Utterly Mad

                                                                                                                        INTERMISSION
                                                                                                                                           On Mislings

Mislings are an emerging group of peoples subjected to extensive genetic alteration to make them more suitable for manual labor as well as making them reproduce more quickly. In the years since the Mislings escape from their home lab, they have gained an acceptance of what they are and begun forming their own cultural identity as the younger generation grows up in the post cataclysm world.

The average Misling is of regular build, being no taller and no heavier than a normal human. Most bear gray fur and rodent features, with a rare few being examples of the "failed" strains. Mislings are possessed of a slightly higher endurance than a normal human, enabling them to work for longer under normal conditions while their fur and tails provide a little comfort from the cold and heat respectively.

Mislings are somewhat resistant the intoxicating effects of drugs and alcohol (whether this is an effect of their mutation, the general background of the average Misling, or both has yet to be determined) but are prone to illness and infection. They are especially sensitive to fungal infection.

As part of their intended purpose, Mislings are possessed of certain qualities that make them especially effective in procreation. They are genetically stable, the feat of keeping them fertile despite their advanced stage of mutation being a closely guarded secret. Dominant features often lean heavily in favor of their Misling parents, regardless of who the parents are. This was an unintended feature of the maintaining of fertility. Gestation is usually short, about six months, and Misling females often give birth to litters of three to eight, with twins and singletons being exceptionally rare. Normal human women impregnated by a Misling often produce twins and occasionally triplets, but the children are almost always mostly human with some slight rodent features.

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From the Memoirs of Dr. Efram Marsh

In the early years of the Cataclysm, I had time to think and reflect on what I'd done. I was the lead of the project that turned these people into what they are now, these "Mislings." At first it was just a simple mutagen project, experiment a little here, a little there. See if anyone wanted to volunteer or experiment on convicts. Then things started to heat up behind the bamboo curtain, and our focus shifted. What we needed was a work force that could work hard and breed quickly. We tried a few simple small things at first, but the results were less than exemplary. Once a person mutates so much, they simply can't "do it." anymore. After the initial stages, that was back in... 2030? Back before the Cataclysm anyway, we decided to try and implement our experiments with the emerging research on animal based mutagen. The results were a little better, but at that point we were running low on volunteers.

Then we struck on an idea. We could get all the convicts we wanted of course, the government was sanctioning that sort of forced volunteering at that point, but we needed more. At the time the USA was going through one of it's regular increases in the homeless situation, and you couldn't walk down the street without seeing a group of vagrants up to something. Our lab, I am ashamed to say, began abducting these unfortunate people. Near the end there, we didn't even bother making sure they were actually homeless or not. We just needed more subjects.