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Races
Ceran
- Determinator: Cerans are hopelessly bullheaded. Their desire to impress their family pushes them to continue a given assignment, even after repeated failures. A hopeless quest to others is considered a worthwhile challenge to the cerans.
- Horned Humanoid: They have several horns on their head. Tri-cerans have three horns, one set against their nose and two on the head plate. Sty-cerans have a flurry of smaller horns that adorn their head plate, and a small singular one on their nose. Pa-cerans have small, almost decorative horns that serve little purpose. Magna-cerans have no horns but use a magnetic bone plate to create artificial horns from metals.
- No Need for Names: Until recent history, the small interwoven nature of ceran families meant that every ceran knew their kin, so there was little need for personal names.
Hiveborn
- Bee People: Downplayed. The queen is rarely the only hiveborn who can have children, though her offspring comprise most of the hive's population.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: Bee and wasp hiveborn can strike with their deadly stingers.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Hiveborn do not have names as they are typically understood, if they have one at all. Their names are a complex dance and signals that only other hiveborn can truly replicate. When dealing with other species, they take the name of their position and see no reason to try and establish an individual name beyond that.
- Gender Bender: Hiveborn can change sexes within a matter of days.
Hiveborn Spider
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Hiveborn spiders perform as an efficient collective, working together for the good of all, fromr each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Their children are raised together, each member looking after each child as if they were their own, and the goals of the hive, mainly survival in a harsh world, is enough to push each individual to cooperate with everyone else. It is rare for even minor fights to break out among the collective, as it is generally understood that there are enough resources for all to live in relative comfort.
Krampusborn
- Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Krampusborn are children of Krampus and a mysterious other parent whose identity wrapped up wholly in myth. Some stories recount a dragon finding Krampus to be suitable, some tell of a curious bard looking for a worthy challenge, many speak of a wizard losing a bet, and more suppose the krampusborn to be children stolen by Krampus and distorted by dark magic.
Rai
- Age Without Youth: Eternal rai have evolved beyond dying of old age. They still age and grow weaker with time, just more slowly. They will eventually reach a point where they are little more than a pile of thoughts and bones.
- Elemental Powers: Each rai variant has minor control over one element.
- Interspecies Romance: Given enough time, rai can adapt to mate with nearly any species or sex.
- Mage Species: Rai are born with innate ability to channel the energy around them. Most commonly this is electricity, but some can channel ice, grass, smoke, and even corruption.
- Overly Long Name: A rai's last name is the combination of their parents' last names, the maternal coming first again, with no discernable limit. Some rai drop the legacy last names down to a manageable limit while others insist that children learn a list of names hundreds of generations long.
Restless
- Artificial Zombie: Cybernetic restless were augmented with one-of-a-kind technologies created by brilliant scientists. Usually, half their body is made of machinery that is unlike anything available to the public.
- Dem Bones: Restless are humanoid skeletons that have been reanimated by some dark magic or technological horrors.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The restless have an expiration date, a day their machinery or magic will no longer sustain their consciousness and they will simply cease existing. Most restless know exactly how long they have, but few will share that information.
Snome
- Born as an Adult: Snomes are created fully-formed and have no childhood to speak of.
- I Have Many Names: The gnomes' penchant for names has been passed onto the snomes, who try to collect as many names as they can.
- Punny Name: Due to a trend for cold-themed names, many snomes have similar ice puns as their names.
- Snowlems: A snome is a pile of snow animated by magic and adorned with eyes, a nose and clothing.
- Weak to Fire: Being made of snow, snomes have difficulty surviving in climates warmer than subarctic, and are vulnerable to fire damage.
Synthetic
- Body Surf: Each synthetic draws from a power core somewhere within their body. This core is overloaded with the Flare virus and is where the consciousness of most synthetic is located. Destroying a synthetic's body will not cause immediate death, so long as the core is still intact, allowing them to move from frame to frame with relative ease.
- Cyborg: An enmesched synthetic is a mishmash of meat and machinery, with their body and mind unable to recognise the difference. Unlike cyborgs and androids, they are neither organic creatures augmented with machinery, nor machines replicating living beings.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: When the Flare virus underwent a mutation that removed the distinction between the organic code of DNA and the digital code of a machine, it found new life within leftover machines, replicating and living within the inanimate objects. Over an incredible span of time, the virus mutated again and again.
- Transforming Mecha: A mechamorpher synthetic can transform into different vehicles or animals, granting them unique advantages.
Trog
- I'm a Humanitarian: Trogs' entire hierarchy is based around who can eat whom. A trog that reaches adulthood has already consumed ten or more of their kin.
- Klingon Promotion: If there is a political position that a trog desires, they will simply eat the current occupant and assume their role. This can seem ghastly to other species but is well ingrained and accepted in trog society.
- Large and in Charge: Village royalty are the largest trogs, consuming so much and engorging their bodies to the point it would be nearly impossible for another trog to swallow them. This disregard for their own health is the true sign of a trog leader.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Despite their small frame and light bones, trogs pack a shocking punch.
- Would Not Hurt A Child: No adult trog will consume a tadpole unless starving, because it is considered crass to eat something so far below your station.
Wo'nari
- Big Eater: Energy wo'nari consume nearly double the food most wo'nari eat.
- Photographic Memory: It is rare that wo'nari forget anything of importance until their minds begin to fade in old age.
Dragonborn
- Volcanic Veins: Neon dragonborn's blood glows an intense shade of their natural colour and veins can be seen through the thinner parts of their flesh.
Cosmic Dwarf
- Collector of the Strange: Cosmic dwarves enjoy obtaining strange things from beyond their realm. The stranger and farther a cosmic dwarf must travel to obtain the item, the better the story behind it.
