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Oneiropho

Biology

The Island of Antara is a dangerous place, filled with madmen and madder creatures, and they form a delicious banquet for the Oneiropho who swarm in the marshes to the northwest of the Divine City-State of Pligitas. These predatory beasts, also known colloquially as Mindsuckers, can communicate telepathically and detect the thoughts of other sentient creatures through a set of transmitters and receptors located in their heads. Their bodies are lithe and thin, with pale skin and relatively long and flexible limbs that allow them to climb well and easily jump long distances, often going from tree to tree. They have three pairs of beady, white eyes and no mouth.

Consciousness Eaters

Their most defining feature however is the the blood-red proboscis set in their forehead, and connected via organic tubing to the giant flesh-bag they carry on their back. It is with this feature that they pierce their prey while clinging onto them, sucking up a wee bit of blood but more importantly, their mind. This leaves the victim alive but without consciousness, and sustains the Oneiropho for a while. If they feed more than they need to, the excess is stored in their flesh-bag and will form into a new Oneiropho once it has fed and grown enough to break free. The parent then needs more sustenance to heal and reseal the flesh-bag before they form another progeny.

Intelligence and Social Behavior

They are highly intelligent and communal predators, who take care of their pack but see every other species as nothing but sustenance. They are sometimes thought to be descended from Ghouls that were particularly mad or succumbed to mutation, but there's no proof for this and there are significant differences between the two. They can sense psychic emanations of sentient thought in the air and use these to guide them to their prey. Rampant thoughts such as dreams or those of people who have gone mad are particularly delicious to them. They communicate through telepathic impressions and images that they broadcast radially around them to those capable of receiving it. Those with no telepathic inclinations often pick up some background noise that sounds like high-pitched chattering in the back of their mind.