Dousunds

Dousunds

Race Bonus: N/A

Ability: Terminal Transformation


Appearance
Dousunds look entirely like commonfolk until they take a fatal hit or otherwise reach a point near death. After this, they transform into horrifying creatures with sharp teeth, long claws, pitch-black eyes, digitigrade feet, large but thin, bony bodies, pale skin, and curled, antler-like horns. They also smell faintly of death and decay in this creature form. If they start to die slowly, such as dying of starvation, then their transformation will also happen slowly; They will slowly become more pale, their teeth will become longer and sharper, they will grow horns, and so on until they've fully completed the transformation. Each day they grow closer to death their transformation will pick up speed. If the dousund does something to become healthy again, such as eating something if they were starving, then the transformation will reverse and they'll return to looking like a commonfolk.


History & Culture
Highly unique humanoids, dousunds are believed to have been originally created by Niskia as both a favor and a curse to some of her followers that betrayed her and then begged for her forgiveness when she came for their souls. When they come close to dying they transform and lose control of themselves. In their creature form, they mindlessly and relentlessly seek to consume the flesh of the living, which will rapidly heal their wounds. Once fully healed, they will return to their commonfolk form with no memory of anything that happened during their time as the creature. Because of this, they are often feared, loathed, and highly discriminated against. There have been many times in the past where the other humanoid races have tried to completely eradicate all of them. To protect themselves, the dousunds have become highly cautious and regularly pretend to be nothing more than normal commonfolk. To this day they are incredibly rare to come across, and even if you happen to bump into one, you may never even know.