it responded. You have the spark of the Empyrean in you now, but who says you ever intended to play the part allotted?

You unlock this class by consuming the flesh of an Empyrean spirit or daimon. Usually this is under the Rite of Communion practiced by some Great Faiths, and the Pytausic Church most commonly.

Divine: No matter how inhuman you become, your visage remains serene and beatific. Even your monstrous body is not not so terrible as it might have been. Fearful, certainly. Deformed, yes. But not ugly, not grotesque. Merely... reshaped. Your Fixation is the flesh of angels, not men, rare creatures drawn to the places where the Great Faiths perform their miracles, and perhaps formed by them. An angel is typically 1d20+20 rations, but may be more depending on size. However, you are very likely to be the creation of the Pytausic Church and the Gospel of Dominon, and they will give you what you need so long as you continue to abide by the will of the most martial of Heaven's sects. You need 1 ration a week to stay at Stage 1, 1 a month for Stage 2, 1 a year for stage 3, and a year without for Stage 4. You gain Fixation Points for every 1 excess ration consumed at stage 1. Note, for you aspiring independents; most mortals go their whole lives without ever seeing a real angel. To many, the false angels are the real ones. If you decide to fall, you best have a plan.

Starting Equipment: If starting as this class, gain 10 Fixation Points.

A. Choose the form of a Hulk, Lure, or Giant, automatically take Life, Empyrean

B. Choose Secondary Wings, Cranial Wings, Heavenly Armament, or Nimbus

C. +1 MD, Choose Faithful or Fallen

D. +1 MD, Miraculous Rebirth

Empyrean: Your human ancestry is now Empyrean. You have wings. You may discard class templates to select minor miracles from that race's list.

Secondary Wings: Double your flight speed.

Cranial Wings: Small wings emerge from your temples. You may cover your eyes with them as an action and opening them with another, blinding yourself but rendering yourself immune to all non-physical magical damage for the duration.

Nimbus: A cloud of shimmering light may appear behind you for 1 Fixation Point, as lantern. It reveals the invisible and detects magic. Attacks made towards you are done at disadvantage. The nimbus lasts [template] turns before an additional point is required to sustain it.

Heavenly Armament: You may conjure a weapon of raw numinous aether, glowing white, for 2 Fixation points. It may be any mundane design and serves as a +[template] magical weapon. It may strike [template]x2 times before vanishing.

Faithful: You may afflict any Un-Worldly thing not aligned to Heaven as turn undead, [template]x2 times per day. Even lay faith (you went to church a week ago and meant it) is immune to this, but anything else is not. Effect is line of sight.

Fallen: You may sense the general direction of true angels from [template]x100 miles away. You gain advantage on tracking rolls pertaining to them. You can very probably survive on your own now, if you've made it this far.

Miraculous Rebirth: If you are slain, your corpse will curl up and your wings will fold inward, mostly enclosing you. After 1d6+1 days, unless your body is destroyed, a new version of you will erupt from the now brittle husk. You lose the level taken to gain this and must re-earn it, but can select an additional ability from template B, and optionally switch between Faithful and Fallen for template C. You may also discard all other templates and be reborn as an infant version of yourself with this template intact. If you are of the Pytausic faith and do this within one of their churches they will raise you as a loyal agent of Dominion, and you may re-live your life without burdens. If you do this in the middle of the wilds you will probably just die.

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Fiend

There is a hateful cancer at the bottom of the earth that existed long before the Titans ever strode it. You performed the Black Mass, you spoke to their wailing daimons, and you took what was offered. Or maybe you killed one and in a fit of madness sought to do as false angels did. You are the host of an evil thing, and its evil compels you down a further road of madness. 

You unlock this class by making a pact with a Chthonic daimon, or by eating a 50 rations worth of a chthonic daimon's flesh. You know, intuitively, that doing so will have terrible consequences if the opportunity presents itself.

Unheavenly: Your skin is a sickly and unearthly hue, dark and muted, as is your hair. Your eyes are black or white or eerie yellow, red, green, with polycorian pupils. A crown of irregular, keratinous horns grow from your scalp, and your teeth are long, jagged, and tusked. Your legs end in keratinous hoof-like growths or grasping talons, and your hands are clawed paws or talons themselves. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. Like the other end of living death, too much life that won't die, life that ought to die but won't, a soul driven by a mad body. Your Fixation is the flesh of Chthon, and may be earned in 2 ways, the hunting of your fellows (due to their unending mutability rations yielded is case-by-case), or acts of cruelty, degradation, and sadism, which prompts the hateful thing in your flesh to feed itself to you. The former is difficult, the latter is simple. Do so and the Chthonic flesh within you will nourish you internally. One act of profanity (killing a child in front of their parent, desecrating a temple with blood and offal, snapping someone's limb and just leaving them like that, etc, be creative) yields 1 ration. You need 1 ration a day to stay at Stage 1, 1 a week for Stage 2, 1 a month for stage 3, and a week without for Stage 4. You gain Fixation Points for every 1 excess rations consumed at stage 1.

