Beast Core Categories

Everything in the DungeonVerse revolves around essence, its flow, and its continual condensing and purification. As this process improves, the things built of essence improve. Sentient beings become stronger, their powers more capable and defined, and their exploits ever more legendary. As essence increases in dungeons, they too grow larger, more complicated, more complex, and ever more potent. This increases the net amount of essence in the DungeonVerse, a direct affront to the laws of thermodynamics and laws of entropy. This applies to animals as well, and the following seven entries will detail the explosive growth that can occur as an animal rapidly gains essence.

1. Base Animal

Look, there's a perfectly normal snake. 

2. Advanced Animal

Holy hell, that's a big snake!

3. Lesser Monster

The snake has gained greater awareness of its surroundings and has gained its first innate monstrous ability. In this case, our snake has gained the power of Glare, which allows it to literally paralyze its prey with its reptilian gaze, and this works on low-level sentient beings as well. Congratulations, our common snake has become an Ekans. 

4. Greater Monster

Eventually an animal will consume enough essence and essence patterns that it will reach the next level of growth. While animals cannot deliberately improve their essence cultivation, as they consume more complex essence patterns, they absorb it into their own patterns. This is how monster energy accumulates and improves itself. The Greater Monster has more than one innate ability. Building on our serpent, it has fleshed itself out with three more powers.

Beastly Bite - it can inflict damage with its teeth and jaws, a crippling bite attack. This is no snake strike, its closer to a dinosaurian chomp than a surgical poison strike.

Cause Fear - by flaring its new brightly colored hood, the serpent can send animals and weak-willed foes screaming and running. The serpent uses this as a defensive ability against groups trying to slay it. Scattered, they are much easier prey for its paralyzing stare, hideous bite, and natural poison attack.

Dragon's Tail - this is a rotational bodyslam from the now human/medium creature sized serpent. It has a high chance to stagger or knock a foe prone.

5. Boss Monster

The Boss Monster is the upper limit of how strong a creature can be and still remain in the realm of normal mortality. It has gone up a size category, all of its stats have increased, and its physical appearance has changed dramatically, but not profoundly. While an enormous serpent, it is still recognizable to its origin form. Our serpent is now the size of a large anaconda, but much thicker and stronger. It has attained a level of awareness and intelligence that allows it to control lesser versions of itself, it can set traps, avoid ambushes, and generally function at a human level of intelligence. The serpent has a more aggressive scale pattern on its head, more pronounced teeth, and its overall scaling has become more dominant and striking in its color.

Beastly Bite, Improver - deals more damage, and  has a high chance of crippling a limb

Greater Cause Fear - as the original ability but the threshold to resist the effect increased from level 4 to level 7

Dragon's Outrage - this is a flailing bodyslam bumrush attack from the serpent that has a very high chance of staggering a foe, knocking multiple foes prone, and disrupting spellcasting, and given its wildly thrashing movements, it is more difficult to hit in melee or ranged combat.

Venom Shock - the serpent can now use its poison as a ranged attack, and the poison is increased one tier in potency

6. Beast God

At this point, the creature is classified as a Beast, which is a completely new level. Its essence cultivation has reached the point that it internally generates more essence than it requires to live and no longer has to eat prey, breathe, or even sleep. It has become immune to aging, disease, and will have high resistances to elemental damage, complete immunity to its own aspects, and armor and health such that it cannot be harmed by mundane weapons or even low level magic. Our serpent is now a serpent beast god

The Serpent Beast God has improved to Divine Beast Bite, dealing hideous amounts of damage with its holy tooth attack. This doesn't just rend armor and bleed health from foes, it also drains their essence.

Aspect of the Divine Beast - with a throaty roar, it can hit anything around it with a fear effect effective on foes up to level 10. Foes at level 4 or lower cannot flee, they enter a fawning state and surrender to whatever fate the beast god decides to grant them. Survivors of this level of beastly intimidation might start a cult to venerate the beast god. This is how villages end up with beasts that they have to keep feeding virgins, lest the beast god destroy their homes.

Keeps Dragon's Outrage, but increased damage potential, and foes knocked prone have a chance to take trampling/crushing damage from the beast rolling over them.

Venom Breath - as a draconic breath weapon attack, in a narrow cone from the jaws. The venom also deal corrosive damage.

7. Raid Boss Beast God

So, bad news everyone. The giant snake is bigger now, and its glowing, and its hanging in the sky. No, no, it gets worse. It's talking, spewing out a manifesto of hate and violence against the pink-skins, and the green-skins, and a few other people, I'm not really sure. My ancient tongues skill is having a hard time sorting out what it is saying and holy hell does it have a bad lisp.

But still, its really mad.

And a falling star made of poison just destroyed the village of Snakewall.