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[Iituem]

I ate a little more of the world and spat out two more creatures born of hunger...


The Mana Slug is exactly what it says on the tin; a purple slug that eats magic.  The mana slug has a mouth and consumes vegetable matter to supplement its diet, and can even subsist solely on vegetables for a time if no magic is available.  Its primary source of nutrition, however, is ambient magic.  Mana slugs consume the ambient magic in an area, typically not moving much except to occasionally chew on plant life and to mate and lay eggs.  Large numbers of slugs can soak up all the ambient magic in an area, so their offspring may migrate to more magical pastures, eating plants along the way to support themselves.  They tend to be quite common in the green belts around the supervolcanoes where both magic and plant life is common.

Mana slugs extract ambient magic and store it in sacs in their body for later consumption, in the form of a blue liquid called mana.  Mana contains a very high concentration of magic, and if extracted can be crystallised for storage.  Mana slugs cannot really be milked, but they have a high enough reproductive rate that a sentient species could hypothetically farm them.

When threatened, mana slugs emit a dull humming sound (in large numbers this can become a massive droning sound).  If they get incredibly agitated (e.g. being eaten) their defensive mechanism kicks in - they violently discharge all the magic in their bodies with the force of a hand grenade.  In large colonies of slugs this can cause an extremely deadly chain reaction.  The only way to successfully harvest slugs is to kill them in one stroke (usually by crushing or biting the head) without alarming neighbouring slugs.  Mana slug predators are typically birds, picking off lone slugs and crushing them with their beaks before they can explode.

Where there are large colonies of slugs, magical creatures may find their abilities dampened, particularly if they are physically close to a number of slugs at once.  Slug colonies near Benea's Favour bushes tend to thrive off the residual magic, but they can interfere with the magical properties of the plant in large numbers.


The Wraith appears to all extents and purposes to be a heart made of flesh-like glass.  Wraiths devour flesh and transmute it into magical energy.  Much of this energy is used to maintain their distinct appearance.

An infant wraith is implanted into the body of a live or dying victim and migrates its way to the victim's heart, which it consumes and replaces with itself.  Over time it consumes more and more of the victim's body from the inside out, but as it does so it replaces the lost tissue with a magical equivalent - one composed merely of force.  Eventually the victim is completely consumed and appears to the world to be a glass-like or translucent replica of the original, down to the smallest feature, save for its glass-like heart.  It continues to wander about the world, operating on copied instincts from the original, to all appearances a ghostly apparition.

Adult wraiths will attack other creatures, particularly the weak or injured, using ethereal equivalents of the original creature's natural weapons.  Once they have achieved a kill, they devour the corpse and then slowly metabolise it to sustain themselves.  While digesting, the flesh seems to 'fill in' the missing original parts of the creature.  Occasionally they will instead 'punch' into the creature and lay one of their glassy eggs in its bloodstream, where it will migrate to the heart and replace it.

If the ethereal parts of a wraith are destroyed, they will regenerate back using the stored energy in the wraith's heart.  Killing a wraith requires you to destroy or damage its 'heart', which is the actual creature.  As a plus, the heart is filled with viscous transparent gel which is saturated with magic.

[RAM]

As the great worms shattered their way through the underground lands, creatures drew forth from the deep-dwellers to renew those lands. Where the paths had been sealed, blind worms swelled to hordes and forged new passages and chambers. Creatures of hard shells and long legs gained size and vitality, forging grand landscapes from thin threads. And in the rings above began a great migration of boulders, following one another in endless procession.

The worms travel in baffling groups, sometimes solid masses of them creating massive chambers in a single day, sometimes individuals squirming along the ground, sometimes a dozen condensing from the soil in unison, just to hastily scatter. Whatever their path, they live feasting upon whatever they encounter, be it mineral or otherwise. Where they live building spaces, they perish on walls or ceilings, leaving hardened husks stuck in place, reinforcing the walls as new infants fall from the corpse. While not inclined to hunt, their perfection at digging can lead to them leaping from the solid ground without warning, and they will bite whatever they encounter with unnaturally powerful jaws and an acidic venom that can rot a whole limb in an instant.

