Buccaneer Beasts

As suggested by Makaio

With guest story by Synclonic:

"Just one tour," you told yourself before joining this crew. Was gonna be clean, do a few jobs, raid a few vessels, get some gold, move inland and start a new life. Easy work, give it a few years and maybe the salt would grow out of your skin, you'd lose your sea legs, and no one would ever know what you did for a living before they met you. By what hells were you supposed to know what wild magics the Captain was dabbling in on board this ship? Watching your crew mates collapse, bodies rolling in heaps as the pain hit before the heat, you quickly double over in kind. Muscles building and bulging, bones cracking and reforming. Skin hardening, changing, some men growing hair and fur all over their bodies. Your eyes widen watching your fellow pirates become bigger, twisting into creatures and monsters, as you feel a similar process begin. You look down at your hand, morphing into a new unfamiliar shape, nails merging and forming into a tough keratin before your eyes. 

You know, deep inside, you ought to be mad. You are mad, but the power is intoxicating. You think of the Captain, it’s his fault. The rush of the changes fills you with energy. Each inch of your horns pushing out from you skull brings relief instead of pain, like they’d been hiding in your head for all your life. The elation you feel from the transformation is overwhelming. It’s the Captain’s fault, and you’d die for him, and the rest of your crew. Damn the rest of the world for hiding this from you, you’d never know how good it feels to be this big, this strong, this powerful. You snort in frustration, damn this world indeed. The Captain plans to show every seafaring man this pleasure, and you’d follow him to the ends of the earth to that goal. Your sea legs aren’t ever going away now, no going on land, no new life. A Pirate’s life is the life for you.