[Unnamed] Monster [Level] 1 [Health] 1000/1000 [Mana] 55/55 [Stamina] 100/100 [XP] 0/10,000 to level 2 [Evolution]

Demonic Larva

[Primary Statistics] [Physical]: [Physique]

20 (= 20 + 0 + 0)

[Reflexes]

20 (= 20 + 0 + 0)

[Hardiness]

20 (= 20 + 0 + 0)

[Mental]: [Acuity]

11 (= 11 + 0 + 0)

[Force]

11 (= 10 + 0 + 0)

[Stability]

11 (= 11 + 0 + 0)

[Secondary Statistics]:

Monstrous characters always started with the same base evolution, the Demonic Larva. To make up for the total lack of gear save for accessories, they had far higher base statistics than humanoid characters.

This was the weakest evolution and it would gain 33 primary statistics per level, though there was no way to customize the distribution outside of selecting different evolutions, which could have both higher overall values and different arrays.

It was even possible for full evolutions to lower the growth per level of a statistic. This was because each evolution would totally recalculate a monstrous character's base statistics using these new values; it wasn't like sub-classes which took whatever stat array the main class had and added onto it.

There were three [Skills] Demonic Larvae had, and thus all monstrous characters had. The first was the passive [Skill] Everflowing Lifeblood, which changed the health and mana regeneration of monstrous characters from 1% per hour and minute respectively, to 1% per second, the same as stamina, and would allow them to continue regenerating in combat!

Monstrous characters could not use some consumables, including potions, so this made up for it. This meant at level 1, a monstrous character would regenerate 10 health and 0.5 mana per second, even in combat. It wouldn't be enough to prevent death against powerful foes, but meant monstrous characters could hold their own against an equally leveled enemy and then quickly recover before the next combat.

However, the [Skill] was not perfect, as any given evolution would, at all times, have an element that would turn off its regeneration for five seconds if damaged by it. The element could not be chosen, and could be any element except Toxic or Arcane. For Demonic Larvae, the regeneration would be turned off if they took damage from the Wood element.

In large scale PvP content, it was common to see blankets of DoTs and AoEs of all the elements against monstrous characters for this reason.

The second [Skill] was Stinking Cloud, it would cause the monstrous character to release pheromones that would draw the ire of other monsters. In effect, this meant that against anything that wasn't a humanoid, whether player or npc, monstrous characters could act as passable tanks, using the skill as a taunt, though only if their current evolution had the statistics to tank.

This was mostly useful against monsters one would encounter in the wild, rather than other monstrous characters. Tanking skills to draw aggro worked slightly differently against other players. It wasn't some mind control that would force enemy players to target you. Instead, it would incentive targeting through a ‘taunted’ debuff. This debuff was expressed as a percentage anywhere from 1% to 99.9%, and a player could have multiple taunted debuffs on them, with each source of it acting as a different debuff.

If a player with this debuff targeted anything other than the source of the debuff, any damage they dealt would be reduced by the % in the debuff, meaning their damage could be reduced up to 0.1% of their regular damage!

If they received it from multiple sources and targeted one of those sources, the highest taunt percentage other than the target's would be used for the reduction, but the reduction would be reduced by the target's debuff percentage. This meant applying the debuff to a player from multiple sources was not a useful tactic unless a tank was low health, as it would only expand the number of targets the taunted player could realistically choose from.

If a player did not care about the damage they were dealing, for example a healer or debuffer, taunting them did effectively nothing.

The debuff would also decay over time, so running away from the enemy tanks to re-engage later was a valid tactic, as was any source of decaying debuffs quicker, or obtaining higher debuff resistance than the enemy's debuff strength.

In essence, while taunting other players looked good on paper, in practice it had many counters.

Stinking Cloud would target a small AoE around the monstrous character with an instant cast time, applying 10% taunt each time it was used, and could be used without interrupting regular attacks. It was costed twenty five mana, meaning it could be used twice in a row at level one, and would increase in cost at the rate of 2 mana per level, so using it twice was the maximum limit unless evolving for better acuity gain, a better mana rank, or some [Skill] that would reduce the mana cost. Alternatively, one could equip an acuity or mana granting accessory, but given that it could not be easily unequipped, this was a bad idea unless you knew exactly what you were doing.

