Timeless Threats: Devourer

Introduction

Devourers are incarnations of entropy. They have put dying worlds out of their misery and converted grim but habitable “shadow worlds” into so much rubble and empty space.

From the vast Wyrms of the Void Between Worlds to the small, innumerable clock-roaches that appear during temporal paradoxes, scavengers of the Devourer portend doom for a divergent timeline or fading world.

Appearance

Devourers typically resemble lower earth vermin of uncommon size. They seem made of a black plastic that glistens, but in the wrong places.

A Simulacrum can mimic a human, even a specific human, just long enough to get near its prey. Careful observers will note an unhealthy, almost deathlike appearance, minor mutations, and soon outright aberrance as the creature loses control of its shape.

Tactics

Most Devourers simply gravitate to the nearest source of digestible food and eat. They will attack things that persist in getting in their way.

A Simulacrum seems capable of abstract reasoning, so it will use subterfuge to lure its prey nearer. After too much back and forth, however, it will lose patience and simply attack.

Devourer “Characters”

Extra Dice Needed: None

Devourers lie wholly outside any Host System. Unlike other creatures of the abstract like Timeless they need no distinct host body in a Host System.

Save for body form and cunning, all Devourers are essentially alike.

The Devourer Sheet

All parameters are based on species, described below.

Devourer Victim Sheet

Devourers interact with the world in a peculiar way. The Referee should keep a record like this for all characters or character types involved in a scene with Devourers.

Printable sheets may be downloaded here.

Special Abilities

Implacable Attack

A Devourer attack goes through three phases.

1. A Devourer grapples its prey.
2. A Devourer pins its prey down.
3. A Devourer devours.

Each phase takes a combat round. Characters can interrupt the first two phases with appropriate actions and saving throws¹. By the third phase, the battle is mostly over.

Devouring

The process of devouring is gruesome but usually quick. The creature simply opens its jaws, takes a bite, and swallows.

Devourers can bite through anything if their Threat allows it. Otherwise it might as well be solid steel.

Clock-Roach Swarms, being smaller, cause much more pain and distress. They can take several rounds to consume a victim, much longer if they or their allies fight back. Wounds are equivalent to a hail of gunfire: numerous, penetrating, and devastating.

Once swallowed, the creature (or piece) is instantly, irrevocably annihilated. The mass and energy disappear to fuel the Devourer’s quasi-physical form. Wyrm digestion leaves voidstone behind, which resists further digestion and the Void Between Worlds itself. (But that’s another game …)

Deadly Damage

Any bite from a Devourer annihilates anything wholly consumed. Even if it doesn’t close its jaws all the way, no material substance can resist the infinite sharpness of its “teeth”.

Immune to Conventional Weapons

Ordinary weapons cannot harm a Devourer in any way. Only magical or mad science weapons do any harm. Weapons require Threat.

Psychic Barrier

No psychic contact can reach a Devourer. It’s possible that even a Simulacrum has no mind as such, and can only “simulate” thought.

The Devourer Diceless Role-Playing Game, Abridged

The “system” for Devourers is modeled after Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. The player characters’ and NPCs dice rolls are irrelevant, only ratings in the Devourer Role-Playing System.

The primary Attributes are Might and Threat.

• Might encompasses both strength and size. It determines whether a Devourer can physically overwhelm or incapacitate a creature long enough to begin devouring.
• Threat reflects their capacity to take on one of the Primal Powers: Cosmic Law, Cosmic Chaos, Astral, Time, Divine, etc. A Devourer will avoid anything with a higher Threat than theirs.

The levels of Might and Threat are the following:

Each species receives a rating in this system. Magic, Psionics, or Mad Science increases the effective rating by one step. As in LoGaS or ADRPG, a higher rating always defeats a lower one, and the Devourers are incapable of strategy or cunning plans. The results of a tie depends on the player character.

Partial Species Ratings

A “+” indicates the level may be even higher for some idnividuals.

Weapon/Armor Threat Ratings

Shadow Worlds are on the verge of erasure, including unreachable timelines and dying worlds.

Primal Worlds have been infused with a Primal Power over a long period of time.

Devourer Bestiary

Speed is movement rate relative to an average human.

Hits is the number of significant blows the Devourer type can take before vanishing. “Significant” is system-dependent, but generally a magic sword will do it.²

Size is an abstract measure of mass and volume. A human is size 0. Each increment or decrement is a fourfold reduction in the largest dimension and a 4- to 16-fold change in mass.

Bag of Devouring

This cursed magic item is actually a gateway into the maw of a Devourer. Some say it leads to THE Devourer, but anything that falls into its gullet becomes primordial mass-energy, so what does it matter?

Clock-Roach

Clock-Roaches resemble their namesake in broad outlines, but are larger and lack the fine anatomical parts of true insects: they have a mouth, six limbs, and a nigh-unbreakable outer carapace, but the rest is Devourer goop.

Clock-Roaches are far more dangerous in swarms. The only effective way to take care of a swarm is to find a source of mystical energy that harms them. Primal Energy excels at this.

Hunter

Hunters resemble headless hexapods with gaping maws where their heads should be. (Flier-types add two pairs of insect-like wings.) They chase down fast-moving prey like a lion chasing down a gazelle or an owl closing on a mouse.

Reaper

Reapers track down creatures that are already dead, but simply do not know it yet. They look like a patch of black smoke or solid darkness to most beings, but their victims see their worst nightmares.

Reapers can be driven off for a time, but they always come back.

Scavenger

Scavengers assume a roughly human-like form. They seem well-acquainted with doors and other simple mechanical contrivances, but anything complicated brings out the brute strength.

Simulacrum

Simulacrums appear to be scavengers who have learned – or absorbed – the sapience and possibly even the identity of a mortal being. With this comes a surprisingly detailed simulation of the human form. Careful observers will note an unhealthy, almost deathlike appearance. Over time, minor defects and mutations will crop up, culminating in outright aberrance as the creature loses control of its shape.

A Simulacrum seems capable of abstract reasoning, so it will use subterfuge to lure its prey nearer. After too much back and forth, however, it will lose patience and simply attack.

Wyrm

Wyrms are Gargantuan creatures that “clean up” (devour) remnants of a dying or dead world. As the name implies, they look like huge worms, with a