Squmpers owe their creation to the rudimentary knowledge of early artificers, gleaned from the tattered manuscripts of the ancients. Lacking the means to fully animate unliving material, they found their breakthrough in the use of a freshly hewn tree stump as the main body. Since then, Squmpers have been used as the primary defense of settlements and cities from the dangerous crytures that roam the wilds. For a time, they were also used in law enforcement, but the sheer power of a cryture proved excessive and impractical for managing ordinary humans.