Chaos Beast

No two sightings of a chaos beast agree, because it is never the same thing twice. Witnesses have described a lurching three-legged giant of hooks, fangs and bulging veins with a face like a cracked mirror; a crawling heap of red-tipped tentacles with ten eyes floating in a sac above a ring of smacking mouths and useless fluttering wings; a stately six-legged beast with a maned head, three blazing eyes and sun-gold skin; and a pitiful, man-sized lump of sagging flesh on splintered bones, groping blindly with crab claws.

Others tell of a charging brute with an alligator's jaws, a dark-furred flyer with great talons and cold, hateful eyes, a tumbling mass of steaming entrails that rolls over everything in its path, a hollow, gas-bloated husk bobbing on the chaos-stuff and snaring all who drift close, and a jewel-eyed moth whose wings shine like stained glass. Some swear it looked exactly like the person standing beside them. It may wear any or all of these shapes, and the only rule is that today's form is one it did not wear before.

For all its claws, fangs, pincers and spines, the chaos beast is a weak fighter. Whatever its shape, it manages only two attacks a round, perhaps because its constant changes leave it too uncoordinated, perhaps because it is simply dim. Each hit does only 1d3 damage; victims say even its nastiest-looking claws land like a half-empty waterskin, stinging but hardly worth fearing.

Veteran planewalkers fear it anyway, because its true weapon is corporeal instability. When the creature's bare flesh meets a victim's, the victim must save vs. death magic or begin to lose all bodily form. Armor or clothing grants +4 to the save, and striking with a melee weapon is only slightly risky, granting +6. Punching it bare-fisted is begging for disaster, and the wisest approach is to fight it from range.

An afflicted body turns spongy and starts to melt, bubble and writhe unless willpower holds it together, much as natives of that plane hold the chaos around them in place. Hands lose all grip, so nothing can be held. Rings, helmets, packs and armor become useless; snug gear such as armor, backpacks or even shirts actively hinders, lowering Dexterity by 4. Legs and feet sag into impossible shapes, cutting movement to 3. Searing nerve pain prevents coherent action, spellcasting and the use of magical items, and the victim swings blindly at friend and foe alike at -4 to THAC0.

The condition inflicts no physical damage, but the mental toll is immense. Every round that the body stays out of control, the sufferer rolls a save vs. death magic; failure drains 1 point of Wisdom. Anyone reduced to 0 Wisdom becomes one of the plane's mindless, formless horrors.

Even a victim who regains his shape must stay vigilant forever. Like any piece of that plane, his body starts shifting again the instant he stops holding it steady. A companion can lend the needed stability, letting the afflicted character sleep.