- The Empath: Each and every cosmic dwarf is empathic. When around others of their kind, they can become linked, raising or lowering emotional states of their kin. Since every member of the clan can detect the emotions of another, trust and love are the most important qualities.
Punk Elf
- Emotion Eater: The ink draws nourishment from strong emotional responses and subtly encourages the elf towards a life filled with a touch more anarchy and rebellion.
- The Symbiote: Punk elves are born with an intelligent symbiotic partnership. The ink is a semi-conscious lifeform that bonds with the infant in the womb and shares traits of the parents' ink. The two grow up together as one entity, aiding each other in survival and living an interconnected life. If the elf dies, the ink dies; if the ink dies, the elf's mind begins to degrade, eventually resulting in a coma.
Mecha Gnome
- Cyborg: Since some of their organs or body parts develop poorly or do not do so at all, each mecha gnome fetus is infused with technology that replaces and often improves upon the errant part drastically. Thus, almost all mecha gnomes begin life at least partially augmented.
Action Halfling
- Thrill Seeker: The desire for excitement is not just a craving for action halflings; it is a base need. They are born with an innate craving for adrenaline and become addicted to it quickly.
Half-Elf Replica
- Body Backup Drive: Since the H-Virus cannot be cured and is a death sentence for all half-elves who contract it, some societies decided to circumvent the illness by creating an artificial form of reincarnation. Once the virus had been detected, several soulless clones are created. Before the death of the original (or shortly after in some cases), the soul is transferred to the new body.
- Born as an Adult: Replicas are created as empty vessels and remain inert for centuries until a sudden spark inhabits them. They have little memory of their past life and are much like children, born in an adult body but lacking all understanding of what their life means.
Hack-Orc
- Competition Freak: Most hack-orcs still harbour a desire for conflict and victory, though this is often satisfied in less physically violent ways, like competitions of intellect and cunning.
- Insufferable Genius: Hack-orcs' high regard for their own intellect can often put them at odds with more casual crowds and can be seen as a challenge to scholarly instructors.
- Tron Lines: Hack-orcs' veins appear far darker than their flesh, and form visible cross patterns that resemble circuit boards.
Human Offline
- Cyborg: The link to the Cyblight has been severed, but these humans cannot be fully separated from some of the Cyblight components in their body, which still function and assist in keeping them alive.
- Rogue Drone: These humans were taken by the Cyblight hive and served in their ranks until, through some miraculous means, they were severed from the hive and given another chance at life.
Void Tiefling
- Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: Unlike most tieflings, void tieflings are the union of humanoid creatures and cosmic forces beyond measure. Sometimes this is an actual entity; other times they are created from universal concepts.
- Prehensile Tail: The void tiefling's tail is a strong and dexterous appendage, and can be used almost like another hand.
Creatures
Animatronic Horror
Challenge Rating: 3 (horror), 8 (nightmare)
Alignment: True Neutral (horror), Chaotic Evil (nightmare)
- Hostile Animatronics: Age and evil intentions have mutated these machines into suits of destruction.
- Mobile-Suit Human: With a few modifications to the original design, an animatronic can be turned into a golem or mech suit by small evil creatures.
Arcade Mimic
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: True Neutral
- Chest Monster: By harnessing the power of electricity, either through a regular power system or by internal storage, arcade mimics are able to project many forms of entertainment on their screens. A weak telepathic field helps them to create what creatures around them would find most appealing.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Arcade mimics drain the life force of any creatures who play them and use the consumed brainwaves to create more compelling, realistic and mind-bending games. In most cases, victims of arcade mimics die quite happy.
Aimi's Claw
Challenge Rating: 12
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- An Arm and a Leg: A dark spirit infiltrated this hand, forcing the owner to brutally remove it before the unholy infection spread.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: The bones in the wrist have sprouted and grown into a long, toxic stinger.
- Helping Hands: Once the hand of a great vanquisher of evil, this undead claw now hunts down those who seek to gain its previous owner's power.
- Super-Persistent Predator: Once someone attunes to Aimi's Chainblade Hand, Aimi's Claw will begin to hunt them down relentlessly. It will not stop hunting them until they are dead and Aimi's Chainblade Hand is removed.
- Tracking Spell: Aimi's Claw knows exactly where those who attune with Aimi's Chainblade Hand are at all times.
B-ugz
Challenge Rating: 0-23
Alignment: Unaligned
- The Virus: Sometimes the Retroverse intersects with other realities, or even itself, and these aberrations are spawned. Mistakes of creation, they serve only to spread their corruption to others. To them, average life is the corruption and they have an undeniable need to fix it.
Chainsaw Experiment
Challenge Rating: 1 (flying), 4 (ooze), 7 (unicorn)
Alignment: Unaligned
- Animate Inanimate Object: A flying chainsaw is brought to life by a simple spell.
- Chainsaw Good: These creatures are chainsaws animated by the magic of a chainsaw-obsessed wizard.
- Raising the Steaks: The chainsawnicorn is a reanimated horse carcass whose head is replaced by a chainsaw.
Cheezers Head
Challenge Rating: 5 (head), 15 (true)
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Breath Weapon: Like a dragon, Cheezer's Head can gather energy and fire a bolt of electricity.
- Cognizant Limbs: Cheezer's Head is immobile and can only swivel and pivot in place. Two massive hoofs, an extension of Cheezer's retribution, are on ramshackle wheels and treated as independent creatures.
- Fighting a Shadow: It is unlikely that Cheezers (True) is truly is the final form of Cheezers. Anyone who can kill this avatar will cause quite a blow to the corporation, though so long as the mascot lives in the hearts and minds of children and the faithful, Cheezers will be beyond death.
- God Guise: Cheezer's Head once served as a calling card for the Drunk-E-Cheezers line of restaurants. Now it serves as a deity, presiding over the last remaining Drunk-E-Cheezers establishments. In truth, this is only a mere shell of the mighty Cheezers, but the power this shell can create is enough for lesser beings to worship the head.
