Beast God Antihero

Lore

Failed - He's a Barbarian Lord, he can flex hard enough it inflicts area effect damage. His voice can cause females to ovulate.

Basic - I don't think that guy is right. 

Regular - no idea

Good - I'm not sure what you're talking about

Superior - Beast God, its probably a massive horrible thing that slumbers deep in the earth only to appear at the worst possible time.

Epic - Elice Eagrie was a sculptress who went into the Gyre and was missing for four years before reappearing one day in the city. She moved into the country and spent the rest of her life struggling with nightmares and carving grotesqueries. One is named Antihero and depicts a monstrous insectile giant. The statue and indeed, most all of her other grotesqueries, were either destroyed or stolen after her death, about century and a half ago. There was an effort to curate her artwork, and there might be a few people who decided to commission copies of the Eagrie Manuscript.

Legendary - as with most things of the Gyre, the best account of Beast God Antihero is found in the Garden of Mnemaglyphs. The section of the Gardens that has information on Antihero is also littered with Glyphs of Forgetfulness so remember to take notes in the Garden, otherwise you will not remember what you learned. High Lord Aihan Amberbrook did more than take notes, she carried an art easel and paints down to the Garden and painted a portrait of Antihero. The glyphs are clear in the picture, and they detail a few facts about the Beast God. Rather unfortunately so is a Glyph of Forgetfulness, so most people immediately forget the painting when they look away. 

Appearance

Antihero is a huge hybrid of a praying mantis and a crab. Standing twelve feet at its back, twenty to the top of its head, and thirty feet long. Its front limbs do not have the slashing scythes of a typical super mantis, but rather massive piercing claws. These can deal massive amounts of damage and are effective for taking things apart. It has a dull gray carapace, covered in the creeping life of the Gyre, as the Beast God often spends decades without moving.

No, it is not buried, nor is it waiting. The creature is the custodian of the Garden of Mnemaglyphs, and can silently guide the Gardeners who keep the place clean and the different stele, monoliths, and statuary gleaming and fresh. It is routinely visited by Lavhaqa, the Inviolable Scribe, and they keep the Mnemaglyphs up to date.

Unlike other Beast Gods, Antihero can communicate, telepathically. It does enjoy having conversations with mortals, providing they can control themselves and no go into gibbering madness or a catatonic state from proximity to a primal beast that their mortal brains cannot comprehend. Those who go mad or catatonic are usually carried into the Garden where a glyph will wipe the experience from their memory and they can compose themselves. Some, those with ill intent generally are eaten.

Combat

Ranged - none

Buff - The greatest power of Antihero is its ability to consume foes and take their powers for its own. After consuming a wizard, Antihero would have access to their spells, but would use its own massive essence pool and terrifying level for casting purposes. Consuming monsters lets it use their innate spell-like abilities, gain their resistances, gain their special abilities, and so forth. It also restores Antihero's health and essence pools. So long as there are foes, Antihero has living screaming healing and mana potions.

After consuming a foe, Antihero can use its powers for a day. It can also focus internally to pass the essence data it has consumed to the dungeon core, allowing the core to permanently gain said data. This is one of the Beast God's main purposes, to gather the unique information of monsters and heroes that are able to run roughshod over the dungeon defenses or do things that they shouldn't have. Thus, the Core has a dedicated information gathering horror

Invisibility - the ability to hold so still that it vanishes into the dungeon topography

True Sight - immune to illusions and invisibility, intangible objects cannot be perceived

Enhanced Mobility - can move through the dungeon without resistance, even walking across the ceiling. 

Melee - Can make multiple slash, smash, and ripping attacks with its claws, and can perform body slams, bull rushes, and has a relatively small bite attack. It steals powers, so when encountered it is likely to have several completely random abilities from its most recent meal. The bite attack is small as it prefers to disable its victims, smashing bodies, breaking limbs, etc, and then consuming the victim alive. With its enhanced mobility, it can carry out sneak attacks from above.

Allies

Ragpoules - functionally very large aggressive flightless birds. These creatures have strong physical attacks especially their clawed kick and axe beak bite. Antihero preens these creatures, and when initially pressed into a fight, it will consume them to restore its health and invigorate itself with their razor kick attack. There are spicy ragpoules that have the fire type and inflict fire damage with their ember claws and lava beak.

Vespinoids - insect spirits given materialized form, vespinoids are human sized wasps , mantids, and similar insects. They are fast, deal horrific slashing damage, but have relatively weak armor. Most can fly and are the main gardeners for the Garden of Mnemaglyphs.

Origin and Purpose

Antihero is based on a small mundane insect the dungeon encountered when it was very young. The voracious tiny creature tore its foes apart and meticulously consumed them. After a time, it would develop the traits of the creatures it was consuming the most and increasingly become better equipped to hunt and kill them. Enthralled, the dungeon created entire series of mantids to flesh out its monsters, going through the 'Bug Phase' that many dungeons follow. Insects breed quickly and easily, and they are easily tailored to a single purpose. There is also a limit to how sophisticated a bug can be, and then dungeons either branch out into other monster paths or remain moribund as bug nests. The Vespinoids remain as quickly producible shock troops for the dungeon, a legacy of its time as a bug breeder. The Beast God Antihero is the final expression of its pursuit of insectile perfection. It is massive, powerful, and keeps its key power of stealing powers.

The role of Antihero is that of a rogue. It is a monster assassin, the creature sent to butcher heroes who have risen too high. It reasserts the basic nature of the agreement between heroes and dungeons, and even exists as a counter to the actions of the Numinous Road to moderate the actions within a dungeon. Where the other members of the Four Divine Guardians are buried, or exist in deep hibernation waiting for when they are needed, Antihero is the active master of assassins for the Core. It rarely moves or does things, as its services are seldom needed.

Should a series of apocalyptic events place the Core in danger, it is the job of Antihero to slow intruders, slaughter their unique heroes, steal those powers and pass them to the core, and generally blunt the disaster long enough for the other Beast Gods to be activated, the hosts of Understone to be rallied, and other contingencies to be put into effect.

Always look up.

Antihero usually snatches the last member in a traveling party, disabling and eating them silently as their teammates keep moving forward.