Mongrel Characteristics

Mongrels are hulking, asymmetrical amalgams of beast and folk, standing a little taller and broader than most humans. No two look alike. One might carry a boar’s tusk and the plated ridge of a lizard across a half elf’s brow; another shows feathered forearms ending in hooked nails, a fish’s slick skin along the ribs, and a dwarf’s jaw. Their features seldom resolve into harmony. Patchwork scales meet coarse fur, slick membrane abuts rough hide, and even when a Mongrel holds still there is a sense that nature has been stitched out of order.

Their faces follow the same discordant pattern. Slitted pupils sit in human sockets, a beak crooked nose rests over a carnivore’s teeth, and ears swivel for the faintest rustle. Many bear calloused, thickened skin that shrugs off scrapes, and hands that end in blunt claws or heavy knuckles suited to raking blows. Mongrels move with a wary, low centered gait, and their presence is marked by keen senses. Pupils widen in dim light, nostrils test the air, and heads tilt to catch distant footfalls. They speak Common in rough voices, and can echo the world around them with unsettling fidelity, turning a jay’s cry or a companion’s whispered phrase back upon the listener through precise Mimicry.

Ecology and History

The world hates Mongrels and they know it. Most folk who see a Mongrel reach for a weapon, and mercy is rare. Forest creatures and hunting beasts also show hatred and often attack on sight. To live at all, a Mongrel learns to avoid notice. They camp under blinds of brush, dress their trails, and step where the ground will not remember. In towns, they move at the edge of night, take only what they must, and leave no trace except a cache behind a loose stone or a sack hidden in refuse. Being seen is a risk to life, so they work hard not to exist in the eyes of others.

This fear shapes their communities. Mongrels tend to band together in small, close groups, often extended families or oath bound circles. Within these bands Law is simple, strict, and personal. Quiet signals carry farther than speech. A click of tongue, a soft whistle, or an echoed birdcall is safer than a shout. They share what they steal, tend one another’s wounds, and keep watch in long, patient shifts. When the whole world shows Hate, love is something you keep and protect, and Mongrels give it to one another without reserve.

History rarely records them, except as a problem to be solved or a rumor to be hunted. Rural tales blame them for missing livestock. City broadsheets do not mention them at all. Yet they endure. A band may hold a strip of greenway or a roofline maze as a hidden home, with paths trapped and approaches watched. When a purge or a famine comes, they scatter like starlings and gather again somewhere new, carrying their caches, their signs, and their debts. Thick skin and stubborn bodies carry them through sickness and toil. Keen ears, sharp noses, and careful eyes make them hard to surprise and harder to corner. Their story is survival, and sometimes, in rare and quiet moments, a hope that survival will one day be enough.

Mongrel Types