Infiltrator [Mongrelman]

In its true form an infiltrator is a gaunt, hairless humanoid with dusty white skin and a slightly oversized head. Huge black eyes fill half its face, there is no visible nose, and the mouth is a thin slit. Males and females look nearly identical this way.

In natural form an infiltrator can fight only with weapons, but it drills constantly and is usually proficient with many of them. In an assumed shape it gains the natural attacks of that race, such as a lizard man's claws and bite, but not learned skills like wielding a flind's flindbar or a lizard king's trident. It also takes on the form's Armor Class and Hit Dice, gaining 4 hit points for each extra die. Those bonus points are lost first in combat and vanish when it reverts. If the form has fewer Hit Dice than the infiltrator, it keeps its own hit points.

Changing shape takes one round and heals 1d4 points of damage. Only the body changes, so infiltrators go unclothed in their own form, having no nudity taboo, and put on gear suited to whatever shape they wear.

Wizards created infiltrators, much as doppelgangers were made, to act as spies, couriers and sometimes translators. Every infiltrator understands and can speak any language it hears, thanks to remarkably adaptable vocal cords. They are fanatically devoted to their creators, nearly worshipful, and one whose master dies usually seeks another wizard to serve, since it feels safe only in the service of a spellcaster. They keep no treasure, handing over everything they find, but grateful masters often lend them magical weapons and useful items. They can use any magic item a warrior can.

An infiltrator gains new shapes through feasting: eating a humanoid's flesh and digesting it in a special second stomach for about an hour, absorbing the creature's genetic pattern. Afterward it can take that race's form at will. It cannot copy the specific individual it ate, only the race. Its own sex never changes, so a male that eats a female hobgoblin becomes a male hobgoblin. Only humanoids between 4 and 9 feet tall can be absorbed; animals and larger or smaller humanoids are beyond it. Naturally, infiltrators try to feast on as many races as possible.

Their great weakness is that they cannot pass on their nature. They cannot breed with other races in any form, and two infiltrators always produce a mongrelman bearing traits of the races its parents had eaten. The original infiltrators died out long ago, leaving the mongrelmen as their only heirs, but a wizard may yet rediscover or reinvent the process.