Lumineaux

Lumineaux are enormous, gauzy beings of the flame-sea. Some sages compare them to giant ocean rays; others see them as white blood cells drifting through the cosmos, filtering out impurities. One finds a portal into a crystal shell and spreads over it like a cap sealing a jar, its translucent body shimmering with rainbow camouflage from the flame-sea in its cells, so starfarers almost never notice it.

A lumineaux feeds on memories. Ships entering or leaving the shell through it are drawn through a maze of permeable membranes, a passage lasting 2d4+2 turns whatever the vessel's size or speed. Ships drop to combat speed and may maneuver, but this barely changes the trip, except that a ship with SR above 6 can stall by going full reverse. Near the far membrane, the creature spits the vessel out.

Along the way it forms a telepathic link with every intelligent passenger, numbs any memory that interests it and copies it, draining one experience level per turn, never below 1st level, since it rarely means to kill. Victims feel vaguely confused and need a Wisdom check to realize what is happening, though casters may notice their spells shrinking with their levels, and all level-based abilities suffer. Lost levels return at one per day once the ship is clear, so simply riding it out is often the wisest course.

Made mostly of the flame-sea's volatile ether, it reacts to fire and incendiary magic exactly as the flame-sea does. Reading its mind or detecting its alignment forces a save vs. paralyzation at the character's current level; failure means 2d10 damage from the flood of thoughts. Other attacks and spells work normally, but if savagely attacked it will engulf its attacker again and again, draining levels until it is no threat, even if that kills it.

The bigger danger often lurks outside: scavengers waiting in the flame-sea for weakened, low-level crews. Void scavengers riding in a ship's air envelope are too dim to be drained, and the large, aggressive ones may attack the crew at its weakest.

Little is known of them, and they are rarer even than the portals they cover. The most convincing theory, held by sages who believe higher divine forces stand above the known gods, casts them as sentinels watching over each crystal shell. They are nearly always met alone, but now and then two share a portal, which sages take as evidence of a mating cycle.

Since their cells are full of the flame-sea, lumineaux can live nowhere else.