- Nasal Weapon: The Cheezers Head can snort, blowing out a Cheese Slime that sticks to a creature.
Chrome Ooze
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Chest Monster: Powerful beings will often hide many of these shiny slimes into their homes or dungeons and have them cover magical relics, become mirrors in their bed chambers, or even delicate trim on a painting. The ooze will wait patiently until ordered to swarm intruders.
- No-Sell: Sparkling, magic-infused diamond dust flowing throughout its form defends the chrome ooze against most magical attacks.
Cyber Werewolf Zombie Pirate Vampire
Challenge Rating: 6 (cyber werewolf zombie vampire pirate), 8 (captain), 11 (baron), 16 (nuclear), 21 (reaper), 30 (moon god)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Came Back Strong: Whenever a cyber werewolf zombie vampire pirate dies, it comes back soon after (usually 1 to 8 hours) with a new addition to its wardrobe and powers.
- Healing Factor: When not in sunlight, a cyber werewolf zombie vampire pirate will regenerate all injuries not inflicted by radiant damage or holy water.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The cyber werewolf zombie vampire pirate is an amalgamation of the scary costumes worn in Halloween.
Cyblight
Challenge Rating: 1 (drone), 4 (warrior), 10 (elite)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
- Hammerspace: Cyblight elites have access to small dimensional portals that allow them to pull weapons, ammo, resources and any number of surprises from the Cyblight armoury.
- Hive Mind: The Cyblight is a hivemind of consciousness, the minds of those infected being stored in the collective intelligence of the Cyblight. With each new infection, the mind grows smarter, more resilient and noisier. The hivemind always stays linked, even across the barriers of dimensions. What one drone learns, a warrior in another time and galaxy also knows. It allows the Cyblight to stay contiguous across all realities with no noticeable variation. Consciousness is spread among this sea and millions of minds can work on the same issue at once, making a single Cyblight potentially more capable than the most advanced computing technology available in a single reality.
- Hive Queen: The Krige, or Cyblight Queen, understands the ebbs and flows of billions of linked minds and works to direct the energy towards goals that benefit the collective. If a Krige perishes, the Cyblight temporarily falls into disarray until a new Krige is created a few hours later.
- Nanomachines: The Cyblight spread their infection by injecting nanobots into another organism's bloodstream, which take control within moments.
- The Virus: The Cyblight is and are a technological infection. Each infected will immediately fall under control of the hive mind and work relentlessly to further the reach of the Cyblight. As soon as it gains a foothold in a reality, it must be relentlessly purged, down to the last drone. If allowed to spread, it can take over an entire plane of existence.
- Was Once a Man: The Cyblight commands the recently infected to go to the nearest Cyblight base to undergo a transformation. Once this transformation is complete, it is almost impossible to save the infected, even with powerful magics.
- Zerg Rush: What they lack in offensive capabilities, Cyblight drones and warriors make up with sheer numbers. Once a horde of drones begins shambling towards you, the best option is to flee.
Dies-Wrex
Challenge Rating: 16
Alignment: Unaligned
- Cybernetic Mythical Beast: The dies-wrex is a draconic knockoff built by kobolds from whatever scrap parts they could find, infused with soul energy from dead adventurers, held together with glitched geometry and wishes, and loaded with the best 8-tracks available.
- The Dragonslayer: The dies-wrex is enhanced with anti-dragon runes and equipment.
- Man in the Machine: Dies-wrex are designed to be piloted and feel an emptiness within themselves when they do not have a pilot. This can sometimes lead to them not releasing a pilot they have bonded with, leading to dies-wrex being piloted by skeletons that are hundreds of years old.
- Soul-Powered Engine: The dies-wrex is infused with soul energy from dead adventurers.
Dinosaur
Alignment: Unaligned
Ankylobuto
Challenge Rating: 10
- Blood Knight: Ankylobuto are brutish herbivores that see anything standing in their way as a challenge to be overcome. As they grow, they test themselves against whatever might be stronger than them, up to buildings or even dragons. They do not typically kill the beasts they fight against, instead preferring to simply show dominance and drive them away.
- Horn Attack: The ankylobuto has a tough outer shell with a large set of horns on its head.
- Tail Slap: An ankylobuto can quickly spin its whole body, transferring all momentum for a crushing blow with its hammer-shaped tail.
Ankylotaur
Challenge Rating: 8
- Bizarre Alien Senses: The ankylotaur has a sixth sense that allows it to detect the fear, bloodshed and hunger created by a hunter and its prey.
- Great White Hunter: Ankylotaur kill hunters when they can detect the distinct feelings of a hunt. They will seek out the hunter, even if it is predator vs predator, and do everything they can to slaughter them.
Arrowdactyl
Challenge Rating: 4
- Heal Thyself: When ablaze, the arrowdactyl quickly heals from wounds and absorbs fire damage as healing.
- The Phoenix: The arrowdactyl is an ancient relative of the mighty phoenix.
- Terror-dactyl: Few people targeted by this awful creature have lived to tell about it.
- Wreathed in Flames: The scales of the arrowdactyl are covered in a thin sheen of flammable fluid which it can ignite with a small spark gland near its beak. Its scales and flesh are highly resistant to fire, and it can say lit until the fluid has all burnt away, with no ill effects.
Bee-Rex
Challenge Rating: 1 (larva), 9 (drone), 12 (soldier), 30 (empress), 22 (empress husk)
- Artificial Hybrid: A fusion of bee and tyrannosaurus created as an attempt to imbue bees with greater resilience, the experiment backfired in the worst way possible.
- Bee Afraid: The bee-rex empress is a CR 30 creature and a contender for the mantle of the Retroverse's most dangerous titan.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Bee-rex are exceedingly short-tempered, resulting in frequent conflict in the hive.
