At first glance, edacious destroyers seem to be little more than eating machines. Omnivores and opportunists, they have intensely acidic stomachs that allow them to devour nearly everything they come across. However, beyond their need to eat, they appear to be highly intelligent creatures that will do almost anything in exchange for large amounts of food.
Blind and deaf, edacious destroyers rely on the olfactory details that the “sprouts” on their heads provide. These pale protrusions allow an edacious destroyer to scent blood, flesh, rotting fruits, and other foodstuffs. Once some type of edible is found, the sprouts erupt from the creature’s head as long, pliable tubes. A single tube can stretch up to one hundred times its resting size to suck up prey; the sprout’s powerful muscles then squeeze and compress the captured prey into a liquefied meal.
Well-fed edacious destroyers grow up to 50 feet (15 m) tall. They reproduce asexually, housing their young inside “belly bands” of muscle that surround one or more sprouts.
Motive: Food
Environment: Anywhere Health: 30
Damage Inflicted: 8 points Armor: 5
Movement: Long
Modifications: Speed defense as level 5 due to size
Combat: For living prey, edacious destroyers attack with their giant, clublike arms, battering foes for 8 points of damage.
In addition, they may attempt to suck still-living prey into their sprouts. If a PC fails a difficulty 4 Speed defense roll, he is sucked into the sprout, taking 5 points of damage. To cut himself free or otherwise escape from his living, crushing cage, the captured PC must succeed on two difficulty 3 Might defense rolls. If he fails three rolls before he escapes, he is crushed.
Interaction: Edacious destroyers can be scent-trained by those who are willing to risk being eaten. Successful trainers find ways to mask or eradicate their own scent first.
Use: Always hungry, edacious destroyers are fearless fighters, willing to seek out and attack prey anywhere.
It’s possible to estimate an edacious destroyer’s age by the number of sprouts along its head. Each sprout signifies eight to ten years.
A growing organization known as The Schism seems to be training edacious destroyers as scent-seeking warriors, but no one knows how or to what end.
GM Intrusion: A
character is sucked into a sprout that houses a belly band of young edacious destroyers, which begin to hatch.
CREATURES:EDACIOUS DESTROYER - ELLNOICA
ELLNOICA
5 (15)
Ellnoica victims rarely glimpse what kills them. Survivors who escape this voracious stalker describe either a completely invisible monster or a glowing terror the color of uncooked meat whose outline continually shimmers, just out of focus. An ellnoica measures about 15 feet (4.6 m) from tentacle tips to tail.
The creature is variously described as a “hungry lurker,” a “flesh slurper,” or “pink death.” Once revealed, it makes constant slurping noises as it tries to suck the flesh off the bones of a fresh kill. Motive: Hungers for flesh; reproduction
Environment: Almost anywhere, from a crowded city slum to the empty halls of an ancient orbiting installation
Health: 18
Damage Inflicted: 3 points Armor: 2 or 10 (see Combat)
Movement: Short, even when burrowing through solids with acid
Modifications: Stealth and Speed defense as level 6 when visible. Speed defense as level 10 when invisible (if the attacker can sense the ellnoica via something other than sight).
Combat: An ellnoica usually begins a combat invisible, surprising its prey with the initial attack. When the ellnoica attacks, it becomes visible. Once the creature becomes visible, it cannot become invisible again for one minute, or for at least one minute after it’s been hurt. Even when visible, the ellnoica remains partly out of phase with the world.
Each of its three feeding tentacles can attack a different target with a crushing blow. If an ellnoica attacks a single victim with all three feeding tentacles, it makes one attack that, if successful, crushes the victim (5 points of damage) and inflicts acid burns (2 points of damage). Once dead and tenderized, a victim is liquefied by the acid and slurped up. Sometimes the creature grabs an incapacitated foe with the intent of leaving the victim in its lair filled with soon-to-hatch eggs. An ellnoica can create a tunnel with its tail, which produces acid best suited for rock and soil. Thus, the
creature burrows in reverse, sliding backward down a narrow chute it creates. An ellnoica has 10 Armor against attacks that are acidic.
Interaction: Ellnoicas are predators, but they are also sentient and out of place. They can go into stasis for extended periods of time, so some claim to remember previous civilizations—perhaps even their home in a far different place. If a PC could offer (or pretend to offer) an ellnoica a chance to go home, that might cause it to interrupt its feeding and reproduction.
Use: Whether hunting the slums of cities or laying eggs in a deserted tower, ellnoicas work well as the main event of an adventure or a side quest for PCs exploring someplace new.
Loot: An ellnoica lair contains the remains of several victims, meant to feed hatchlings. These might include 1d100 shins, 1d6 + 1 cyphers, an oddity, and perhaps a salvageable artifact.
Ellnoicas can enter stasis for anywhere from one year to a million years, assuming they can find a stable location deep in the earth. When an ellnoica emerges from its phase-locked sleep, it burrows to the surface, voraciously eats everything it can overpower, and lays eggs in a high place where it can see the stars.
GM Intrusion: A PC
accidentally steps in a burrow hole the ellnoica used to enter the area. She drops out of sight but can attempt to climb out of this level 3 vertical shaft— hopefully before the ellnoica finds her in the cramped, narrow space.