Mutant

Origin

In the wake of the Cataclysm that befell Redgaard, none can seem to agree on the cause or meaning of the starfalls. It matters not whether the visionary Lucretia Mathias correctly predicted the return of Tarna's Comet and the heralding of a new age. It matters not whether the authoritarian von Kessels were divinely punished for their imperious rulership. The survivors remember eldritch fire snaking through the streets, the land being distorted by strange magics, and the Haze lazily settling over the city as delerium cooled in the earth. Whatever its cause or meaning, the violent finality of the meteor's strike changed those dwelling in the city forever.

Description

Mutants, or mutts, are a blanket term for the creatures mutated by built-up contamination from the Haze, delerium, or irradiated matter. Although the condition is not well-understood, experimentation has determined that it is not like a poison or disease; protection from poison, lay on hands, and similar powers are unable to alleviate the condition. Although mutants are as diverse as the affected creatures, the following seem to be common in all mutations. First, contamination is wild and chaotic; effects are debilitating, but variable, at certain thresholds. Second, mutants seem to become exclusively aberrations or undead, depending on whether they were contaminated during life or death. Finally, a creature becomes fully and irreversibly mutated once a final threshold of contamination is crossed.