Starting Equipment: If starting as this class, gain 10 Fixation Points.

A. Choose the form of a Wretch, Master, Lure, Skulker, Hulk, or Giant, automatically take Life, Abomination, and Metastization. Choose a Hateful Mouth.

B. Choose a Hateful Mouth or take Possessive Flesh

C. +1 MD, Choose a Hateful Mouth or take Spawn of Chthon

D. Choose Profane Apotheosis or Salvation At The Last

Abomination: Any individuals who have not encountered a Fiend before, and do not have a template in a class belonging to a True Faith, must make a Difficult morale test when facing a Fiend. Its wrongness radiates off of it, and without Heaven to comfort you the existential horror is overwhelming.

Metastization:  Your human ancestry is now changed to Malignant if it wasn't already, and not indulging in your weakness now demands a difficult WIS save. You now roll from the Advanced Malignancy Table. If you were changed, you can opt to discard prior class templates in favor of rolling here. If you were already Malignant and selected this, change your abilities to their advanced equivalents.

1. 2x 1d6 claw attack (1d4: 1. bestial claws. 2. raptorial talons. 3. long, jagged nails. 4.exposed fingerbone-blades)
2. 1d12 bite attack (1d4: 1. prominent fangs/tusks, 2. beak, 3. snout, 4. elongated teeth)
3. See in mundane or supernatural darkness as day. You can spend a Fixation Point to see souls through matter at a range of 50 feet for 1 turn.
4. Can heal 1+[Level] HP every hour, in even increments of time (apply retroactively).
5. Vomit bile in a 10 foot cone, 1d8 damage to all caught inside.
6. Do 1d8 damage to yourself to remove a tumor which someone else can eat, healing 2d10+level HP. If the eater is of a True Faith, they take 2d10+level damage instead. If they aren't, 10% chance to become a Malignant human. You know both of these facts intuitively.
7. Fully-grown batlike wings, true flight at double your walking speed.
8. Barbed, poisonous tail. If hit, target must make a difficult CON save or take 1d8 damage for [level] turns
9. Can eat rotten or poisonous food. You can spend 5 Fixation Points to cure a poison.
10. You have 1d4 (1. scaled lower fish body 2. scaled thick fish tail and legs 3. octopus lower body 4. webbed digits), double your swimming speed. You have gills betwixt your ribs (you are now amphibious) and your skin is slick and moist.

Hateful Mouth: Another visage appears on your body as Chthon's will is made manifest. Roll from here:

1. Chest- 1d12 bite attack
2. Groin- 1d6 bite attack, may be used in addition to normal attacks or automatically if attacked by a smaller creature.
3. Limbs- The mouths emerge from your shoulders, hips, knees, and elbows, vomiting out the rest of the limb. If you lose a limb, spend 1 Fixation point to immediately grow it back.
4. Another Head- You may take this for all 3 choices. Each one grants an additional head. Each head you possess allows you to cast another spell simultaneously, or make another bite attack if applicable. However, they are wholly of Chthon and act autonomously, spitting out obscenities and snapping at those who come to close.

Possessive Flesh: If you feed someone your flesh you may spend 1 Fixation point to make it take root in their body. Doing so will allow you to take control of them for [template] turns per day, and see out of their eyes. If they for whatever reason become a Malignant human, they will obey you as their master.

Spawn of Chthon: You may spend Fixation Points to allow your Chthonic flesh to birth its progeny into the world. 1 Fixation point equals a capering 1 HD imp with 1d4 bite and claw attacks, 2 is a sturdy 2 HD beast with a great hateful face atop 2 or 4 legs, and 5 is a brutish, hideous 3 HD creature much like a Malignant human, but miscolored of flesh to more closely resemble you than a tainted mortal, and they may be equipped with weapons and armor. These summons are permanent. They may be controlled, but will enact their sadistic impulses on anyone around them if they feel they can get away with it.

