[Index]

DEVOURING MASS5 (15)

Cypher Bestiary

The translucent, mucous-like flesh of this truck-sized creature is anathema to normal matter, especially flesh.

Health: 23

Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound

Movement: Immediate; immediate when burrowing

Modifications: Speed defense as level 4 due to size

Combat: A devouring mass spits acid at a target within short range.

Masses creep away from cold, taking double damage from icy attacks.

A devouring mass has the following additional traits.

• Engulf: The mass surges forward, covering a target (or two targets next to each other) within immediate range that is successfully attacked or touched. A covered target takes damage each round and can't take physical actions until they succeed on a Might roll as their action to squirm free. A target who dies from this damage is consumed by the mass, and their body becomes part of the creature.
  
• Regenerate: If a mass has absorbed living flesh within the last hour, it regenerates 3 points of health per round.
  
• Dissolve Solid: A devouring mass can dissolve solid matter of level 6 or less, destroying an object (or portion of an object) of its size as its action or moving an immediate distance through solid material.

GM Intrusion: The acid destroys the character's clothing or piece of equipment they carry or wield.

HORRIBLE APPEARANCES

Things, almost by definition, have an inconstant form. But what does it look like right now?

d10	Appearance
1	Shapeless pile of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly luminous
2	Pustules constantly rise and pop, excreting a greenish-red fetid ichor
3	Temporary eyes blinking open across the mass, sometimes overlapping
4	Distorted, stretched, half.mimicked form of some previous victim, thrashing
5	Writhing, slapping, undulating tentacles; tentacles all the way down
6	Humanoid face splits open revealing a wide, tooth-filled maw
7	Lump of six or seven half-fused human bodies moaning, gurgling, rising tower-like
8	Glimpsed in mid transformation; limbs sprout, bones snap, and flesh tears apart
9	Oily, reflective pool of fluid reminiscent of a sewage spill from a butcher's stall
10	Translucent gel-like mass in which darker tendrils slither along wormy trails

WHAT A THING WANTS

A thing's goal may be unknowable. Other times, a thing has a motive.

d6	Motive
1	Assimilate all flesh
2	Prepare the way for invasion by aliens
3	Escape back to space
4	Gain knowledge (through assimilation)
5	Build a machine to call mate from nightmares
6	Successfully blend in and be left alone

WORDS OF WOE

Use some of these "Lovecraftian" adjectives when you're describing a thing or its degenerate trespasses: Abominable, amorphous, antediluvian, bleating, blubbery, chattering, colorless, croaking, degenerate, dripping, faceless, gangrenous, heaving, howling, inscrutable, jabbering, loathsome, mucilaginous, murmuring, obscene, quivering, profane, pustular, rubbery, squamous, undigested, writhing

Adventure Seed: After her husband dies, a widow becomes convinced that her husband's spirit is trying to warn her of danger. However, the "spirit" is actually a thing creeping through her home.