Devourer [Planescape]

A devourer is a very tall, gaunt, skeletal thing. Inside what looks like its rib cage there is usually a tiny figure, plainly helpless and in agony, and often with the worn look of someone held prisoner for ages. Nothing about it suggests anything but a monster. Many planar travelers see devourers as evil in its purest form, even though they do not come from the Lower Planes, because they will rip the life force out of others simply to power their own magic.

Its long crooked claws deal 2d6 per hit, and any touch strips away an energy level as well. A wounded devourer heals as many hit points as a drained victim permanently loses.

Worse, it can steal a whole spirit. On a successful attack against a chosen target, the victim must save vs. death magic or die, the spirit appearing inside the devourer's ribs for all to see. A trapped spirit can do nothing and cannot be raised with raise dead; it exists only to power its captor. The ribs hold one spirit at a time, so the creature hunts the strongest prey it can find.

While it holds a spirit, the devourer may call on one power per round, at will, from this set: true seeing, summon shadow, suggestion, a spectral hand that can drain levels (though it cannot steal souls through it), ray of enfeeblement, the paralyzing effect of the wand, control undead and confusion. Every level or Hit Die left in the prisoner is worth five such uses, and when the last is spent the soul is gone for good and the hunt begins anew. An encountered devourer is 85% likely to hold a prisoner; roll 3d4+3 to find how many levels or Hit Dice remain to burn.

The prisoner doubles as armor. Should certain spells overcome the creature's magic resistance, the caged soul absorbs them in its place. These are mind-bending magic (charm, confusion, domination, emotion, ESP, fear, hypnosis and suggestion of every kind), compulsions (geas, quest), binding and soul magic (entrapment, imprisonment, magic jar, maze, spirit wrack, trap the soul) and holy or banishing magic (banishment, chaos, dispel evil, holy word). Banishment, dispel evil and entrapment, among others, actually expel the soul. An empty devourer has no spell-like powers and no such shield until it catches someone new. The released spirit remains dead but may depart for the plane matching its alignment, and raise dead can then return it to life.

Hopeful folk once claimed only one devourer existed; that has been disproved. What they are remains a riddle. Some think them a predator race of the Astral and the Ethereal, others the creations of a cruel wizard, or the shape taken by the foulest thoughts that drift into the Astral. Nobody knows whether they can talk, though telepathy is suspected. A devourer is always alone apart from its prisoner. Every living thing seems to loathe them, devourers included, and they are only ever seen while hunting. Any lairs they keep in the Astral or Ethereal remain unfound.

No one knows if or how they breed. They live on life energy alone, needing neither food nor drink, and in spite of their looks they are not undead. A few travelers report meeting them on the Negative Energy Plane, though such witnesses are hard to trust. Others believe devourers do make occasional pilgrimages there for unknown reasons; unlike undead they are not bound to that plane, which is why they roam the Astral and beyond.