Essence of theMob Critters

By consuming the flat, sugary and overly rich-tasting beverage, you gain the power to summon swarms of minions from another world.

• By default Mob Critters are loyal and devoted imp-like little homunculi servitors with alien savant-like intelligence and poor impulse control. When you first summon them however, you are able to determine their general appearances and variations, though still small in size, along with the aesthetics of their abilities, the manner in which they appear, how many and how often you can summon them and if and how they can naturally reproduce without summoning. The higher the rate and number of Mob Critters you can personally summon the less effective their means of independent reproduction, however, and vice a versa. Methods of reproducing can vary significantly, whether through the innate ability to build gestation chambers, slaying enemies, starting bonfires or merely normal breeding. You can give them multiple ways of reproducing, but it will stretch the effectiveness between them. Additionally, by default Mob Critters do not have physical needs, do not age and their self-repair mechanism is perfect, however by limiting this mechanism and thus giving them a lifespan you can boost both their reproduction abilities as well as your own personal summoning. Naturally the shorter their lifespans the greater the boost. This lifespan works through wear and tear of their bodies as they live, and can be slowed or stopped through sufficiently effective and precise means of rejuvenation.

• Mob Critters bear simplified biology with minimal layers of complexity, though increasingly bizarre and unnatural when examined in detail, and seemingly not formed of normal matter or tissues. This makes them immune to mundane diseases and sicknesses and harder to kill if only because they have no weak points or real organs. Furthermore, despite their size they possess the raw physical ability of an average human adult at minimum, and can grow more capable with experience and age, to a natural limit at a stage slightly beyond human potential. Mentally, though born knowing nothing, they have incredible subconscious intelligence, intelligence of which they utilize only the tip of the proverbial iceberg consciously. This intelligence typically allows them to learn at absurd speeds through a combination of laser-focused observation, osmosis and exotic cognitive processes. Through this they can learn basic physical skills in hours, and entire languages in a day or two, though even before fully learning a language they can observe body-language and tone to intuit intentions. They could catch up with the modern scientific understanding of the Earth, comprehensively, in a matter of weeks or months. However the benefits of their intelligence taper off when they reach the limits of existing knowledge, though their curiosity, creativity and alien minds allow them to continue to innovate and in often unexpected ways.

• Mob Critters bear an alien mind that is nigh impossible to puzzle out and resides partially outside of your reality, with cognitive processes seemingly leaping to conclusions just before they actually receive the information that informed it or perhaps working in reverse. Though these leaps and cognitive behaviors occur so shortly before they would have occurred naturally that it only benefits their reflexes to a small degree, instead this primarily serves to make it nigh impossible to predict, read or control their minds and yours by association. Through a similar mental quirk, they are able to recognize the true you, no matter how well others may attempt to impersonate or even outright clone you down to the metaphysics. Their mentality itself is primarily amoral and lacking common sense, and their personalities are initially very malleable blank slates until they grow into themselves or are nudged by you, though common traits remain such as their impulsiveness, curiosity and affinity for chaos and conflict. Reining in early Mob Critters through your own orders or the command of a wiser and older Critter is a necessity to avoid them starting fights, vandalizing the property of others, building bombs or setting things on fire.

• Mob Critters possess the ability to draw on a supernatural energy, Mayhem, from acts of destruction, chaos or conflict, varying from and anywhere between triggering the eruption a super volcano, massively changing the face of a society, entering into fights or merely insulting someone. Naturally, greater acts generate greater power. Just as you determine the specifics of their nature and abilities when you first summon them, you also get the opportunity to tune their Mayhem Focus when they first draw on it. A Mayhem Focus is a means through which they can actually use this energy, though this can be broad enough to simulate an entire magic system it would suffer in power compared to more specialized Focuses. An example of Focuses would be Escalation, allowing them to grow increasingly directly capable the more Mayhem they flood through their bodies, with lesser benefits to their gear and structures. Another, Destruction, that enables them to generate destructive spell-like attacks such as fireballs, beams and lightning fueled by Mayhem. A third, Totem, allowing them to instead channel and invest collected Mayhem into structures to grant them simple benefits to their purposes or boons that the structure grants to nearby Mob Critters. As your Mob Critters collectively grow and develop their Mayhem Focus the power and versatility of the Focus can be improved and expanded, even as far as developing additional new Focuses.

• Finally, you can at any time permanently set the Caste of your Mob Critters. Castes specialize the abilities of all your Mob Critters towards a certain kind of purpose, empowering them in the process, and granting them illogical means and ways of performing them from their world. As examples, Construction, Battle, Research, Harvest. To build on those examples, a Construction Caste would have greater dexterity and strength, the ability to rapidly refine and process materials with the minimal possible effort and optimize the way they apply their strength in relation to construction. They would be able to pool their work such that every step of the construction acts as if all involved workers had exclusively worked on it together under ideal conditions, and these structures would act as if the best Mob Cr.