Thought Eater

Aberrant ectoplasmic entities from beyond reality

These creatures move and hunt in packs and gain life sustenance by feeding on psychic energies harvested from sentient beings. Thought eaters prey specifically upon memories and use telepathic attacks targeted against the memory centers of the brain to confuse their prey before closing in to feed using their icy ectoplasmic tendrils.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Thought eaters are small in size, about three feet long and weight under 40 lbs. They resemble winged skeletal quadripeds coated in thick sacs of gelatinous ectoplasmic membrane. They move by floating without any obvious locomotive action and interact with physical objects by projecting motile ectoplasmic tendrils from their skull cavities.

Genetics and Reproduction

Thought eaters do not reproduce but they do generate and spread eggs of parasitic cerebral spawn. These eggs are created whenever thought eaters feed. The consumption of psychic energy stimulates them to shed ectoplasm in the form of spawn eggs.

Growth Rate & Stages

These creatures have no growth or maturity cycle. They have no biological birth and they do not endure an aging process or suffer natural death. They can however be wounded or killed by the application of physical trauma.

Ecology and Habitats

The true origin of the thought eaters is unknown, but members of the the Thorpe Expedition witnessed these creatures emerging from unexplained rifts located in the White Sand Desert near the village of Trinity.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Thought eaters hunt in packs and use their long range telepathic attacks to slow down prey before closing in to swarm and overwhelm lone victims. The ectoplasmic tentacles of the thought eater inflict negligible cold damage on contact but drain a point of intelligence damage with every successful touch attack. Against creatures with a power point reserve, thought eaters drain power points first until the victim's reserve is depleted and then begin to feed upon intelligence damage.

When thought eaters sense danger or perceive deadly threats they become nearly insubstantial and immediately flee from harm. While experiencing this flight response, thought eaters are very hard to injure through physical means.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

These creatures can detect thoughts at will and pursue sentient beings without the need for conventional physical senses of any kind. While thought eaters are generally susceptible to psionic attacks, including telepathic and psychokinetic assaults, as psionic aberrations they are immune to effects that induce conventional biological states such as hunger, nausea, or sleep.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

Thought eaters deposit ectoplasmic eggs inside the corpses of their victims and these eggs hatch into swarms of worms and other vermin (cerebral spawn) that reach maturity after consuming the innards of their host corpses. Once this is done, the vermin begin to organize themselves as a single living unit that rises to wear the preserved skin of the host corpse as a kind of disguise. Imbued with memories and other information derived from the thought eater's psychic feeding, the cerebral spawn imitate the host creature in order to conceal themselves among other sentient creatures and spread the spawn to others through the pathological vectors of the Creeping Death contagion.

Origin/Ancestry

Origin unknown