MARCH REWARDS 5

This time we have a creepy lil' rat girl and a bevvy of other rat like monsters. She's pretty freaky, but still kinda cute, she just has scary eyes.

Known as the Mushak, Plaguewild, The Diseased, or sometimes even just the Rats, these plague bearing creatures are powerful rats left within ancient and filthy sewers and streets of cities and ruins that had run rampant with plague. When disease would run rampant in slums or cities in ancient times, many strange methods would be used to attempt to cure those inflicted with the illnesses, and mysterious potions and dark magics or necromantic salves and rituals were performed to attempt to purge the disease from those infected. This left bodies rotting with a desecrated energy, and many of these bodies would be left in the streets or tossed to the sewers below to attempt to quarantine the ravage. Rats that consumed these bodies, and mired themselves in the contagions, roiling in the septic filth beneath civilization, and the dark, chaotic magics would work their way into their systems and cause them to undergo a dark change. 

The tainted blood would have various effects on the rats, and would alter their appearances. Allowing them to take on similar shapes and forms to those whom they had consumed, causing them to grow bloated and corpulent, ravenous and more vicious, or to continue to spawn and grow out of control. 

The one that appears to simply be a colossal Rat or Opossum is known as a Mushak Pashu, or sometimes called a Dire Rat, A Rathemoth, or a Diseased Hulk. These filthy rats have fed on the flesh and waste of man in these sewers and it caused tumors to form within their bodies and press into parts of their brains. They became uninhibited in their growth, allowing them to continue to contort and expand. Their bloated stomachs and twisted forms have grown until they were the size of a carriage, and their bones have become extremely dense, but their eyes have been blinded by disease and from their bone, tumor, and muscle growing and popping them out of their sockets. They have an extremely vicious temperament towards anything other than other Mushak, and they attack with great force and swiftness in manners similar to an alligator. They may not be able to squeeze into areas as they once had, but their ability to hold their breath for extended periods, their extreme strength, durability, and ferocity make them extremely dangerous predators. Their sense of smell is extremely keen, and they can essentially see with their nose. Occasionally, Mushak Pashu have been known to explode upon death from the tumurous growths and build up of gasses within them, or if something within them tears it's way out, as the necrotic energies that it feeds on occasionally animate the corpses within it's self and cause them to become infectious undead. Even worse are the ones who live in a nigh symbiotic relationship that they regurgitate to attack their foes, or those that live within the rat to consume whatever it swallows. 

The large humanoid rat creature is known as a Mushak Maan. Sometimes known as a Ratmother, a Carrier, a Rat Abomination, or simply a rat woman. These are rats that slowly began to change to be more human like as time went on. Their bodies twisted and changed, and their wounds began to slowly grow into additional limbs such as arms and legs that it would be able to use just as well as it's other limbs. It is believed that humans who fed on the rats may have also been changed to become these creatures. These Rat creatures are large and hulking, and hold on their back enormous rat swarms and work as living, mobile rat colonies. They can shed the rats and allow them to swarm and feed before they usually scurry back to their mother, who's back flesh is malleable and torn from tumorous growths which they inhabit the empty sockets of. They live and die with the mother, in a symbiotic relationship. She often feeds the rats with creatures she kills, and they often bring back nutrients or protect the mothers as they travel. The Rat mothers can breed with any sort of rat, and are known to be able to impregnate themselves, and give birth to Mushak Pashu, normal rats, or occasionally rat Kings. Though frightening in appearance, they tend to be rather timid unless their colony is under attack, and may avoid travelers if spotted within the tunnels. Despite their thick bodies, their additional arms and tails allow them to maintain a somewhat nimble maneuverability within tunnels that one would not expect them to possess and their capability for stealth is uncanny.

Next we have the mass of rats known as a Rat King, or a Mushakraaja. Normal rat kings are entangled rats, matted together and tangled by their tails and limbs in a pile of filth and excrement that have learned to move as a singular entity. When they too befall the same fate while consuming endless necromantic waste however, their malleable bodies change and grow similarly to a Mushak Pashu. Their bodies become one, with heads and limbs fusing together, their fattened flesh warping and wounds opening and closing on one another until they become a massive tangled and amorphous pile of screeching and gnashing teeth, claws and beady eyes. Rat Kings are like hiveminds and like a gigantic rat swarm that simply consumes whatever it touches. Their undersides are lined with claws and teeth and they slurp creatures into their vortex of gnashing limbs to be blended and pulled within the swarm and occasionally assimilated. Occasionally, Mushak Pashu or other normal rats will break off of the swarm and become their own entities. Because of their ever changing forms, when they are harmed or struck a dangerous blow, they usually begin to mutate or grow, forming a new rat or growing new limbs from the wound swiftly. 

Last but not least we have a Mushak Bachcha, Mushak Raanee, plague child, Rat Queen, Plague Queen, Gutter Princess, a guttersnipe, or mostly as an Acheri. The Acheri are children whom fed on rats or corpses infected with disease, most likely due to having no other food source due to poverty and not wanting to succumb to poverty. Many of them become diseased but resistant, and start taking on rat like qualities and behavior. It is believed that this happens due to the tumorous growths caused by these spells altering their growth as grown humans, and it also explains why adults don't show these behaviors, and most adults simply become undead, or highly infected shambling and nearly mindless feral creatures. The children become much more violent, however they maintain the quick learning abilities they possess as children and the innate killer instinct of a beast and work with pack tactics to attack their foes and even set traps. Some children who possessed enhanced cognitive ability, or whom harbored latent magical power, who achieve this evolutionary form go even further beyond and can easily command other rats through their own thoughts. Similar to rat mothers, the Acheri often keep swarms of rats on their person, though they do so in the form of a dirty pelt that they allow the rats to swarm on and command them to drop off and attack if needed. They wear crowns of rat bone, and possess large twisted claws to rip at their enemies and dig swiftly, as well as sharp and powerful teeth. Their bodies are that of human and rat, yet they can breed with either species as they grow older. More often than not their births result in Rat Mothers or Rat Kings, though some have spawned gibbering mouthers or even sanguine oozes in certain circumstances....