Dogmen

You will smell them before you see them. The stench of wet fur wafting towards you through the tunnels of the dungeon. Next you will hear them, barking, panting, howling, sharp nails scrabbling against the cobblestones. Finally you will see them, clad in their rags and their scraps of armor, wielding rusted knives and spiked clubs. And then they will try to kill you.

As with many tales of monsters, this one begins with a wizard. This particular wizard desired an army of slaves, ones who would fear him and love him in equal measure, who would not be swayed by the promises and bribes of his enemies, but who could think and reason for themselves. The stiff, puppet-like forms of automata or the undead would not do for his purposes, for they had no minds, and the wizard did not desire the brainless obedience of machines.

And so he began to gather forth dogs. From all across the land he paid for dogs of all kinds. Lapdogs, watchdogs, sheepdogs, bloodhounds, sled dogs, dogs of all shapes and sizes. He brought the vast, teeming legion of dogs into his castle, and set to work.

A year passed. Then another. And another. Howls and yelps of pain echoed through the remote valley of the wizard's tower, filling those who traveled nearby with fear of what exactly he was doing to all those dogs. The wizard cared little for the curiosity of fools. He labored over bloodstained operating tables and bubbling cauldrons of blood and flesh, measuring and cutting and sewing and modifying. The early drafts were not pretty. Mangled masses of flesh and fur, malformed and hideous. He tossed the bodies into the river, to be fed upon by fishes and to wash up near the homes of superstitious villagers. Sometimes these prototypes were not quite dead when they found them.

After years of experimentation, the deed was done. The wizard had created the perfect slaves; beings that walked and talked with the gaits and voices of men, but possessed the visage and mentality of dogs. They were small, the height of a child at best, and didn't live long, two decades at the longest. They had inherited the short lifespans of their ancestors. Perhaps uncreatively, the wizard christened these creatures dogmen. There were swiftly put to work.

The dogmen were loyal, quick to learn, and eager to please. Even so, the wizard was a cruel master, and maintained his absolute dominion over these creatures with whip and chain, rewarding them for success with just enough raw meat to make them believe that they deserved the punishment they received otherwise. The viewed their master with a mix of adoration and terror, for he was the source of all their happiness as well as the source of all their pain. They loved him and feared him, just as the wizard had wanted.

With the labor of his dogmen the wizard constructed a great dungeon beneath his tower, in which he stashed away all the treasures of his long career as a spellcaster. As he aged, the wizard became more and more paranoid, more and more fearful of thieves and assassins. As his paranoia increased, so too did his cruelty, and the dogmen learned to fear whenever he came near, tucking their tails between their legs and whimpering in terror at their master's approach, bowing before the only god they had ever known and praying for forgiveness for slights they didn't know they had committed.

In time, however, like all mortals, the thread of the wizard's life reached it's appointed length, and he lay dying within his bedchamber, surrounded by the elder dogmen, his oldest and most faithful slaves whom he had appointed to supervise the rest. With his dying breath, the wizard demanded that his body be carried into the deepest part of the dungeon and entombed there among his riches, and that for all eternity the treasure should be protected from any unwanted intruders. The elder dogmen swore to obey his last edict, and with a final shudder, the wizard was no more.

The elder dogmen knew only a life of discipline and order, and in their master's absence did their best to maintain it. They told the lesser dogmen that the master had gone, had left them out of anger. They wailed and howled mournfully, for as much as they feared his whips and beatings, they loved him, for they had known nothing else. He would return, said the elders, if obedience was maintained, the treasures kept guarded, the traps kept in good repair, the menagerie fed. The dogmen pledged themselves to this pact, and the cycle began.

Over the years, the name of the wizard who created their distant ancestors has long since been forgotten. He is known only as the Master now, He who shall return someday, when their loyalty is perfect, when their obedience is unwavering, when their love is pure.

The priests of the dogmen wield cruel barbed whips which they strike just as enthusiastically at their fellows as they do at their enemies. They wear spiked collars and muzzles, symbols of submission and obedience transformed over the centuries into indicators of authority and cruelty. They are the mouthpieces of the Master, and bark out His demands for perfect obedience to the toiling, flea-ridden masses.

Some dogmen take their devotion to their wayward Master to extremes, striking themselves with scourges, refusing to bathe, purposefully encouraging fleas to infest what remains of their mangy fur. These flagellants wear cones about their necks as signs of their penitence, and their howls of agony can be heard reverberating down the stone corridors of the long deceased wizard's dungeon.

The dogmen are not inherently evil. If you took a dogman pup and raised it with love and care, it would be just as capable of good as any other sentient being. It is not genetics which dictate the cycle of cruelty and self-hatred which has permeated into the very souls of the dogmen. It is just what they have always known.

Stats as kobolds.