Chainlink #2: Monster Making

Owlbear, by Ilse Gort.

A chimera is a single entity created from the fusion of multiple animals, beasts which should not be. Their classification is mostly for our benefit, most within Coris would not necessarily see them as a unified thing. Wizards like chimeras because they're scary and unique, but they take a substantial amount of effort to craft. They must be constructed from composite parts, by taking multiple creatures and invoking the crucible mind Tiamat. Still, this ritual has it's quirks, making a monster is about more than just putting two animals in the same space and trying to merge their essences; animals have wills and spirits and personalities, and these things can clash rather wildly. There is an art to the practice, an internal logic that can be followed when creating monsters to ensure generally stable results. Most beast mages have a handful of stock recipes they may have discovered throughout their careers, which are guarded from rivals and traded amongst friends. The undisputed masters of the craft were the Chelicurae, the ancient human empire which transcended the bounds of their original flesh. They created the beastfolk, an act which would be nigh impossible with the fragmented understanding of flesh transmutation that exists today. Beast mages have an intense interest in the Chelicurae, and will often pay adventurers good money to delve into ancient ruins to gather samples of the strange creatures rotting in their archaic bio-pods. 

While the craft is certainly not what it once was, there are guidelines for creating monstrosities which can be followed to help achieve desired results. Typically, that desire is stability, meaning a monster that will have a lifespan roughly equivalent to its component parts. The more unstable your creation, the more of a chance it has of developing fatal tumors as its incompatible biologies tear it apart, especially unstable creatures will mutate rapidly, sometimes not even lasting more than a few hours. Outside of the rare cases where a mayfly is desired, the chimera's stability is key. As such, any enterprising beast mage should bear in mind the following tips.

Rule 1: Stabilizing Numbers

Prowling Serpopard, by Tyler Jacobson. Snakes are good for chimeras 
because they don't have any limbs, makes the numerology easier.

Chimeric creation involves the invocation of Tiamat, mother of all monstrous life. Tiamat is, of course, a naturally chaotic creature, which is part of why some chimeras become so unstable, they inherit the essence of their ancient mother and begin to rip and tear at their own seams. Creating stable monstrosities is therefore a matter of finding the order within chaos. Numbers are very significant to monster making, especially the numbers five and six. Tiamat has five heads, she spawned five elder evils, her child the apocalypse serpent will be a being of five parts. To invoke five (five limbs, five heads, five component beasts) will invite chaos into the creature, causing rapid destabilization.  The invocation of six is a soothing, preserving element of creation, as it mirrors Tiamat's prison, constructed by Nestaar, one of the Primordials who warred with her. Six bolts of thunder and cold fire, driven like nails through each head and her heart. True Dragons, children of Tiamat and the Primordials, have six limbs, as such they are moderately stable. Accordingly, chimeras are often six limbed as well. 

Two other minor stabilizing and destabilizing numbers are four and eight accordingly, four because it represents normalcy in most creatures (said to have a will of four parts composed of their humors) and eight because it is four doubled, and invites two opposing wills to manifest within the creature, which is naturally dangerous. Avoiding increasing multiples of four is also rather important for the same reason.

Rule 2: Keep it Simple, Stupid

Too many ingredients and the monster will start to collapse under its own weight. This one is a simple one, but also an important one. Some monstrosities might be imbued with special magical energy during their creation (manifesting as organic runic hardware once they are birthed), which can put similar strain on their form. Basically, it's best to keep it generally simple, an overly complicated creature will be more likely to be disorderly, or you will be more likely to falter with your intent and accidentally create a scorpion chimpanzee bunny rabbit instead of a bunny rabbit chimp scorpion. No crazy fucking monsters, unless you want it to start eating itself.

Rule 3: Like with Like

Udaak, by Kent Davis. This thing is probably like two gorillas or some shit

A particularly big one here, animals that are similar to one another will have fewer issues than those which are particularly distant. The simplest, most stable, and easiest chimeras to make are recursive chimeras, monsters where the animals involved are from the same species. Six legged, four eyed wolves which are twice as smart, mean, and big as their component parts are one such recipe. The more radically different two animals are in terms of genetics, the harder combining them gets. This also applies to attitude, of course. Wolves and deer are both mammals, but one is a predator, and the other is a prey animal. Such a creature would likely be unpredictable and deeply anxious. A wolf and an eagle are pretty different biologically, but they both hunt, and so the creature will likely not be quite as confused, internally speaking.

Rule 4: Keep it Stupid, Stupid

Monsters that use mortals (ie, any sufficiently intelligent being that is made of meat) as component will almost certainly be incredibly unstable. Mortal spirits make for bad monsters, that are likely to be incredibly unstable, unhappy, and hard to control. Intelligence in general, however, is something of a taboo. The smarter a monster is, the riskier it becomes to treat it as an instrument or display piece. Intelligent monsters have an alarming tendency to murder their creators in a grisly fashion and flee into the countryside where they prey on farmers and terrorize travelers. Making an intelligent monster, especially one which has predatory creatures as component pieces, is sort of like putting the brain of a serial killer into a murder robot. It's a bad idea, and it should be avoided.

Rule 5: Consider the dragon

Chimera, artist unknown (to me, shout if you know who did this piece).
Piecemeal fusions like this are probably pretty unstable,
so it's a good thing they used a dragon.

If you want to break these rules for whatever reason, consider adding a dragonoid creature to the mix when you make your chimera. Draconic flesh is the purest representation of Tiamat's nature in the world; it welcomes aberrant life and mutation like old friends, soothes chaos and disorder, lets the impossible hum with life for just a little longer than it should. Draconic bases allow for more cohesive chimeras, though they will still likely have a host of problems, and dragons are hard to come by, and harder to pacify for such a ritual. 

Life, uh...

Typically monstrosities are sterile, owing to their unique biologies, though just as often they are intentionally sterilized. This is done in order to control the market on chimeras; if people want monsters, they can't just breed their own, they have to go through beast mages. Still, sometimes reproducing monsters are desirable, in which case it will likely not surprise you to learn that the more stable the monster, the more reliably it will be able to reproduce. Reproduction means you don't have to go through a taxing ritual whenever you make a monster, but it also introduces a lot of chaos. There's potential for normal mutations, you have to wait until creatures are ready to mate, then you have to raise the monstrous cub, the whole thing can be more trouble than it's worth. Monstrosities that are capable of reproducing can also quickly become invasive pests or threats to the local ecosystem, as with the Kobolds of Keia Larsh, more on that next time.