Profane Apotheosis: You are granted the knowledge to open a gateway to the pit. It will cost 10000 GP and 1000 mortal souls. Open it and daimons, beasts, and spirits all of Chthon, most wicked of all things, shall roam across the land. You will have tainted this place for generations and caused a minor apocalypse. But you are rewarded. Malignant men will flock to your banner, and other fiends will rise as your eager lieutenants. You will marshal a dark army and forge an empire built on suffering. The Titans did what they did for their own gratification, but what shall happen here will be hell for the sake of an alien, Un-Worldly horror.

Salvation At The Last: You feel the tendrils of Chthon worm deeper into you, but no more. In the final hour, you reject it. You disembowel yourself, yank out every shred of cancerous Chthon, which lies pulsing and squirming in a pool of your blood. At the DM's discretion, if you have struggled against your curse admirably throughout your progression in this class, 1d4 true angels will appear around your corpse and drag your body, now a Vulgar human with all templates in Fiend removed, from a steaming pile of gore. If you turned unholy apotheosis down at the last second but otherwise acted like a (metaphorical) monster, you just die.

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Meta-Templates

Fixation: You are an anthropophage who has found a more sustainable niche at the cost of the spiritual imbalance turning it from eating into craving. Instead of dying if you can't fill that need, you go through stages of degeneration. At stage 1, you are healthy and reasonable. At stage 2, you have disadvantage on reaction rolls and must make a common WIS test to avoid feeding when the opportunity presents itself. At stage 3, you have disadvantage on all social tests and must make a difficult WIS test to avoid feeding when the opportunity presents itself. At stage 4, the DM takes control of your character and does his best to hunt and feed. Control is returned to you at stage 1, right at the scene of the event. Death often comes not from deprivation, but from retribution or self-defense.

Other monsters count as acceptable prey, as do demititans, changelings, and other derived humans.

You also gain Fixation Points. Whenever you feed in excess at stage 1, an amount of excess will turn into a Fixation Point. These can be spent to trigger the class's innate abilities. 

Fixation Points fade at a rate of 1 per week.

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Wretch: You are a thing brought low. You are scrawny, sinewy, crawling, hungry. You cringe and spit, servile and lurking. Halve your HP and further rolls of it. In any densely populated place with desperate, amoral souls, you can recruit [template]x2 mortals to join you in your wallowing spite, guaranteed. Roll them as full PCs, level 1 Monsters which can level up. They will take the exact same choices you did. If you die, one will seamlessly take your place. If you accumulate 50 Fixation Points, you can swap from Wretch to Hulk, Skulker, Giant, Lure, or Master as available for your monster type, while keeping your minions. Halve your needed rations, including Fixation demands.

Hulk: You are mighty,  muscles strain against skin. You may be hunched or crooked, your raw power demanding release. +3 STR, +3 CON. You are half again as tall as you were. Double your needed rations, including Fixation demands.

Skulker: You are long-limbed and thin-bodied, you can twist yourself into the strangest places. You can get anywhere your head fits in. +3 DEX. You can be perfectly still and silent, advantage on stealth checks pertaining to remaining undetected by the senses.

Giant: You are gigantic, bulksome, lumbering, you spend much of your time squatting or crawling. Take your height and multiply it by 1d4+1 times, triple your HP and further rolls of it, and halve your movement speed. [template] times per day you can sprint at twice your new movement speed. Triple your needed rations, including Fixation demands.

Lure: You are beautiful, in an eerie way. +3 CHA. You have advantage on checks pertaining to deceiving others of your monstrous nature, and advantage to seduce or persuade, if your target matches your preference. If they do not, it is a flat role. Your aura suffices to change perspectives, even if it only lasts until you leave. Even if you are discovered, unless you are actively doing something horrendous you start at a neutral reaction role. You are assumed to be "one of the good ones" until proven otherwise, or by anyone who has already been taken advantage of by a Lure type, who will judge you based on objective behavior if not outright dislike.

Master: You are a thing which cows mortals. You look close enough to a man that you can walk among them without overt disgust and horror, but what you are cannot be concealed. You were meant to rule, not to hide. +3 STR, +3 CHA. You have advantage on morale checks and intimidation checks. Double your needed rations. You cannot abide another Master except as a mate or child, if applicable (as an undead, spawn created by an ability count as 'child'). Siblings are a gray area, they are fine so long as they show respect. Others must keep to their own territory.