Within the chambers the arachnid creatures bore a dozen legs and subsisted mostly from draping great silken sails and eating stray organic matter that had been caught while blowing through the tunnels. Industrious and cautious by nature, they lay thick carpets over blemishes in their territories, covering stagnant holes, walling off dangers, breaking off their many jagged blades and spines(which regrow swiftly) and placing them in fields around the moorings of the sails which sustain them. If agitated, they will coat their legs, blades, and spines with a sedative venom that drips from various glands across their bodies and attack, often by breaking off and hurling their spines. While willing to eat intruders if they are hungry, and possessing a venom capable of paralysing vital organs in high doses, these creatures are generally inclined to simply disable a threat and dump it beyond their territory to travel far away under its own power, rather than have its remains cause unwanted clutter. They are possessed of a great vitality, able to regrow bodyparts in a matter of hours and often remaining alive with the ability to fully recover after sustaining massive damage, it is rare for them to succumb to violence unless their life is unnaturally suppressed or caught without defenders and subjected to methodical mutilation. They are social and will often have several families united and tending multiple sails. They communicate mostly through dances and physical contact, although they also leave trails of venom and other pieces of themselves.

The stone hers seem to be solid rock, drawing in stray energies filtering from the world far below, slowly growing in size and emitting a faint glow. They show little behaviour other than to follow, will occasionally split in half and form two creatures where once there was one, and sometimes fling themselves from the rings and gradually lose momentum until they plummet to whatever lays beneath. They follow little in the way of consistency, slowly growing locomotion of they lack it, sometimes rolling, sometimes producing barely-flexible legs or tails, sometimes growing dark and spontaneously growing a large lever with which to hurl themselves to a probable demise. Lacking any internal structure of note, they will generally form a viable creature form any chunks of sufficient size. If any somehow survived the fall to the world proper, they would, in a comparatively rich environ, likely grow relatively rapidly and glow relatively brightly, and just continue to grow until smashed into fine rubble.

[Generally me]

The Eyul
Brown or black fur, four legs, a extremely strong Sense of smell and hearing but no eyes. There mouth is unnaturally large with a single row of impossibly sharp teeth meant for severing limbs. They are 4m length ways and 2m in height. They are extremely wolf like in appearance except for a lack of eyes and massive jaws take up most of their face.

They live down in the deeps of the world. They are very caring of their own species and tend to make their homes last for generations. There fur camoflouges them so well that you won't even see them till they open their jaws. They predominantly hunt in packs of three but if the local wild life is big or clever enough they set up ambushes.

There is a surface variant but the only real difference between them is the surface ones are more streamlined and have a different fur colour to blend in.

Both variants are suprisingly easy to bribe. With much of their food coming from creatures giving up their own food for the Eyul to let them live. And they do let them live.

The Narvo
Massive snake like creatures that live atop the peaks of mountains. On average Length ways they are 20 metres long and 1 metre in diameter but since they continue growing for their whole life albeit slowly they can grow to probaly at max around 100 metres long and 5 metres in diameter before it starts to get unwieldy and difficult to hunt. But there are some Narvo that wildlife have grown so feared of, that they give offerings of food to them even after they have grown too large to hunt. There lifespan is indefinite and they can live forever if they can survive. The strangest thing about these creatures is not there immortality or their never ending growth but the simple fact they can fly. By unknown means you will see them in the sky their long scaly bodies moving as if on the ground. They are also known to be completely immune to any sort of illness or hostile takeover of their body. Some theorise this is because of their innate magical ability that they seem to have, how else could they fly?

The Narvo are incredibly independent and only ever meet each other to mate or fight over hunting grounds. Fights over hunting ground are very spectacular with their huge bodies curling around each other in the sky and their jaws snapping at one another till one either dies or submits.

Narvo do not speak, they instead project a message into your mind. They have also been known to adopt a living creature but very rarely does this happen and nearly exclusively by the Narvos above 60 metres.

Snappers
Tiny cute little things that live in the jungle. They are around 0.25 metres tall and walk on two legs with a round furry body on top. Their eyes are large and deeply sunk into their face, their mouth is, when closed, a flat line giving them an innocent and cute looking face. But don't be fooled as the second they open that mouth you will see three rows of sharp teeth that will bite at your tendons to stop you from running. Then a whole crowd of these small beasts will jump out and start feeding.

Their fur is Camoflouged to blend in with the environment. They live in packs of 30 or so with their nests being dug underground and suprisingly complex with multiple escape routes and a separate dugout for every inhabitant.



All of thes beasts are predominant on the forge island. The Narvo living in the mountains, Snappers living in the jungle and the Eyul living in the valleys and underground.

[Pencil_Art]

((Sorry for the wait.))

Tarros looked upon the world, and was pleased. The next step was to populate it with life, the most exciting stage and the one that would affect history the most profoundly forevermore.

