Mutants

Are a race.

To be frank, Mutants are one of the Island's ugliest populations. Improbability has warped their bodily structure until they are barely recognizable as former Humans.

Mutant culture has not produced much of note except poetry. However, no one has yet sat through an entire poetry recital without needing hospitalization for attempting to eat their own ears, so records of even this are scarce. The population's home city, Pleasantville, is characterized by an absence of reflective surfaces because this population avoids mirrors and anything else that would remind them of their deformed features. They are accustomed to being looked down upon by other, more looks-conscious populations.¹⁾²⁾

Physically, Mutants have several natural advantages and several limitations:

• Their leathery skin makes them difficult to injure.
• Because they are easily distracted, they do not have the concentration needed for long battles and will often take damage when their attention wanders if the fight is not ended quickly.
• They are commonly endowed also with more limbs than four. Such movable growths are politely called 'noodly appendages' and impolitely called only some single-word curse before the unlucky mutant spotter is vomiting things they ate when they were children on their shoes.
• Their 'limb-enabled' nature also allows them to entangle, trip, bludgeon, and otherwise distract an opponent, giving Mutants extraordinary combat skills.
• Their hideous appearances mean that opponents will not approach too closely, limiting the damage an opponent can dish out against a Mutant in battle.
• They are proficient at insulting because they are constantly insulted as they grow up.

If life on the Island is the basis of a reality TV programme, the Mutants' role is more of a horror show. While not as openly despised as the foul-tempered Squats population, few groups go out of their way to ally themselves with Mutants, mostly because no one can stand their hideous appearance and the excruciatingly gloomy poems they love to make and share to others.³⁾ Mutants make successful contestants because of their physical advantages, but they get less screen time with the Watcher than more attractive populations such as the Kittymorphs and Jokers.