Witchlight Marauder

During a great war against the orc hordes, orc shamans grew the witchlight marauders as organic shock troops. Their own surviving scroll claims the beasts were meant to answer elven aggression; in truth they were built to wipe whole elven worlds clean. They bred as fast as they killed. The war is believed to have ended them, yet orc legends whisper of time-stop devices holding a few in reserve as a final weapon.

Marauders reproduce by stages. Each primary can hatch 2d10 secondaries, and each pair of secondaries yields 1d4 tertiaries.

Space marauder: the largest form, a 1,000-foot reptilian horror that crossed the void between worlds on sails grown from special organs. The sails double as focusing mirrors that concentrate sunlight into a 25d10 beam. Its crocodilian central head, studded with glowing red eyes and a forest of yard-long blade-sharp teeth, bites for 2d6 hull points. Around it sway six long, scaly necks ending in eyeless, ship-crushing maws that each deal 1d6 hull points. The trunk-like body ends in a writhing mass of hawser-thick tentacles, and at its center three primary marauders hang from umbilicals; as each matures and drops away, another begins growing. On reaching a crystal shell, the space marauder phases inside and hunts small celestial bodies, eating rock, moons and creatures alike to produce land marauders and explosive projectiles that deal 12d6 hull points. It also spawns 1d4+1 remote feeders, 550-foot flying gullets that swallow planetary matter, digest it, and fly home to feed their parent.

Primary (land) marauder: a slug-like giant over 500 feet long, larger than even venerable red dragons. Its vast central maw eats whatever lies in its path, from trees and livestock to city walls and hillsides, while extra mouths bud out to snatch prey on both flanks. It especially craves metal, ore and magical items. Everything goes into a furnace-like gut that produces poison gas and new marauders. After a week of feeding, it digs a deep lair and spends two weeks splitting like an amoeba into two primaries while secondaries stand guard. The cycle repeats until food runs out, at which point the marauders destroy one another.

Secondary marauder: a 20-foot hunter ejected periodically by a feeding primary. It attacks with six poisonous metal talons (2d6 each, plus 1d10 more unless the target saves vs. poison), steel teeth (3d6) and a spiked tail sweep (2d10), and spits a jet of acid for 1d8 per round at up to 30 feet. Gripping feet let it climb almost any surface. Secondaries can cover miles in a night, tracking the smell of elven blood to finish off whatever the primaries left alive.

Tertiary marauder: once a secondary has gorged on living flesh, it expels these 4-foot berserkers. Each has two metal sword blades for hands, and their 18/50 Strength (+3 damage) and quickness make them deadly in melee.

The marauders were solitary engines of war with a single purpose: a scorched-earth campaign to leave elven worlds as dead rock. Elven spies uncovered the scheme before the beasts were loosed, and the elves struck first with weapons of their own, living war-suits and spirit soldiers, crushing the orcs. Some old scrolls claim a single space marauder blasted past the elven fleet and fled into the void. Elven scholars wave this off as orc propaganda.

Orc breeders developed the marauders specifically to counter elven spirit soldiers, fielding them as land and air or space attackers. Though the elves were thought to have destroyed every one, a few may survive sealed in time-stop fields or drifting along the starlanes. Any party that stumbles on one of these living time bombs is wise to leave at once.