At the very least, the accessories that monstrous characters could equip would ignore their regular scaling and always scale to their level. The game was mean to monstrous characters, but not so mean that merely leveling would cause them to be ruined.

Since monstrous characters could not equip weapons, they would have one or more natural attacks that were not [Skills]. A monstrous character could use all melee natural weapons simultaneously, or a single ranged natural weapon, but not both at the same time. Every evolution would always have at least one of each, though many had multiple.

As the starter evolution, Demonic Larvae only had one of each. Their melee attack was a bite and it dealt [A] physique melee damage on a 1.5 second cooldown, so 100 damage every 1.5 seconds. Their ranged attack was an acid spit, it was short ranged but would apply a DoT dealing [E] physique Toxic damage every second, or 20, for five seconds, and could stack multiple times, though the attack had a 2.5 second cooldown.

It was not a large amount dps, and would only drop off in comparison to humanoid characters the more the humanoids improved their gear.

This was where the third and final [Skill] Demonic Larvae received was useful. It was another passive [Skill], Building Rage. Every second a monstrous character spent in combat would increase the damage they dealt from all sources by 1%, to a maximum of 100%, double damage, and would reset to 0% if they left combat, if they killed an enemy, or if they spent five seconds without doing damage. Because of this [Skill], properly chaining together combats such that one would reduce an enemy to a low of a health as possible before attacking a new one, then quickly killing both, was a common and essential tactic for monstrous characters.

When monstrous characters worked together, most would avoid killing blows because of it, leaving it to a designated killer. It was also a [Skill] that synergized well with Dark Weavers, and part of the reason Chan Si wanted them to work together even when the group was split.

In any case, before evolving to gain more [Skills], monstrous characters were not particularly complicated to play or build compared to humanoid characters. They would not gain any [Skills] on level up like humanoids, though each full evolution could add anywhere from three to nine new [Skills], plus any [Skills] from mini evolutions, so it could eventually get out of hand.

Evolutions were not limited to taking place at a specific level the way subclasses could only be taken every 100 levels. If Chan Si wanted, she could have her monstrous character complete a few simple tasks and immediately qualify for a Common full evolution at level 1, though many specific evolutions did have their own individual level requirements that would be much higher.

However, all monstrous characters were limited to nine full evolutions total past their base form of Demonic Larva. Furthermore, although evolutions could be split into the same rarities as subclasses, a monstrous character was not limited to one legendary evolution the same way humanoids were limited to one legendary subclass, nor were legendary evolutions limited to one each between players.

Chan Si wanted all nine of her monstrous character's evolutions to be Legendary if possible, though she would not hesitate to pick a lower rarity evolution if it better fit her game-breaking goals.

Every time one evolved, one would get a list of the next potential full evolutions. However, any detailed information on these evolutions would be hidden until one met all the requirements to be able to select it. Of course, for the evolutions that other players had already managed to meet the requirements for, their information was freely available on the internet.

For Demonic Larvae, they had 10 potential full evolutions. 2 Legendary, 2 Rare, 3 Uncommon, and 3 Common. All three uncommon and common evolutions were known, whereas only one rare and one legendary were known. For the rare that had yet to be achieved, it was because it required completing a Campaign that was too difficult even for the super guilds.

Campaigns had the properties of both dungeons and quest chains, being instanced complex story lines with lots of events that would take a while to complete, but offer good rewards, and always scale in difficulty with the highest level of player in the party that challenged it. Chan Si planned to complete this Campaign to observe the evolution's properties, though her party would need to be at least level 80 across the board to meet the minimum level requirement to enter it.

As for the legendary evolution, all its known requirements had long ago been fulfilled by the super guilds, but the trouble was it had an unknown requirement.

There was a large element of luck as to whether Chan Si could manage to unlock the last legendary evolution, as it was not something the combined attempts of all other monstrous players - even those in super guilds - had yet managed. However, through the power of the internet and speed reading, Chan Si had memorized multiple lists of failed attempts to unlock the evolution, so at the very least she would not be repeating the mistakes of others. Not all of this was public information, but how could anyone but the AI keep the hacker known as Chan Si away from their private documents?

Sadly most information for the guilds - such as information on their legendary items, secret quests, or current trading strategies - were kept in game using built in documentation for guilds, since it was more secure, off limits to even Chan Si. Only girthy spreadsheets and pointless powerpoints were hosted outside of it.

