#malaugrym

a.       Yeah, these guys….they are the biggest assholes on the Middle PLanes.  This is in part because they are each individually so powerful, so while their race is tiny those who reach maturity are absolutely terrifying (an adult gets 20 levels in both Wizard and Shadowcaster).  Luckily for everybody, very few actually reach adulthood, and the vast majority of them are only CR 4.  These egotistical psychopathic creatures are famous for their ability to shapeshift, and can assimilate almost all creatures perfectly.  To do this, they must absorb the biological material of several members of a race in question, so most young Malaugrym will go on a killing spree against the more common species in the multiverse as a rite of adulthood.  For reasons that nobody really wants to answer, this doesn’t apply to humans, who they can shape into automatically.  They will often seek out and consume more obscure races in order to expand their shapeshifting prowess.  They have a unique ability to have up to two “Alternative Forms” which basically operate at their own personal PCs.  This alternate form gains levels separately from the Malgurim and if it dies the true form of the Malgurm emerges.  The only limitation is that there alternative forms always has amber eyes.  As a race they don’t have any long term goal beyond keeping the race alive, most of them are hyper individualistic who each have the same single goal.  Take over the entire multiverse.  Deep in the heart of every one of these slim is the singular driving goal, become the absolute master of the entire material plane, and from there the entire multiverse. Why they all have this is unknown, but as a rule they don’t question it, they just all go into the business of trying to…take over the world.  Of course each one wants to be the absolute ruler, so while they might occasionally ally, all of them know that when the time comes, they will battle of the trophy of the world.  THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!   The only limitation on their internal fighting is that they do want to allow the species to reproduce, and so will leave each other alone during mating season, and not target the children of their own species.  Should something present an actual threat to the whole species however, all of the Malaugrym will come together and unite to defend their homeland and can work together surprisingly well when their back (or rather weird creepy orb things) are against the wall.  This has happened twice in recorded history, first when they successfully drove off an army of Daemons who hoped to use their realm as a launching point for future wars, and one time were able to repel Satianals forces from wiping them all out entirely.  But the moment the threat is gone, they turn on each other immediately.

b.      There are Rumors of 6 Lords among them known as the “Shadowmasters” who reign supreme even among the mature ones, which is saying something, but these six all seem to have mutually imprisoned each other on the Plane of Shadow, so the race is pretty effectively leaderless.  For the rest of the race, life is a struggle to stay alive and eat enough people to eventually become fully grown, where they go from kinda shit to some of the most powerful creatures in the multiverse. Luckily, the current number of Malaugrym who are fully mature and thus have access to all of the class levels that come with it number only a little over a dozen, and none of them have anything more than a loose alliance with each other.  So while they could team up and likely assassinate some Demon Lords or destroy some of the Nine’s Avatars, they lack both unity as well as the other advantages that comes with being a Cosmic Being, specifically they cannot grant spells, create aspects, or manifest Avatars.  They are basically just your standard Malaugrym who happen to have 40 character levels, a few meat suits, and an emergency alternate form.  

c.       Powerful Malaugrym when slain will return as a powerful ravaging beast (CR 16), utterly mindless only trying to destroy everything in the area.  Should they be successful, it will hibernate for a decade at which point it will return to their previous personality, albeit without any of their previous alternate forms and they have to work to remake those from the start.  They also need to re eat all of the non-human species to gain their ability to shapeshift, which is troubling.

d.      They have no allies and hate everybody, though it seems to basically hate everybody equally.