Shattered Brethren

These broken ones are the leftovers of mind reaver experiments that fuse people with animals, and they lean more beast than human. The reavers keep trying new mixes for useful slaves, so forms vary: bat for sonar and flight, horse for power and pace, and rodent of any kind as breeding stock. The brethren forget their old lives and adopt names that fit their new shape, like 'Snarler' for a lionlike one.

Unlike ordinary broken ones, this group has innate shields against psionic intrusion, and many have a random wild talent; alternatively, give one a random wizard spell usable as a natural mental ability. Those who never gain these defenses tend to die under the stress of bondage. Given the chance, they ambush a lone reaver and kill it, whether more for vengeance or for supper no one can say.

The brethren are the lucky handful who slipped their masters' mental grip in a barren land ruled by mind reavers and fled into the fissures webbing the rock around the reaver complex. Around thirty live in one mountain's cracks, the count shifting as more escape and others die. Bound only by the will to survive and shared hatred, they pool their skills to steal and scavenge from the reavers, and they help the reavers' enemies when they can while staying fearful of all strangers.

Each keeps its original languages, but together they speak a private jargon blending all their tongues with new words for their closed world, which no outside linguist can follow.

Diet follows each one's animal half. With few vegetables in the caves, carnivores fare best and are most numerous. They eat whatever they can steal, and a captured reaver is a rare delicacy.