Chaos beast

A chaos beast was a horrible and ever-changing creature of the planes. Its lethal touch could transform a victim into an amorphous mass, and ultimately a chaos beast themselves.

Description
A chaos beast had no fixed, original, or true form whatsoever. Instead, it was entirely mutable and always changing, melting, and reshaping itself into new and nightmarish forms. There was no way to predict it and it might try a dozen before adopting one for a time. Some recorded appearances were:
 * A towering thing of pulpy flesh and exposed veins, covered in fangs and hooks. It had three legs upon which it walked with unsteady and lurching steps. Its face was fractured, with bent eyes and nose hooked three times. Agonized by this shape, it roared with pain and rage.
 * A filmy mass of rope-like tentacles with vermilion tips that slithered along. It had a bulbous body ringed by gnashing mouths and topped by a viscous sac holding ten bobbing eyes. It had dozens of vestigial wings that flapped too feebly to give it flight.
 * A powerful and muscular beast, armed with claws and alligator jaws. It charged and attacked furiously.

It could be any or all of these, or something else entirely. While its height, length, and breadth might change, a chaos beast generally had a mass of around and a height of between  and.
 * A graceful six-legged creature with delicate arms and shining skin. It had a maned head with three flashing eyes. It walked with a smooth gait and noble bearing.
 * A man-sized creature with stumpy feet it could only shuffle on and hands like crab's claws. Its body was like dough falling from broken bones. Its head was balding and pitted with empty eye sockets. It whimpered pathetically.
 * A slender raptor-like creature with large talons underneath its body and broad wings, all covered with dark fur. It had two hateful coldly gleaming eyes and moved quickly and quietly except to shrill when it attacked.
 * A sac of intestines, warm and wet and steaming and both deaf and blind. To move, it rolled and flopped like limp sausages falling down stairs, becoming looped and draped around all obstacles and lying as a tangled sprawl.
 * A hollowed-out carcass, swelling with gases into a balloon-like husk, bobbing along with the ends of its body trailing about it and tangling others.
 * A plump moth with brilliantly colored wings like the stained glass of temples and compound eyes that sparkled like a myriad of jewels.
 * The person one least suspected.

Combat
A chaos beast attacked with whatever suitable body part it had at the time, such as claws or pincers, tentacles, fangs, or spines. However, as disturbing and adaptable as this might be, it was not physically very dangerous, being relatively weak and unable to fight with more than two at a time, as its constant changes meant it lacked sufficient coordination, or else it wasn't smart enough to make best use of its shapes. Its blows were feeble, whatever size or shape the attacking appendage took. However, its strike alone was chaotic and deadly.

Abilities
Whatever its body part, a hit from a chaos beast against a living creature inflicted a hideous transformation. Those who could not resist suffered a corporeal instability, reducing them to an amorphous and spongy mass. Their body melted, ultimately becoming a goo that flowed, writhed, and boiled. This was incredibly debilitating: feet and legs became misshapen and weak, slowing their speed; all worn items became useless and even restrictive, hindering agility. The twisted nerves caused agonizing pain, preventing the victim acting sensibly: unable to recognize allies and enemies, they attacked blindly and clumsily, and they were incapable of using magic. The shock and trauma deteriorated their mental capacity, increasingly and permanently. A victim driven completely out of their mind became a chaos beast themselves.

With effort and confidence, a victim could reassume their original form, and keep trying until they did, but only for a minute. This corporeal instability was neither a curse nor a disease, but something, and hence it was difficult to get rid of. Their form could be fixed by shapechange and stoneskin spells, but only for their duration. Spells like heal, restoration, and greater restoration were needed to lift the instability and restore the body, but another was needed to restore the mind.

Forever changing its form, no magic made by mortals could trap a chaos beast in a single form or force it into another. A polymorph spell or even petrification effects forced a chaos beast into a new shape, but several seconds later, it could turn back or take another at ease. It was resistant to spells in general, and its inconsistent anatomy made it hard to seriously injure.

Personality
Though they might have many mouths, they did not say anything.

Society
Chaos beasts were encountered alone.

Origins
Chaos beasts were found in the Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, along the River Styx, at the Supreme Throne of Cyric, and in the wilderness of Set's realm of Ankhwugaht in Heliopolis.

Significance
Chaos beasts were favored monsters of the elven god Erevan Ilesere, who was called the Ever-shifting Shapechanger. They were known to serve him.

History
Chaos beasts and cloakers were noted to emerge from the caverns of Taerymdoom beneath the southeastern Far Forest in the Savage Frontier by 1372 DR.

Notable Chaos Beasts

 * The Xaos, a chaos beast of twice the normal size in service to Telkoun Adranther at Telkoun's Tower around 1372 DR.
 * The Brethren, a score of chaos beasts in the Forbidden Chambers of Aldinach's Egg in the Abyss, to whom guests who outstayed their welcome were fed.