Grotesk

Excerpt from the audio patrol log of Lieutenant Matt Masters, Army of the Coalition States:

• "Patrol log, 27 April 105 P.A. Just after we left checkpoint Dell, this thing came out of the Hayberville Ley Line. It was massive and deformed and it could barely walk. It saw us and charged, but it was so uncoordinated it kept stumbling. Even so, it was very fast. Half its body looked like it was exploded but frozen in time. Parts were floating freely in air but moved all together like they were still attached. There was smoke between all the bits and an orange glow coming from inside. One of its legs looked like a fullgrown dog. Not a dogboy, just a dog with four limp legs of its own and even a flopping head with a lolling tongue. The dog head whimpered every time the thing used that leg-dog. Corporal Jersey, our dogboy scout, was very distrubed by this and was of no further assistance. Half its face and one arm was clearly human and the eye we could see on the human half of the face was wide open and looked scared. Before we could return fire, it waved its human hand and created an arcane shield around us. It said one word in American, "Run." I think it was trying to protect us from itself with whatever humanity it may have had left, because then it just started wailing on that shield in a clear attempt to get to us."

Sometimes things step out of the ley lines.
Strange, bizzarly deformed things will sometimes shamble or float along the leylines, muttering to themselves in unknown syllables or howling their displeasure. For displeasure it must be, by the looks of them. Surely it shant be moans of ecstasy!

Basic Information

Anatomy

Gotesks have all manner of mutation. No two are alike. If it can be imagined, it can serve as a stepping off point for the unimaginable, which is what these monstrosities are.

Growth Rate & Stages

In the beginning, once its own internal power has been depleted, a grotesk is still a person. It can still think, but it is just a junkie, addicted to Ley Line energy and wants nothing more than to be left alone in a ley line or nexus point.
As the arcane energy permeates its flesh, its physical body warps and mutates under the influence, becoming the subconscious manifestation of an insane dreamer who has peeked at the infinity of all creation. Bain tissue is included. Unavoidably for all but the most disciplined and strongest of wills, it warps the minds of the affected, turning them insane and unpredictable. And while a grotesk has no magical power of its own, its ability to harness the power of a ley line is as natural as breathing. A grotesk is constantly exercising this free ability to manipulate arcane energy to its unhinged will.
Near the end, a grotesk is a wholly unrecognizable monstrosity, powerful as a force of nature and just as uncontrollable. Some will eventually depart their ley lines, having lost the ability to know better, wreaking a path of destruction until they either starve to death or are executed. Those who manage to remain within a ley line or nexus point will eventually atomize into pure magic, diffusing into the ley line, becoming one with all life. To The Cosmic Mind, this is the ultimate stage of enlightenment.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Grotesks have no appetite, save for their addiction to ley line energy.

Behaviour

Grotesks may or may not be capable of rational thought. They begin as mere humans or deebees who spend too much time in Ley Lines. Most grotesks are willing participants in the deformation and evolution of their own bodies and minds. As such they have a boldness about them that one might describe as berzerk. They are known to wander the ley lines, lost in their own thoughts and stimuli until something catches their attention, at which point they boldly approach, chase down or decimate with magic whatever it miight be.
People have learned that the whims of a grotesk are capricious and are as oft to be fatal as not.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

All grotesks are adept arcane users of veteran to heroic level competence or beyond. Rarely, however, do they have the intelligence to use their arcane abilities with strategy or forethought. Woe be to anyone who runs across one who does.
Because of this, expect grotesks to be operating under all manner of magical perception and sensing abilities: able to see the invisible, sense thoughts, sense heat, cold, motion and/or hear almost anything.

The image above is of a grotesk in the early stages of its evolution. It retains most of its humanoid shape and you can still see the spark if intelligence in its eye, although that spark does look a bit malevalent, perhaps insane already.

Grotesks are what become of people with repeated exposure to Ley Line Sickness. Once the pure energy of a ley line scours the magical pathways it goes to work permeating the very flesh. This flesh warps and changes as it becomes infused with arcane energy, and the changes are unpredictable, unimaginable, impossible. They are grotesque.

There is a similarity between Grotesks and Nightspawn. Their origins are surprisingly similar, with both being the infusion of arcane energy into the body, manifesting in a form guided by the subconscious. But while a Grotesk likely loses its mind, a Nightspawn is likely to keep its mental faculties. The other big difference between the two is that Nightspawn can shift between their arcane morphus and their human facade while a Grotesk exists only in its arcane morphus. These differences are primarily due to the nature of the The Nightlands as a mirrored existence of our own reality and the absolute control of this mirrored reality by the The Nightlords.