- Horse of a Different Color: Histories show instances of hiveborn riding bee-rex into battle, a deadly alliance that other species have had limited success in achieving.
- Insect Queen: Unlike regular bees, the bee-rex empress directly reigns over the rest of the hive, sometimes by force.
- Raising the Steaks: If not consumed by the bee-rex empress itself, its shed skin has enough latent life energy to reanimate as undead.
- True-Breeding Hybrid: After breaking out from captivity, bee-rexes began breeding and are now simply part of the world.
Chainsawrus
Challenge Rating: 2
- Big Eater: The energy and iron required to sustain its chainsaw are massive, making the chainsawrus a voracious hunter. It will hunt creatures to extinction if given the chance.
- Chainsaw Good: A chainsawrus has a series of spines on its head that spin on a line of flexible cartilage. A small magnetic ball near the back of its skull can be charged at will, activating the slim iron plates in the saw cartilage. When it does this, the spines rotate rapidly around the head, creating an organic chainsaw-like effect.
Cockat-rex
Challenge Rating: 12
- Eat Dirt, Cheap: Once a target has been petrified, the cockat-rex will feast on the stone until it reaches the meat inside. It has no trouble crunching massive amounts of rock and dirt in its powerful jaws.
- Taken for Granite: The cockat-rex has the ability to turn an opponent into stone with the slightest scratch with its claws, barbs, spines, thorns or teeth.
Displaceiosaur
Challenge Rating: 8
Alignment: Lawful Evil
- Combat Tentacles: The displaceiosaur has developed stinging tentacles that can stun its prey, leaving them dead in the water.
- Evil Gloating: After subduing a particularly tough prey item, the displaceiosaur will often swim around the victim, gloating in its way before going in for the kill.
- Master of Illusion: Displaceiosaurs have developed a form of illusion magic that allows them to appear in multiple places at once or to be more than one creature. They use this advantage to singlehandedly swarm other creatures, disorienting them before going in for the kill.
- Sea Monster: The cruel displaceiosaur stalks the sea with a viciousness that seems to know no bounds.
Donamimus
Challenge Rating: 4
- Magic Music: Donamimus are so adept at creating music that they can use it the same way a bard can. They can encourage allies and weaken foes with their soulful tones or righteous beats. While they do not have the ability to cast spells, their music is a type of magic all its own.
- Voice Changeling: By pushing air through the horns, donamimus can recreate any sound they have heard, including speech. They can use this ability to scare or trick predators or to lure their own prey in.
Gravisaurus
Challenge Rating: 5
- Gravity Master: A gravisaurus' head and face are encased in a sweeping solid stone and bone fusion inlaid with naturally occurring runes that allow it to slightly distort gravity on itself and smash against foes with several times the force it would normally be able to.
Magnetadon
Challenge Rating: 7
- Magnetism Manipulation: A magnetadon creates a small, strong magnetic field around itself, gathering rocks and minerals to use as weapons and armour. Some stones, having been pressed against the flesh for so long, fuse with the skin, giving the magnetadon a protective carapace.
- Purple Is Powerful: The magentadon is a rare magnetadon variant that has infused itself with so many gems and bits of magical equipment and begun to glow a faint purple hue.
Piranhadon
Challenge Rating: 1/4
- Piranha Problem: The piranhadon is a miniscule dinosaur that tends to hunt in small packs of six or more. Once they kill a creature, they drag it underwater and pick it to the bone within minutes.
Velocilisk
Challenge Rating: 3
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Velocilisks use their six powerful arms to claw into prey.
Waspinosaurus
Challenge Rating: 12
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Waspinosaurus are extremely aggressive, attacking almost anything they see without provocation.
- Monstrous Cannibalism: After laying eggs, a waspinosaurus mother will watch over them just long enough for them to hatch. The mother will typically allow the hatchlings to fully emerge from their shells before trying to consume them. The eaten ones serve as distraction while the others flee, starting the cycle anew.
- Wicked Wasps: Waspinosaurus are vicious predators that enjoy striking fear or pain in other creatures, including their own. Some have suggested that they derive some sort of essential sustenance from the misery around them, which would explain why they often make their homes near battlefields or portals to hellish dimensions.
Yggdrasaur
Challenge Rating: 6 (baby), 24 (adult)
- Giant Animal Worship: Yggdrasaurs are mortal, but their sheer incomprehensible size makes them indistinguishable from gods to some. So much of what is understood about them is wrapped up in mythology and religious doctrine that it is impossible to parse out real facts.
- The Symbiote: How yggdrasaurs sustain their incredible mass is not fully understood, as no amount of food could possibly nourish them adequately. Scholarly explanations theorise that the plants and other life on its back are leeched on by the yggdrasaur.
- Turtle Island: The yggdrasaur is a massive dinosaur who can grow large enough to support forests, villages and even cities on its back.
Disco Assassin
Challenge Rating: 10
Alignment: Unaligned
- Killer Robot: The Disco Assassin is a swift and versatile mechanical nightmare of blades and light with a terrible reputation as royal slayers. If given enough information, it can prioritise targets, understand and avoid political fallout, and sabotage key items. Because of this, it's often better at their job than most living beings, understanding complex situations without emotional weakness.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: If a Disco Assassin is rendered incapable of escaping, it will begin a self-destruct sequence. The head will flash briefly and then release a fiery explosion of glass shrapnel.
Dragon
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons of the Retroverse can be roughly divded into two different groups:
- Source dragons (code, beat, tesla) draw their power from the building blocks of creation. In this way, they are less natural beings and more avatars of the force they represent. The first of them are speculated to have simply appeared one day, fully formed.
