Manimals are descended from the various species of animals, reptiles and insects that once inhabited the natural world before the Great Disaster. Unlike their distant, pre-Terra A.D., cousins, manimals walk upright, talk and possess prehensile appendages that allows them to manipulate and use complex tools. Manimal also possess physical and mental mutations: each mutation has the potential of granting the manimal with extraordinary powers or raising their ability scores beyond the limits of ordinary men and women.