Gravislayer

Starship crews across the known star systems curse this creature. It is a sphere of grayish flesh about six feet across, pitted and scarred from long patrols in deep space, with no visible eyes, ears or other features. A wide mouth opens only when it feeds on the smashed flesh and bone of its victims.

Its only weapon is gravity. It can make any one object within 150 yards a strong gravity source, whether an asteroid, a person or a piece of ship, for as long as it keeps concentrating. Usually it picks a victim, then waits for nearby rocks to fall onto that person.

How deadly this is depends on what is around to fall and how far it travels. Every object belongs to one of three categories: pebbles weigh under a pound, boulders roughly 100-1,000 pounds, and planetoids over 10,000 pounds. Wreckage, a chest of coins or anything else is sorted the same way, and the local surroundings determine how many of each are available. Each falling object takes 1d6 rounds to arrive, rolled separately, and its damage depends on its size and how many rounds it fell. Planetoids deal half damage to a target who saves vs. breath weapon; for pebbles and boulders, that save means no damage at all.

Killing the creature before the rocks land helps enormously: dodging gets much easier: each falling object allows a save vs. breath weapon with a +5 bonus plus 2 more for each round still to go. Experienced crews therefore find and kill the creature first, then deal with the incoming rocks.

Gravislayers have no known homeworld or society. Sailors tell of a cult of immensely powerful wizards, the star-lords, enemies of the void artisans, who made the creatures for their own ends and set them loose.

None has ever been captured for study, so how they breed, if they breed at all, is unknown. A gravislayer is unaffected by gravity it creates, but natural gravity affects it normally.