- Dazzle dragons (neon, radon, xenon) draw their power from luminescence and the life-giving nature of light. They are often bright and vibrant in both body and mind. If their inner light is extinguished, a Dazzle dragon will begin to wither away unless they can reignite the spark. It is believed that the first Dazzle dragons were born of unstable dreams and starlight.
- Rarer breeds of dragons defy this convention by apparently holding some of both parts of both categories or little of from either.
Beat Dragon
Alignment: Neutral Good
- Magic Music: Beat dragons slowly become more and more connected to the Beat of the World as they grow older. As they draw more power from this source, they can bolster their strength by writing and performing epics in their chosen genre. Ancient beat dragons can write songs of such epic strength that they can change the very fabric of reality.
- Walking the Earth: Beat dragons have no sense of home, or rather the whole world is their home. They travel where the winds and their whims take them. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences and become bored of places quickly. They may decide to settle in a place for a decade or so, but this is never permanent.
Code Dragon
Alignment: Unaligned
- Alien Geometries: Code dragon lairs are inscrutable messes of physics, with pathways that are maddening just to traverse. They are immense, yet impossibly small; dense but spaced among realities; extant but totally immeasurable. Hyperbolic and surreal geometry leads any intruders (and sometimes the dragon itself) in endless circles as they grapple with what is and is not possible in the lair.
- Arch-Enemy: Pure and corrupt code dragons are always in constant opposition, fighting an impossible war of logic and creation.
- Collector of the Strange: Treasures normally precious to other dragons are completely meaningless to code dragons. They can easily manifest gold or jewels if they want to. The true treasures of a code dragon are oddities of such dense code that they have little influence on them. Code anomalies, crystallised Beat of the World rhythms, trans-dimensional relics, condensed corruption, spirits of legendary heroes, or even smaller code dragons.
- Disability Superpower: The bone plates that grow over a code dragon's eyes are not a hindrance, but rather a defensive mechanism. Code dragons see things much further than those with true sight. Seeing the truth of creation and the facsimile we perceive, both at the same time, is enough to break the mind of most living creatures. Nevertheless, most code dragons gain a touch of madness before they can protect themselves.
- Eyeless Face: A pair of bone plates cover a code dragon's eyes and protect them from the falsehoods of reality, allowing them to see only the truth.
- Thinking Up Portals: Code dragons fly by opening a tear in reality, sticking to it, opening another tear and flinging themselves to the new tear. These tears close themselves rapidly and pose no continual threat but are devastating to those who touch open ones.
Gill Dragon
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Acid Attack: A gill dragon can turn the water in its lair acidic to hinder enemies.
- Amphibian at Large: Gill dragon wyrmlings often resemble very large frogs.
- Fantastic Racism: Gill dragons are generally despised by other dragons, being seen as a lower form of life that isn't worth pitying.
Laser Dragon
Alignment: Neutral Good or Neutral Evil
- Antiquated Linguistics: Laser dragons often adopt speech and mannerisms that may be centuries out of date.
- Charged Attack: Laser dragons can charge their breath by temporarily stockpiling energy into small battery-like bones in their throat, releasing it all in a devastating blast.
- Collector of the Strange: Laser dragons collect relics of the past, especially ephemeral pop-culture artefacts like original film reels, first edition collector's cards, forgotten music records, signed copies of books, statuettes of fictional characters, recreations of legendary weapons, original props, old posters, and myriad other items that many might consider fad trash.
- Competition Freak: Laser dragons revel in making stronger opponents look foolish and are willing to bet a lot on their own intelligence and cunning. This is especially true against other dragons and doubly so for dragons that have directly slighted them.
- Insufferable Genius: Their penchant for mind bending and dated references can make laser dragons come across as snotty know-it-alls, which they sometimes genuinely are.
- Seeker Archetype: Laser dragons have an insatiable desire for nostalgia, collecting trinkets and knowledge of the past, in the same way other dragons collect gold.
Neon Dragon
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Life of the Party: Neon dragons live their life the fullest. They consume the richest food, mingle with elusive stars, indulge in dangerous pleasures, live with no remorse, and expect others around them to do the same.
- To Serve Man: If a friend succumbs to the harshness and dangers a life of party brings, neon dragons will hold a feast, resuming their draconic form and consuming the body in mourning. Strange though it may be, those drawn in by a neon dragon's magnetism consider this a great honour.
Tesla Dragon
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Cyborg: The tesla dragon, a biological representation of a mechanical idea, is born with a small arcane turbine.
- Mad Scientist: Tesla dragons can sometimes let their ideas get out of hand. Nothing excites them more than the possibility of creating something entirely new. If a discovery is to be made, tesla dragons will stop at no extreme to get there. This can often lead to wonderful advancements or threats to whole realities. There are even legends that the Cyblight and the synthetic were originally a tesla dragon's experiment gone wrong (or right, depending on the perspective).
Xenon Dragon
Alignment: True Neutral
- Light Is Not Good: Xenon dragons are born with an inlaid desire to fight against darkness, as in the literal absence of light. While they might look like a force for good, xenon dragons do not fight the forces of evil, nor do they intentionally help do-gooders. Evil does not concern them, only those that seek to blot out light.
Elemental
Challenge Rating: 5
Alignment: True Neutral
- Elemental Embodiment: Since element in the Retroverse is a loose term at best and meaningless at worst, elementals can be defined by nearly anything and be comprised of nearly anything. Most are willed into existence with inspiration from common resources. A more abstract approach is also possible, as long as one can conceive what a, say, sorrow elemental looks like.
Beat Elemental
- Brown Note Being: Even being near a beat elemental is an unpleasant experience. as the binding of the Beat constantly produces screeching and buzzing feedback, which give the impression of great pain. These sounds can be heard up to a mile away easily and create a tremendous amount of noise pollution.
