Sickening, wrong, twisted and vile are the viewpoints of any modern culture to the ways of the Pale. It is why we hate them, and they hate us. Yet, they are what we could so easily become. For they are the result of us driving our own into the Labyrinth and allowing them to fall in a twisted, vile mess of hatred and darkness. In a way, we created our own worst nightmare. I say with confidence that I both fear, and pity them.
— Archmage Zeldric Romun

Anatomy

Though clearly humanoid, Pale are far from their original human ancestry. Twisted, vile and corrupted they have evolved into monstrous, cursed beings feared by every other race in the world. Generally hunched over akin to an ape, Pale have long limbs, a short torso, with pale semi-translucent skin, a widened jaw with elongated teeth and long black retractable claws and a smooth skull lacking any eye sockets. Their noses tend to split and flare out, akin to a bat’s.

Diets

The Pale will, quite literally eat anything that they can. The purest form of omnivores, with a digestive system that has been specifically mutated and evolved to devour anything possible to gain some degree of nutrition. They have even been seen consuming dirt and other minerals in order to intake some form of sustenance when a hive is starving. They will eat their own dead, but never touch those that are alive, nor in-fight over food due to their hive mind. Food always going to those that are in the direst need first, and generally the young.

Growth & Stages

Adolescent

After their birth in a large litter from a Broodmother (see reproduction), the Pale are humanoid. Taking on their namesake with deathly pale, near-transparent skin over a lithe, muscular physical form that holds a largely androgynous shape, leaning slightly toward a masculine shape. Upon birth, they are only roughly the size of a human toddler, but will rapidly begin growing to their full size within a few weeks. Reaching the size of a short human, usually being around five feet in height with slight deviations depending on their hive, and Broodmother's original species.

During this stage of their life, the Pale hold long claws and fangs accompanying their molars marking them as clear omnivores. Lacking any form of a tongue, and instead an empty mouth with a powerful constricting throat lined with thick rounded stone-like structures of calcified tissue to grind and rip whatever they ingest. They completely lack any form of eyes and instead hold large slits that start above their upper lip leading toward the location the base of where the eyes would normally be. Two large ears extend from the sides of the skull, emphasizing their complete lack of anybody's hair and other facial features.

Mature

After a Pale has reached its full size, more minute changes begin happening to its body. Generally at the age of around six months, the Pale stands at just over five feet as their bodies begin to finish development. Their musculature thickens, and genitals begin to grow where originally there were none aside for organs used to relieve waste. Claws thicken, and extra incisors grow from the jaw. The most notable change however is the growths that spread from the nostrils of the Pale.

Flesh and cartilage begin to form from the nostrils and spread across the head and ears. Fusing the ears to the skull and causing the growths to expand out similar in pattern to that of a flower with its center remaining at the nostrils. This exists to amplify the Pale's sense of hearing, causing more sound to bounce into these growths and channel them into their ear canals. Near the end of this stage of their life cycle, the Pale's growths begin to spread to the rest of their body. Thickening skin, and adding extra layers of it to key areas of their anatomy.

Bulls

Should a Pale live longer than a year, an incredibly rare achievement due to their life cycles and instincts, they will eventually reach the point of becoming what most scholars name as 'Bulls'. These Pale's growths have spread across their entire bodies and begun to calcify. Forming powerful bone and leather-like skin protecting the head, limbs, and torso even stronger than most steel. These growths seem to mutate and adapt based on the individual Pale's life thus far, old wounds where scars were becoming more heavily mutated and plated with the calcified flesh.

As if to compensate for their increased weight and protection, these Pale are built with incredibly dense muscle. Making them far stronger than even their mature siblings, capable of tossing aside horses with one hand despite their small height. They also have a tendency to charge head-first into their prey, using their large mutated and heavily-plated heads as battering rams, thus earning them their nickname as 'Bulls'. It's worth noting that due to their heavy calcification and flesh, it appears that at this point in their life cycle, Pale can no longer mate due to their own armor blocking their genitals from use.

Flesh

Though it is incredibly rare, should a Pale live throughout its entire ten-year lifecycle, eventually, its own calcified flesh becomes too much weight for its body to bear. When it reaches this point, the creature knows its death is impending and begins to tear at its own flesh. Ripping off chunks of its armor. Other Pale will notice this, and instantly leap forward and begin to assist the Bull in causing its own end. However, instead of the creature simply dying and being eaten by its kin like normal, the Bull has reached such a level of raw corruption and life force that instead the mutations continue even after death.

