Rutterkin

The rutterkin are pathetic, malformed tanar'ri. They wander the planes of the Abyss, outcasts in their own deranged society. Rutterkin resemble terribly ugly humans. They are hairless or nearly so, with pointed skulls, distorted features, and backward-pointing ears.

Rutterkin are tanar'ri mutated by energies unknown. They are complete outcasts, not even cannon fodder in the Blood War. However, rutterkin do unwittingly serve the tanar'ri. Rutterkin so hate their position that they wander the Abyss in solitude. There, they never attack any tanar'ri save for least tanar'ri. However, they savagely attack non-tanar'ri they see. Although the rutterkin are usually far too weak to stop intruders, these pathetic creatures try to gate in reinforcements, thereby spreading the alarm.

Rutterkin are known for the strange weapons they carry. Some of their favorites include: a snap-tong device; a polearm with a double crescent head; a saw-toothed flatchet; and a 3-armed blade thrown from a sling-like device. A rutterkin can also attack with two claws. They dislike this attack because their malformed bodies feel pain if they strike (as one with a sprained wrist would feel pain from punching). Rutterkin groan and yelp when they attack with their claws.

Ancient stories of the origin of the rutterkin say that many millennia ago, a race of humans in a distant corner of the Prime Material Plane experimented with plane and probability travel. These cerebral beings explored the Prime Material Plane and eventually expanded into the Inner and Outer Planes. When they discovered the Abyss, they were enslaved by the tanar'ri, who had never before encountered beings other than themselves. Originally, tanar'ri abuse changed the rutterkin into what they are, but now other types of creatures can become rutterkin as well.

Note: Rutterkin originally appeared in this form in the Planescape Monstrous Compendium for the AD&D game from TSR. Their use here is for the purposes of providing context for the campaign only.