Mustelidger

Mustelidgers are a sub-race of badger who were mutated by magical or god-related means, causing them to develop sentience and short, stocky humanoid bodies that allowed them to stand up on both legs.

These beast folk etched out small territories in Yr Alban's lowlands and formed small lodgings where their families live. Very few exist, and by the time that A Hero's Tale takes place many of those lodgings are perfectly hidden.

At least one lodging also exists in L'Imperium, close to where the halflings dwell, but alas they have never found it.

Now and then one can be found serving as a mercenary or bodyguard, in rarer cases as bards, courtesans and guides. These ones are usually troubled, and few are carefree. Some cannot speak Common or any other mortal language, while others can.

Though many Mustelidgers can be considered civilised, some behave in a manner similar to goblins, in that they choose to move on all fours, and speak in a growling tongue that folk do not understand.

A small number of Mustelidgers fall victim to rabies, bloodlust, or other diseases or curses, and leave their lodgings in a last act of cognisant sentience to avoid hurting their loved ones and countrybadgers.

These fallen badgers are classified as monsters instead of living beings, more often than not, and are placed in a similar category to werebears despite the fact that Mustelidgers are affected differently by werecurses.

A were-cursed Mustelidger transforms into something larger and more frightening, akin to a direbadger, at every full moon.

Either way, these person-badgers who live outside of their wits tend to violently attack and sometimes devour the flesh of other races and they wreak havoc upon local wildlife.

Mustelidgers are incapable of reproducing with most races, humans included. Despite this there exists a single poem about someone who entered "love" with a mustelidger. Mentioning the name of said poem in a group of affluent poets is a way to cause collective groans to emanate throughout the room due to the cringe-inducing nature of the literary work.

Trivia
Mustelidger is a combination of the words Mustelidae and Badger. They are heavily influenced by the Albionic Badgers in Games Workshops' Warhammer Fantasy universe.