In any case, Chan Si could potentially put together enough information to eventually deduce the requirements of the last legendary evolution. Her other primary source of information for doing so was the lore, which could lead her towards the action she needed to perform. Any lore related to monsters, especially legendary monsters, could come in handy. Even seemingly unrelated lore might lead to other lore that was relevant. Although Chan Si would continue skipping quest information for quests she already knew about from the wiki, if she ever encountered a quest she hadn't already read about, she would listen carefully.

Finally, there was a chance that the requirement would be related to a currently secret quest, which was more frequently a requirement for legendary subclasses than evolutions, but it could be the case.

Since Chan Si's goal was to break the game and the monstrous character was essential towards this, she would be willing to wait as late as level 400 for information on the last legendary evolution for the initial choice set. She would not wait past this and simply make the best decision possible from among her other choices, instead. Any later would mean too much efficiency loss as she continued toting around a useless party member, especially because of the difficulty spikes around that level.

The Monster Queen's nest was a huge multi-layered pit, practically ravine, filled with giant eggs around the size of a van. Every time a monstrous character joined the game for the first time, they would either pop out of an already opened egg, or a new egg would burst open and they would come crawling out along with various level 1 Demonic Larva npcs. Chan Si got to experience the latter.

It was slightly gross.

She adapted quickly to the half-crawling, half-inching body. Many players would experience too much weirdness with a non-humanoid body, being unable to adapt for some time even with the system's assistance, but it was trivial to the brilliant Chan Si.

Monstrous characters would have a randomly assigned color pattern that would carry through all evolutions with them. Chan Si's was dark purple with swirls of silver and flecks of gold, it gave the larva a very commanding appearance.

It would be a little bit before Pickapart would arrive, but Chan Si still had something to do. There was an important quest she needed her Monstrous Character to complete. To ensure Monstrous Characters would not be totally without any customization early, the starting area for them contained a quest for a ‘mini evolution’ which would give a bonus to the growth rate of one of the three mental statistics for as long as one remained a larva, plus an associated [Skill] that would stick around.

Ideally Chan Si would hold off on this selection until she knew what her first full evolution would be, but monstrous characters had to do this quest to leave the nest and Chan Si was not aware of any method to smuggle them out, nor was she willing to spend a lot of time trying for such a minor benefit.

At least this would count as the ‘first evolution’ that would allow her monstrous character to become named, though not count against the 9 evolution maximum since she would still be a larva.

There were no quest-giving npcs in the area, but the quest was already in her log. The requirement was simple, she would only need to kill ten of the level one larva npcs. They were extremely weak and the combat was not worth mentioning, though the kills did net the monstrous character 500 experience.

The three were all active [Skills]. They were Death's End for Acuity, Life's End for Force, and Hope's End for Stability.

Death's End would instantly heal the monstrous character by 10% of their maximum health and did not cost anything, but had a cooldown of sixty seconds. It paired nicely with the extra mana to activate more instances of the taunt.

Life's End was a melee spell that would deal one hundred damage with a Force multiplier of [SS], and if it killed an enemy it would not reset the monstrous character's Building Rage, costing fifty mana with a two second cast time, a very solid finisher option.

Hope's End was both an enemy debuff and self-buff, it would reduce the target's critical chance by 10% to a minimum of 0%, and increased the monstrous character's own critical chance by 10%. It required only 0.5 seconds to cast and lasted for seven seconds, and used stamina instead of mana, eighty of it.

Most would select Death's End, with some selecting Life's End. Hope's End was not considered very good because of monstrous characters' lack of regular gear, meaning that putting together a good critical build was much tougher.

While Death's End and Life's End were both useful tools, only Hope's End had game-breaking potential. Critical chance could, with enough sources, reach above 100%, with the leftover chance being the chance of a super-critical, applying the critical multiplier a second time. With a proper Reflex and Stability focus long term, absurdly large numbers would be possible for her monstrous character, which could allow access to certain bugs.

Some sources of pure critical chance bonus only applied to damage abilities and not healing ones, making even 50%, let alone over 100%, too difficult to reach for healers, else Chan Si would have tried this build on Sunshine.

Of course, this critical build could also turn out to be useless. If that was the case, Chan Si would only be missing out some efficiency, not anything critical.

Her monstrous character's per-level Stability immediately jumped to 10, and the option popped up to name the character.

Chan Si considered, then decided.

They would be named...