Bee Elemental
- The Worm That Walks: Bee elementals blur the line between a construct and an elemental. They are a dense collection of bees that all operate under the direction of their summoner. Typically, the ritual to create a bee elemental requires a beehive, which is destroyed in the process.
Corruption Elemental
- Brown Note Being: The very act of looking at a corruption elemental can induce psychic damage.
- Walking Wasteland: The willing concentration of corruption into the form of a corruption elemental almost always results in the destruction of the land it occupies. A single corruption elemental can decimate a city, walking straight through its armies, and corrupting everything it sees.
Laser Elemental
- Hard Light: A laser elemental is a collection of highly concentrated light, bound in tight rotations. Damaging it is actually damaging the tight fields that keep the light spirals contained.
Neon Elemental
- Invisible Monsters: Neon elementals are incandescent fog clouds that can sometimes be hard to detect.
Failed Polymorph
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Unaligned
- Tortured Monster: A common idea among failed polymorphs is that consuming stable DNA can somehow return them to what they used to be, leading them to hunt other creatures to their biomass to their own. This adding of additional mass and DNA only furthers their condition as they add more and more ill-fitting DNA to their own.
- Was Once a Man: The polymorph spell, which totally rearranges cellular structures to turn the caster into a different creature, is harmful to DNA. Repeated users may begin to suffer minor health issues. If they ignore these issues and continue down this path, their DNA will become entirely unstable. Unable to hold onto a single form, they fall apart into a writhing sludge of miscellaneous pieces and pain. There is no coming back from this fate.
Flanoid
Challenge Rating: 1 (grunt), 5 (soldier), 10 (wall)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Anthropomorphic Food: The flanoid is a sickly-sweet dessert monster from the Nachoverse. Consuming a flanoid is the best way to get rid of it as the stomachs of most beasts will render the ooze inert.
- The Assimilator: Flanoids reproduce by consuming biomass and then splitting into three (sometimes more). Through this process, they can rapidly take over a city.
- Stronger with Age: As a flanoid ages, it becomes more intelligent. If left alive long enough, they will grow greatly in strength and power; some take on massive hulking frames while others become hivemind-like creatures.
Glass Shadow
Challenge Rating: 8 (glass shadow), 1 (shatterling)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Defeat Equals Explosion: When a glass shadow is killed, it collapses in on itself, becoming a glass ball that then explodes, shooting shards outwards.
- Glass Weapon: As a glass shadow breaks out of a mirror, the broken glass is absorbed into their body, serving as daggers that rip and tear at any living being they come across.
- Mirror Monster: Glass shadows are spawned from all the fears and darkness within a creature. When a creature gets lost in the windows to their own soul, the mirror collects their hate and pain, giving it life and purpose. Eventually, a glass shadow crawls out of the mirror, claiming its creator as its first victim.
Goblin
- Underground Monkey: All kinds of goblins from numerous realities make the Retroverse their home, as well as a few that are unique to this reality.
Booblin
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Departure Means Death: Booblins are tied to the location of their death. They can travel up to one mile outside of this area but must return within 24 hours, or they fizzle into nothing.
- Master of Illusion: The energy that sustains a booblin gives them the magical ability to create illusions.
- Non-Human Undead: When adventurers invade a goblin lair, slaughter the goblins and take their riches, their spirits are held within by their collective anger and fear. Several days later, the goblin spirits will form into deadly apparitions called booblins.
Cawblin
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Bird People: Cawblins have dark green wings and toothy beaks, and are speculated to be the result of an unexpected mutation or collateral damage in some avian curse.
Godblin
Challenge Rating: 28
Alignment: Unaligned
- Person of Mass Destruction: A godblin is simply another goblin, albeit one with immense power. This power roams among the goblins, striking one at random and giving them the power of a deity for as long as their body can maintain it (which is never long). Most godblins go mad with power and embark on a path of destruction that leaves the land scorched beyond repair.
- Phlebotinum Overdose: The sheer energy behind the godblin will quickly burn out the host body, typically within a few months, and the power will then transfer to another goblin.
Gobblin
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Artificial Hybrid: Gobblins were created as a cruel combination of hunting goblin and hunting turkey.
- Bird People: Gobblins are a combination of hunting goblin and hunting turkey.
Gooblin
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Blob Monster: Gooblins skulk, steal and look like a goblin but are made from entirely from amorphous goo.
Jawblin
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Jawblins have a huge mouth filled with rows and rows of teeth. When a tooth falls out, they use them to create weapons.
- Shark Man: Jawblins are a combination of shark and goblin.
- Threatening Shark: While not evil by nature, jawblins have a burning hunger that will often drive them to evil acts if they let it grow.
Robolin
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: True Neutral
- Defeat Equals Explosion: When destroyed, a robolin might randomly explode.
Tallblin
Challenge Rating: 12
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Creepily Long Arms: A tallblin's arms and legs are incredibly long, with its knuckles almost touching the ground, even when standing at its full height.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Multiple arms or other appendages flow from the tallblin's back.
- Tulpa: Tallblin are born by the sheer belief in them. As stories of their lanky arms and penchant for stealing young children spread, this belief grows until a tallblin is born. The number of tallblins that exist depends on the concentration of belief in them within a given area. While their physical presence will cement belief for some, eventually the superstition will wane for enough creatures that the tallblin can no longer sustain itself and will simply vanish.
- Walking Techbane: Machinery and electronics often falter near a tallblin; this can be as simple as a part breaking when it should not or as dangerous as an energy core destabilising.
Two Goblins in Armor
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
- Asteroids Monster: When two goblins in armor drop to zero hit points, the disguise falls apart and two goblins pop out.
- Totem Pole Trench: These goblins have teamed up and pretend to be a somewhat strange adventurer, but the ruse is not immediately apparent.