Whispering Willows

Trees, green of bark and light of branch, sway in the wind and listen to the thoughts of mortals as the eons pass...

The Whispering Willows live in small patches in forests, often surrounding a pristine clearing. While around these mysterious creatures, for they are not fully of plant, one will overhear discussions seemingly between the trees taking place. They may even whisper to lucky creatures whom they like, having observed them often. Their views of the passing of time are different. Often a day is a minute, or even a second to the trees, and so they watch history take place.

Their bark has a light green hue to it, and the leaves are blue tinged purple. Small orbs of light sometimes appear around them, all kinds of colors, and the trees themselves glow at night. They can grow to be many meters tall, and live for ages uncounted. The largest are always the wisest.

Their fruit is a subtle cyan. It has a slightly sour taste, mingling with sweetness.

Whisperers

The keepers of the willows, these giants peacefully tend their charge..

Whisperers are akin to the Ents of Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings' and keep the Whispering Willows from danger. They lumber at over five meters in height, though they can hide surprisingly well when a traveler chances upon their grove.

They watch those who they favor, and dispose of those they do not. They judge depending on the actions of the traveler, but will not harm them if they do not harm the willows.

Their bark and leaves are like the Whispering Willows, and the same nimbus of light surrounds them, though they can extinguish this at will.

Nagra

The watchers of the ages, they squat on the edges of the wild as eons pass and the light fades...

The Nagra are a secretive animal, reptilian and humanoid, reaching no more then one and a half meters in height when fully grown. Their eyes glisten with the wisdom passed down to them through the ages, and they trouble nobody. Their diet consists mostly of fruit and leaves found in forests and jungles. There are a few varieties, though they all like to stay among the trees. Their scaly skin is hardy, and can dull most blades.

They lay up to three eggs at a time. The nest-family is a tightly knit community, composed of family members. The children soon split to find their own way in the world.

[Deny]

Pencil_Art, you can only make three species, you'll have to get rid of one of those.

Also this is my little announcement, I will be doing the next turn tomorrow morning so if any of you want to quickly do or change something, do it now, I would have done this earlier but last week was exam week, then I had work, then it was supanova, and then I had work again. But the next turn will be up tomorrow

[Pencil_Art]

Done.

[Humaan]

(Oops, forgot to post the rest.)

Patience has observed even more issues for Benevilan to deal with. There was now a species which would devour the creation he had made, slugs of magic. The funny thing is, they wouldn't actually be that much of a threat, at least to a trained eye, so he allowed it to pass.

Giant snakes, speaking trees, mysterious underground beasts, the world had far more interesting beasts to worry about. Worst, a new being had appeared, a horrific Wraith, one which would devour creatures with its presence. No great beasts one the land could stand up to it, beyond those who were never material to begin with. Benevilan knew he had to act against this, but it would not be a simple fix. He thought of two beings, the Guardian Behemoth and the Esper, and began to create them anew.

Guardian Behemoths are large, powerful beings which live worldwide. They are dragon-like in appearance, with powerful wings and a thick hide, and have an amazing endurance. Such is their endurance that they could even fly to the Continent of Benea with their personal abilities alone, magic not included. What makes them unique, however, is the mysterious magic surrounding them.

When Guardian Behemoths are born, the lack the armored hide, and start as big as a large dog. However, their youth grants them a ravenous hunger, in which they will eat anything, from the stone beneath their feet to flesh, from mighty trees to magical energies, to even something as hostile as lava. This molds their bodies and grants it properties as it eats. Eating stones early in its life would make its hide even more impressive tough, snow (and to a similar effect, drinking large amounts of water) would surround it in aura of cold, things similar to that. Eating magic itself would allow them to be great sources of magic as well, and flesh would allow it to adopt the properties of whatever creature it devours. This continues until they reach adulthood in about forty years from their birth, in which their need to eat stops.

In a similar situation, their mind is born simple, and is completely shaped by treatment and intent. In the wild, this would make them territorial, granting them a cunning far exceeding most to survive. They have a large dislike of other Guardian Behemoths, as they are very likely to have been trying to eat each other at a young age. Someone training them as a pack animal, however, would find their mind to be far simpler, being content to carry loads, with a calm movement of wings. Trained as a warbeast would make them ferocious, with a horrific bloodlust, though controlling this would be tough.

Guardian Behemoths, even after losing their need to eat, do not stop growing. An adult is larger than a small house, and while its growth slows down at that point, it hardly stops. The oldest of their number, as they are immortal in nature, are more of a kin to the terrain then others, at which case they may leave the world below and rise up into the stars. Not feeding them in their youth will not keep them smaller, as their growth is magical in nature.