The sundered tissue and calcified flesh begin to re-connect, spreading across the area of its death and coating the ground, walls and ceiling in pulsing living tissue. This creates the "Flesh" of the hive and slowly coats the entire hive. Though it is no longer truly sentient, it still retains its neurological responses, capable of sensing movement on its surface. If the movement stems from a creature that is also connected to the Hivemind, then the flesh pushes the creatures along. Increasing their speed automatically and offering them grips to climb its sides, and so forth.

The mass itself assists the hive. However, if it detects movement on its surface that isn't connected to the hive, it does the opposite. Becoming slick, grasping at the flesh that makes contact with it to slow, trip and hinder. It will also send a vague alert to the hivemind of 'intruders', so that the hive can come and devour the prey and defend the hive.

Mother

A separate state of creation entirely, a "Mother" Hive, or Brood is the vile result of the Pale breeding with a female of another species before corrupting and mutating them into one of their own. They are twisted creations that hold the same semi-transparent skin of the Pale, lacking eyes but also lacking the mutated, calcified flesh that they eventually grow. In return, they hold the same genetic traits as their original species with the addition of their lower bodies having been completely mutated into a massive incubation chamber. This extends several times their main body's length backward and is several times their body's width in girth.

Armor-plated and rippling with muscle, the incubation chamber is what gives birth to a litter and protects the young due to the heavily mutated and calcified flesh. If the mother moves, it is drug along behind it harmlessly. In order to do this, however, the Mother's arms have grown out long, thin, and yet muscular. The fingers have extended to be several times longer than normal as well for powerful four-fingered grasping limbs ending in deadly claws. The legs have mutated completely, becoming massive tree-trunk-like digitigrade limbs.

Their toes have compressed into massive trunks to support the weight of the chamber and drag it without slowing its movement substantially. Instead of talons, these claws are blunt and thick to assist in the grip and support of the large limbs covered in the same thick calcification, along with its back to bond into the "tail" that is, effectively, the creature's womb.

Abilities

Pale are innately powerful enemies that hold significant physical power due to being corrupted. Even a newborn drone is fully capable of contending with an armed guard, despite their small size being as physically powerful enough that two fully grown athletic men would be required to even attempt grappling a newborn Pale. They are fast, strong, and hold the innate regeneration all corrupted creatures obtain. Atop this they hold several other benefits.

Hive Mind

The Pale’s greatest asset, the Hive Mind. This causes any Pale within at least a kilometer of another Pale to be connected to it and to be connected to any Broodmother within at least five hundred kilometers. A Hivemother, as rare as they may be, is able to sustain this signal up to thousands of kilometers and it is unknown exactly what their limit truly is. This allows the Pale to exchange information near-instantly amongst themselves including their echolocation-based “maps”, scents, sounds, and even memories or skills.

Clickers

The reason Pale are colloquially referred to as “Clickers”, is their incredible sense of hearing and smell. Pale utilize echolocation by producing a clicking sound from their throats that can extend outward for hundreds of meters before returning the information back in a sort of blurred map. Combining this with the hive allows the pack to share a constantly updated visual of a vast area around them. Atop this, they hold a sense of smell comparable to well-trained hunting hounds, they are especially sensitive to the scents of humanoid females.

Forced Mutation

Pale have evolved the ability to acquire their knowledge, growth, technology, and even their abilities through the breeding of other races. However, all Pale are able to obtain fragments of memory and knowledge from their prey by eating their brains. This knowledge is then spread through the entire hive mind to all other pale, and the mother connected to them. In this way, the more they eat, the more their knowledge and skills grow. Though they cannot unlock abilities normally restricted to certain species such as magic in this way.

Venomous

Pale have an advanced neurotoxic venom that when injected through their bite, or claws, will cause the body to go numb and limp the further it spreads. Should a significant enough dose be administered, it will render the creature brain dead. This venom also accelerates the process of the taint spreading through the body.

Weaknesses

Atop all the normal weaknesses of corrupted creatures such as a weakness to mithrium, silver, sunlight and high temperatures, Pale have additional weaknesses. Primarily that their heightened senses can be easily used against them. Loud noises not only cause serious damage to Pale, but also deafens them effectively “blinding” them. Potent scents can similarly be used to cause irritation and confusion, and “pepper bombs” are common household solutions to distract a Pale long enough to finish it with proper weaponry.