Our next Foundation article delves into further detail on the threat of mutation, one of the more insidious ways in which the Great Enemy attempts to corrupt our universe.  

Mutation: In addition to the threat of annihilation, the Great Enemy is capable of a more malignant threat. While their primary desire seems to be the destruction of humanity, the general corruption of all life seems as equally important a goal to them. Though whole worlds were burned in their endless campaign of conquest, many were changed into hellish realms of evil and depravity, only the faintest traces of their past forms recognizable.

The exact method of mutation is unknown, scientists of the Solar Alliance were at a loss to explain how anything living was altered simply by the presence of the Great Enemy. They could only conclude that a world suffering the invasion of the demonic foe would see life forms upon it would slowly alter their form and physiology. The primary variables behind these changes seemed to be both the complexity of the life form’s original genetic structure, and the magnitude of the Great Enemy’s presence.

Thus, more simple forms of life, such as plants and basic creatures, could be turned into entirely new species in a matter of days, or even hours within the initial invasion, while higher orders of life, such as animals and man, would take weeks or months to begin to change dramatically. Of course, these time periods would be accelerated depending on the scale of the invasion, so that even animals would begin mutating within hours of an invasion consisting of millions of demons. The more powerful demons also seemed capable of accelerating these changes on their own.

As the Great Enemy would spread across a world, generally consuming and destroying all life on the planet, the lower forms of life on that world would begin to mutate in a variety of ways. Some creatures might sprout extra limbs, or have the nature of their skin change, bony extrusions or horns might appear, or they might gain new abilities, such as flight or the ability to spit poison. Their aggressive tendencies would increase exponentially, becoming carnivorous by nature without exception. A new species emerging which finds itself fortunate enough to breed with enough rapidity to survive the destruction around it would find itself welcomed by the ravenous horde sweeping the world around it, becoming yet another species used to destroy anything standing before the Great Enemy.

Fortunately for the Solar Alliance, humans appeared to be exceptionally resilient against these degenerative effects, though not wholly immune. Again, the reasons for this resilience evaded the Solar Alliance, even with the human genome having been fully mapped and explored. Philosophers and scholars debated hotly over the issue as well, some arguing man’s resistance to the corrupting touch of the Great Enemy was a form of divine protection, a side-effect of being created in God’s image. Others reasoned it was a matter of the human chromosome being the most complex form of life yet discovered in the galaxy. Still others argued that the reason no mutated humans were found among the Great Enemy was that they simply were not allowed to live long enough to become mutated in any way, as all evidence seen during the Judgment War showed virtually any human encountered by the Great Enemy to be killed on the spot.

Those few humans not killed, however, were discovered to still be vulnerable to the warping effects of mutation, though it took on average far longer to achieve the same level of results. Worlds captured by the Great Enemy, which were later liberated by Solar Alliance forces, were discovered to be inhabited by humanoid creatures not seen before, fighting alongside the demons. These creatures, later killed in battle, were examined and genetic testing verified their being human, if only barely. They barely resembled the human form, and it was believed at least some escaped these battlefields to continue breeding in more secure locations held by the Great Enemy.

On Terranis, the scale of mutation was, fortunately, far lower than the norm, due to the low level presence of the Great Enemy. With the initial defeat of Astanathos, the greatest threat to Terranis’ safety was expunged, and only lesser creatures remained. However, this was still enough to slowly warp some of the native creatures of Terranis, even if this process took decades. Inevitably, though, new strains of Great Enemy creatures began to appear, twisted mockeries of different kinds of life.

One of the earliest recorded instances of these new creatures was taken from the chronicles of Lucilia Doramor. At some point prior to AF 189, a strain of white wolf, which became known as the Lupine, appears in the mountains of western Saniel, north of the capital city, and began terrorizing some of the villages in the valleys below. A number of mercenaries attempted to track down the wolves, but all disappeared. Lucilia, despite going into the mountains alone and only being fourteen, successfully defeated the wolves, most of whom had grown to incredible size, weighing several times as much as her.

Some scholars and wizards on Terranis have, at times, attempted their own research into the mutating effects of the Great Enemy, attempting to reverse the mutations of some species, or make other creatures develop more beneficial changes. Though many were killed by their experiments, some were successful to varying degrees, the greatest success being the creation of a new species of diminutive sprites, an off-shoot of the small Imp demons. Whereas the Imps are mischievous and cruel, the sprites have proven to be exceptional familiars to scholars and the like.

As the centuries went on following the Fall, the number of mutated strains appearing across Terranis continued to increase, for the mutating effect given off by the creatures increases with every new species altered. By AF 1016, though humanity is at the peak of its power since the Fall, the creatures now threatening man are the deadliest yet seen, and only the most skilled and well-equipped have any chance of successfully destroying these foes.