CLASS: BIOCONSTRUCT "You're no whalefall, but you do look cozy..."BIOLOGY: The Hagonizer is a hybrid of hominid and myxinid physiology, with a collapsible, cartilaginous skeletal structure and soft, elastic flesh allowing it to ooze through openings no wider than one of its tiny, rubbery vertebrae. Its greatest asset is its ability to instantaneously secrete copious amounts of extremely slick, elastic, and persistent slime, lubricating the monster as it slips in and out of a corpse or suffocating the airways of an attacker. Reinforced by incredibly resilient protein strands, the substance is slick, elastic and extremely difficult to remove completely from an organic surface. A Hagonizer is always on the prowl for sustenance, its tubular nostrils endlessly waving and snuffling in search of putrescence, and if threatened or sufficiently hungry, it may seek living prey, employing its slime to clog the victim's airways until death or squeezing inside even as they still gasp for air. Once nestled in a body, the creature is free to rasp at flesh with its hidden, tooth-coated oral plate, and absorbs additional nutrients directly through its porous skin. BEHAVIOR: Hagonizer prefer to lurk in dark, wet environments with a high volume of rotting flesh, and while their appetites are ravenous, they are comforted enough by the presence of their own kind to share territory and divide meals evenly. Large mobs of the creatures have even been known to wander far inland and dig community slime pools, visually indistinguishable from bodies of muddy, stagnant water. Creatures approaching these false lakes and ponds may perish on their own when they attempt to drink the glutinous sludge, but the greedy Hagonizer will typically drag them under and begin to feed long before asphyxiation sets in. APPLIANCE: Hagonizer were originally employed by vampires for both security and waste disposal, a communal cesspit often doubling as the entryway to their master's true lair. To this day, their presence is tolerated in coastal garbage dumps, fisheries and the lower levels of meat processing plants, reducing the smell of decay before it attracts more destructive, less cooperative monsters. Underwater, a Hagonizer's slime almost explosively balloons into a gelatinous cloud several yards in diameter, quickly enveloping an adversary and gumming up gills or breathing equipment. Effective navigation through the clinging ooze is difficult for creatures not accustomed to a glutinous environment, giving the Hagonizer a significant locomotive edge. The monster's slime functions quite differently on land, remaining thick, dense and rubbery. A favorite tactic of the creature is to clutch at an adversary's face and leave their head entombed in a thick globule, or dangle ropes of slime from its fingers and fling them with a whip-like crack of its arm. Secreting a few inches of slime over its entire surface, the Hagonizer becomes not only far more difficult to wrangle but impervious to many environmental hazards, including open flame, contact poisons, stinging insects, electrical shock and corrosives. SUFFOCATING OOZE: A Hagonizer's slime easily clogs orifices and asphyxiates prey. SLIME ARMOR: Coated in its own slime, a Hagonizer is protected from many common damage types. ELASTIC LIMBS: A Hagonizer's arms and body can stretch several times their relaxed length. BODILY INVASION: The Hagonizer can slither its limbs, head or even entire body into the orifice of another creature. DENTAL PLATE: The monster possesses hundreds of minute, serrated teeth coating a tongue-like plate of cartilage, capable of shaving rapidly through flesh and creating new openings to attack. ELECTROSENSE: Hagonizer are able to feel the electromagnetic fields of living things, making them almost impossible to hide from or surprise.   Contents copyright Jonathan Wojcik
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