Vladblin
Challenge Rating: 10
Alignment: Lawful Evil
- For the Evulz: Vladblins lack the average vampire's pomp and long-reaching, but instead revel in the bestial nature of their condition. This makes them high-priority targets for civilisations as they cannot be bargained with like other vampires and will attack anything they want, just for the thrill of it.
- Non-Human Undead: Only goblins can become vladblins, though the vladblin can make many typical vampire spawn if they so choose.
- Our Vampires Are Different: When a weakened vampire lord bit a goblin to create a vampire spawn, the goblin's will and hunger proved far greater than the vampire's control. After consuming its sire, the goblin surged with newfound power and assumed the new name vladblin. Unlike other vampires, vladblins are not tied to a specific location and can roam freely in the night.
Wereblin
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Any
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: This subset of goblinoids are created by a bizarre strain of lycanthropy that changes one humanoid creature into a different humanoid creature.
Zomblin
Challenge Rating: 1/2
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Non-Human Undead: Zomblins are exactly what you would expect from a zombified goblin. They are surprisingly spry for zombies but are otherwise unremarkable.
Gridtank
Challenge Rating: 8
Alignment: Unaligned
- Killer Robot: Gridtanks possess no real thoughts of their own. They follow a very simple program: roam and attack everything that moves, including other gridtanks.
- Mechanical Lifeforms: Gridtanks are constructs that loosely resemble tanks, but are capable of reproduction, laying a handful of eggs each year.
- Tank Goodness: Gridtanks are blocky creatures with harsh neon lines roughly shaped like a tank—a wedge and a cannon, with nothing between the lines except air.
Holo-Beast
Alignment: Unaligned
- Hologram: Holograms once used to display wild beasts, these creatures have broken free from their emitters and roam the world believing themselves to be normal animals. They can move through solid objects, water and air as if they were in their natural habitat.
- Sanity Slippage: With time, holo-beasts become unstable, typically lashing out at anything around them in a chaotic rage.
House Colossus
Challenge Rating: 19
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Some necromancers acquire a house colossus when it's little more than a creepy building with a few deaths attached to it and train it like a soul battery, storing excess energy within until needed. This works quite well until the house almost inevitably always eats them.
- Haunted House: These houses, where at least a few dozen people died, are haunted and animated by the negative energy within them.
- Phlebotinum Overdose: The more a house colossus kills, the more powerful it grows. Eventually, this evil energy will become too much for the house to contain, resulting in a soul fission explosion, leaving the area unable to sustain soul energy for millennia.
Jetpack Bugbear
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Jet Pack: These bugbears can fly up to an hour a day with their jetpack.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Jetpack bugbears appear from the sky, slaughter and pillage, then disappear as quick as they came.
Kah-pede
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Unaligned
- Hostile Animatronics: These animatronics haunt the infernal and celestial planes, begging creatures to play with them in alluring, child-like voices. They feed off fear and blood, draining those they meet of their very souls.
Karma Chameleon
Challenge Rating: 1/8 (chameleon), 1 (hybrid), 5 (adult)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Abstract Eater: The karma chameleon feeds entirely off the diabolical energy created when another creature commits an evil act.
- Invisible Monsters: The karma chameleon is invisible and can do any actions without revealing itself.
- Kill and Replace: As it grows in power, a karma chameleon begins to take the form of the creature whose evil actions it is feeding from. After becoming an exact double, at an opportune moment, the karma chameleon will kill the original creature and take their place.
- Tracking Spell: A karma chameleon knows exactly where its quarry is, even if they become invisible or move to another plane.
Killer Doll
Challenge Rating: 1/4, 1 (bees)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Perverse Puppet: The killer doll is a well-known and feared creature through many universes. Their creation stories differ, from a diabolical soul inhabiting them, to a vengeful witch imbuing them with murderous intent. Whatever their origins, they all share a desire to kill and scare.
- The Virus: A problem with killer dolls, somewhat unique to the Retroverse, is the KD-Virus. At some point in the past, the magic animating a killer doll jumped from the arcane to the biological, allowing their essence to infect inert dolls. Though rare, great precautions must be taken with every killer doll as each one could be a carrier of the virus. If the infection is allowed to spread, it can overrun whole nations.
Kobold
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Drives Like Crazy: In some realities, kobolds have applied their natural talent for traps and tinkering to machines. They have a taste for freedom that can only be satiated by the feeling of going ludicrous speeds down a paved road. Their vehicles are hodgepodge creations, often borrowing parts that were never intended to be on a vehicle and forcing it in into their rides in unconventional ways. Their time is short, and they want their glorious death to be worth witnessing.
- Light 'em Up: 'Blessed' by energy from a laser dragon, a laser kobold can exhale an energy beam.
Laser Pup
Challenge Rating: 1/8
Alignment: Unaligned
- Big Eater: Laser pups consume vastly more food than normal dogs.
- Light 'em Up: Anytime a laser pup yips, barks or howls, a powerful laser blast shoots from its mouth. Laser pups cannot control the blast itself but can be trained not to bark.
- Older Than They Look: Laser pups resemble puppies for their entire lives.
Laser-Tooth Tiger
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (cub), 2 (adult)
Alignment: Unaligned
- Hard Light: A minor alteration to their code has given these creatures laser claws and teeth, which can pass through most objects with impunity.
Man-Equin
Challenge Rating: 1 (full), 0 (bit)
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- From a Single Cell: A single leg could move away from its parent man-equin, growing into another, near identical creature within just a few weeks. Fire is the recommended solution.
- Rubber Man: Man-equins are not necessarily restrained to a single body. Their limbs can grow, deform and act on their own.
- That's No Moon: Man-equins can remain perfectly still for hours, wearing clothes and mimicking our styles. When nobody is around to help their victims, they open their plastic-like carapace and reveal their true selves.