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Life: You still need to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep as a normal mortal does, in addition to sating your Fixation. Multiply your lifespan by 2, do it again every time you take a template in this class. You have advantage against throws against disease, and if you meet another Monster of the same Fixation as you, you can breed true. You can expend 5 stored Fixation points to recover from any disease, and 10 to recover from a roll on the death and dismemberment table, healing fully in 1d6 days. If your template has the option to select Undeath, there is a 50% chance you come back if slain, swapping Life for Undeath, in 1d6 days unless the body is destroyed.

Death: You are undead, you don't need to eat, drink, breathe, or sleep, but you can "sleep" (go dormant) to restore exhaustion, which you can be affected by via extreme exertion or magical effects. You can only make monsters like yourself by recruiting or infecting others with your template. Your nature shows on your skin, appearing freshly dead if not recently decayed, but only superficially. You will never fully erode into a skeleton, but seem more like someone afflicted with a flesh-eating disease, one that spreads and diminishes like the tide. At Stage 1, you aren't rotten at all. You possess an unearthly vitality, straddling the line between a living mortal and a puppeted, decaying corpse. You can recover HP via long rests, and expend 10 stored Fixation Points to recover from a roll on the death and dismemberment table, healing fully in 1d6 days. If you have children with a mortal, they will be Tenebrous. This is a 1-in-100 chance, barring magical aid.

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 What is the distribution of Monsters?

First of all, they are uncommon and varied enough that no one has a real coherent taxonomy. The class names are out-of-universe. In universe, they are referred to generally as monsters, grotesques, sinners, or the brood of X, the clan of X, the X dynasty, or by specific name and/or title, spoken in hushed tones. They are considered very, very damaged or altered humans, or just a generic kind of horrible thing. Each terrible individual, each monstrous clan, each secret coven, each dark dynasty, they bear their own names. When speaking generically, they all bear the same one; monster.

Proportionally, flesh eaters are the most common. They lurk in clans and skulk in dark places, waiting for fresh meat. Or in the bowels of great cities and along well-trod roads. After that (or matching them perhaps) are bone gnawers. They congregate in graves, they scurry through the night, they wear skins to move unseen until it is time to feast. They scavenge as often as they hunt so they can actually be quite reasonable unless they are desperate. After that is blood drinkers, with their covens and clans and solitary itinerants. They tend to be the most urban of monsters, due to the fact their feeding habits (can be) the least murderous and nasty, but they need to keep humans around to avoid degenerating. After that are brain stealers, who are rare enough that most people don't even know they exist, and then soul takers, legendary and terrible enough despite their rarity that stories exist of them. False angels and fiends are situational. The former are common in areas dominated by the Pytausic Church, but are otherwise quite rare. They are kept monsters, artificially-contrived existences to be wielded against other Un-Worldly things. The latter are vanishingly rare except in areas where a great Chthonian eruption recently occurred, where they may well match flesh eaters in number, or outright replace them. They are an outside-context problem for the vast, vast majority of people, but in places that, say, suffered from a Fiend choosing Profane Apotheosis, they would be distressingly common (for a monster).

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Whew, that was a lot.

I do not believe in the idea of an unplayable race or class, just that some classes might not be compatible with others or conducive to a conventional game. However, I am sure cunning individuals could find a way to survive in civilization as them, or try to do good as them. In-universe, this is rare, but not unheard of. Usually this takes the form of a kingdom ruled by a certain kind of monster, in opposition to rule by Sinner or Demititan. Sometimes some monsters exist as the special attack dogs of an otherwise normal realm, or on the margins by a more merciful one, provided they scavenge instead of hunt (bone gnawers especially may play a part in funeral rites). In addition, the Ushian Church frequently uses undead monsters as servants, binding them with the strictures of their Gospel and using their immortality to play the long game they are famous for. The Ushians are martyrs, and their devoted are many. And of course, False Angels are part of the Pytausic Faith, intrinsically.

Monsters have their place in the gray, liminal area, but don't expect to walk around in daylight as a respectable citizen. You are either kept, chained, and collared, or subtle, an unwritten rule, a conditional consent. Abuse either such protection, and expect the torches and pitchforks to come out. Failing that, seize power.

You may also notice, have probably noticed, that these evoke certain tropes. The only possibly unique-ish one is the brain taker, if only for the fact it is a human and not a squid.

My goal here was the desystemization of the monstrous man/man-turned-monster in fiction. Instead of all these creatures being concrete entities, its a nebulous cloud of overlapping stat blocks evoking particular archetypes without committing to a singular set of stats or abilities. For my "ghouls", one set of them might be completely different from the next, but the locals, or people that hunt them, will generally understand them to be "those guys who scavenge graves and wear people's skin".