The Strange Bestiary
Id thieves are known for their spectacular thefts of the most precious thing a living creature possesses: emotion. Every sapient creature has wants, desires, and impulses, as well as a libido—at least, it does until it's been targeted by an id thief.
The creature normally hides behind a human identity created by an impressive psychic talent. When the illusion is pulled away or penetrated, the id thief is revealed as a collection of human brains floating in midair, connected by wires and tubes fizzing with bioelectric energy. With no body of its own, an id thief relies on the emotions of others to provide it with enough élan to live.
When an id thief defeats prey that's particularly savory, it spends the time to decant the brain and add the precious white meat to its own collective body.
The individual brains that make up an id thief retain vestiges of their former personalities. On occasion, especially when the id thief is badly hurt, the creature takes on the illusory semblance and goals of one of those minds, until the group mind reassembles.
Motive: Hungers for emotion
Environment (Psionics or Weird Science): Anywhere
Health: 18
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (4 points)
Movement: Short when flying
Modifications: Speed defense as level 7 due to illusory facade; disguise as level 6; resists psychic attacks as level 6.
Combat: An id thief can make a psychic attack on a creature within short range. On a failed Intellectdefense roll, the target takes 4 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor).
If an id thief does enough damage to move a victim a step down the damage track, the victim is stunned and disoriented, unable to act other than attempting a new Intellect defense roll each round to shake off the effect. At the same time the victim descends a step on the damage track (even if he moves the final step to death), the id thief regenerates 4 points of health.
Victims badly hurt by an id thief may be affected long afterward. Such characters fall under a malaise for a month, during which the difficulty of all tasks is increased by one step. A victim doesn’t care enough to have the condition looked at, but if tended to by someone with psychic healing abilities or similar capacities, the character is cured after just a day. An id thief enjoys limited telekinetic ability and can manipulate objects within immediate range as well as a human could using physical hands. Interaction: Id thieves are motivated primarily by hunger, so they can be negotiated with if someone promises to lead them to a place where feeding on emotion would be easy.
Use: An id thief might be a literal mastermind of petty crime whose true form as a bodiless monster is known to no one, not even those in its employ. On the other hand, an id thief might serve a mad scientist or a more powerful psychic master.
GM Intrusion: When the character attacks the id thief in melee and misses due to the creature’s illusory façade, the illusion also hid a hole, cliff, or other dangerous piece of terrain that the character stumbles into.