Miditaur
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Invisible Monsters: Miditaurs are invisible to the naked eye, but can be heard by keen ears as they distort the waves they move through.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: These creatures are minotaurs who have been recompiled to exist within a flux state made entirely of sound.
Muddie
Challenge Rating: 1/8 (muddie), 1 (boss)
Alignment: Unaligned
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Built with no defences, muddies seem too inept to try and protect themselves.
- Attack Its Weak Point: A solid hit to its core (represented in-game by a critical hit) will cause a muddie to shatter, regardless of how much vitality it had remaining.
- Cannon Fodder: Muddies are amazingly easy to create—a bit of magically enhanced clay and a small ritual. Some gnomish wizards have even created magical machines that can create dozens in a day. Because of this, their existences are worthless, and they are created with the life expectancy of a few hours. Their only purpose is to weaken creatures before the real challenge shows up.
- Dumb Muscle: Due to their terrible intelligence, muddies have trouble with the simplest task outside of fighting.
OTOTO
Challenge Rating: 12
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Killer Robot: OTOTO are malicious beings of twisted flesh leaking from a metal shell. They have a seething hate of all living things and seek onto to kill and propagate.
- Turned Against Their Masters: A now-forgotten conglomeration of arms dealers wished to maximise their kill machine's capabilities at the minimum margin. Rather than pay for advanced AI, they simply filled the machines with the liquified remains of whatever test subjects they had lying around and cast a bit of animating magic. By some dark miracle, this nonsensical idea actually worked, resulting in the original OTOTO. This method allegedly generated a record increase of 1.2% in profits that year. There were no survivors.
- The Virus: OTOTO will attempt to melt, smash, grind or smear their targets into a fine paste, which is then infused with the same hate and malice, passed down from the original OTOTO line, which animates it. The sludge will search for its own robotic frame, embedding itself within it. The cycle will then repeat itself, creating a near endless supply of kill-bots.
Polygon Head
Challenge Rating: 14
Alignment: Lawful Evil
- Do Not Go Gentle: Polygon heads were intended to be wiped from existence but refused to go quietly into the recycle bin. Instead, their will was strong enough to survive, while their bodies died. They then attempted to force their dead bodies to adapt to the newly created world and only partially succeeded.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Since polygon heads cannot truly adapt to the world they are in now, they are left with only one option: delete everything in this current iteration and roll back the settings to a previous version. They hope to accomplish this by killing every living creature they come across, with zero exceptions.
Piritheti
Challenge Rating: 11
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Ax-Crazy: Pirithetis are creatures of pure carnage and destruction.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The piritheti is a abominable grey beast from the coldest reaches who will mercilessly chase down any creature that enters its territory.
Pizza Cube
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Unaligned
- Anthropomorphic Food: The pizza cube is both a hideous cube of delicious pizza and a phenomenal threat.
- Blob Monster: The pizza cube is a mess of sauce and cheese, and leaks a cheesy sludge everywhere it goes.
Pizza Slime
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- Anthropomorphic Food: The pizza slime can be eaten with no known ill effects. Some even say that they taste better the day after killing them.
Power Wolf
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Ax-Crazy: Power wolves are fury incarnate, with little purpose beyond attacking and consuming.
- Savage Wolves: Power wolves are a menace to life. If one is discovered, it is the responsibility of everyone nearby to hunt them down and kill them. Even a single power wolf can destroy a village and a pack is akin to a natural disaster. No attempts at domesticating them, magical or mundane, have succeeded.
- Tortured Monster: Their mutations cause them great pain and drive them into a ravenous frenzy.
Schrödinger's Beast
Challenge Rating: 9
Alignment: Unaligned
- Non-Human Undead: The Schrödinger's beast is creature from the realm of the fey that is simultaneously dead and alive, flipping between two suspended fates as soon as it is seen.
Undying Slasher
Challenge Rating: 9
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
- Bottomless Magazines: Weapons wielded by undying slashers have an unlimited supply of the ammunition needed.
- Super-Persistent Predator: When they have found a group to target, undying slashers will not rest until they have brutally slaughtered the whole party.
- Was Once a Man: Some undying slashers are the result of a human subjected to a torturous existence, lashing out through magic and death.
Wavy Tube Armed Ghost
Challenge Rating: 1
Alignment: Unaligned
- Absurdly Dedicated Worker: Worked literally to death, these ghosts' attitude is that of total devotion to the company, with no regard for the limitations of the living. For them, every day is a good day to rise and grind. They haunt their previous locations, working non-stop from beyond the grave, cleaning shelves and assisting whatever customers they can. They also scan through the store, pushing broom handles into resting workers or harassing stockers who aren't moving fast enough for their liking. They are always watching, looking for any little slip up they can report to HR.
Zombee
Challenge Rating: 2
Alignment: Unaligned
- Explosive Breeder: The queen of a zombee hive remains alive and conitnues to create bees, which are turned into zombees as soon as they mature. Since very few zombees die, the hive continues to grow and may reach proportions that are not possible for a colony of living bees. Entire buildings or even city blocks may be overrun with a zombee hive. Dozens and dozens of queens will be created, all serving to grow the hive to unimaginable sizes.
- Raising the Steaks: A zombie outbreak can infect a bee, which will then return to its hive, infecting and reanimating them.
Zoromin Beast
Alignment: Neutral Evil
- The Ageless: Zoromin Beasts cannot die of old age.
- Body Surf: If a Zoromin Beast is killed, the part of Zoromin they have within them will leave and find another host. Only by being slain with Zoromin's Blade will the beast truly die.
- Dire Beast: Once normal animals, Zoromin Beasts were grotesquely altered by the piece of Zoromin inside their body. They grow gigantic, their bones jutting from their bodies and becoming a stone-like carapace. They are strong enough to take on adult dragons with ease and could crumple cities under their weight.