Espers are being of pure magic, appearing when the concentration of magic in an area gets very large. Granted intelligence by their formation, they guard the nature around them. They have no consistent shape, as they tend to take form as whatever is convenient at the time, though they can and do develop 'favorite' forms.

Espers develop magic based on their surroundings as well. Due to this, Fire Espers are by far the most common, hiding around the volcanoes, their control over fire being obvious. Nature Espers, the second most common, tend to be near any large concentration of magical plants and other beings, controlling plants and other nearby beings. As magic is spread into the atmosphere, Sky Espers can appear controlling the winds. Many other exist beyond even those. Almost every environment can have them, and only the large magic requirements prevent them from being amazingly numerous, as they have to absorb ambient magic to survive, as it allows them to keep form and not dissipate back into ambient magic themselves. This also means they are basically immune to magic, as they can easily absorb it back into themselves, though enough will hurt them like anything else.

Due to the likelihood of dying without enough magic, Espers also have a unique ability, the Esper's Pact, allowing people to use their magical power in return to them latching on the life energy of a pact-maker to survive. This certainly lowers the life expectancy of who ever accepts the pact, though it can be staved off by absorbing mana into yourself, whether from a physical form by harvesting Mana Slugs, or by being in areas of high magical energy. The pact also carries risk of possession, as the Esper could get control of your body, but it rarely would seek to do so unless a massive clash of ideals takes place, as this burns life energy far faster then they normally would want. Of course, if a tempting source of magic was nearby, an Esper might make a pact-maker go over towards it to sustain themselves.

Multiple Espers rarely appear nearby, and they would be rather hostile to eachother, due to being competing drains on the ambient magic. Due to this, they would be aggressive towards each other, and one who sought to make a pact would likely be possessed to kill a rival before anything else. Mana Slugs would also be a huge target for them, as they are an even bigger drain on the ambient magic then even themselves.

The amount of ambient magic required for an Esper to appear is enough for said Esper to form and last about a hundred years, though they are immortal otherwise.

[Deny]

And so new life was spread once again to Aetheria, as Deravro watched his fellow great beings shape the world yet again, strange beasts and plants spread across the world, seeded by the great beings as the world changed again.

Deep underground, the Tunnel Beasts prowled, crafting great traps of silk to catch any stray organic matter, sentient or otherwise. Driving away any threats they see, these beats spread out to dominate the dark underworld of Aetheria. Throughout the underworld other species made it changing, vast hordes of Vile Worms tunneled their way through the earth, consuming all in their path and forging massive new tunnels, while at other times causing the unfortunate collapse of the tunnels, at times they would stumble out upon the surface, devouring anything unfortunate enough to be there at the time, and it was not just the hordes, individuals or loose groups, the sudden appearances of the Vile Worms became a feared event for all creatures of the world. Preyed upon occasionally in smaller numbers by the Tunnel Beasts, being their primary source of food, not even these creatures would get in the way of a horde of Vile Worms. And it was not just the underworld which was ever changing, the Magma Wyrms crafted new volcanoes across the surface, untouchable by all races these Magma Wyrms made an ever shaping world or fire and rock. All the while, their evolved forms the Metal Wyrms tunneled their way through the ground, changing the underworld yet further in their search for gems and precious metals, fearing only the vicious hordes of Vile Worms, who where unable to differentiate the Wyrms from the earth they usually devour, the Wryms where otherwise untouchable in the dark earth of Aetheria. Due to it's massive size, the Doom Gold attracted many of these Metal Wyrms, which devoured large chunks of the cursed metal, these wyrms forever carried a dark curse, wherever they traveled, misfortune befell the creatures around, even those which dwelt above on the surface, unaware of the wyrms presence. Earthquakes would strike, volcanoes would erupt and storms would brew, and Vile Worms would burst forth in massive numbers, fortunately for the other creatures of Aetheria, these same catastrophes would often strike these Cursed Wyrms with equal ferocity, and so they did not tend to live long after devouring the Doom Gold.

Meanwhile on the surface, new plants emerged, the strange plants known as Beneas Favor, strange plants which possessed immense restorative properties, which, whiles emerging and being quite commonly found on Benea itself, soon spread across the world, though their highest concentration remained on Benea itself. And across the world, strange plants called Whispering Willows came to being, strange plants which communed with one another, and protected from most of the world by their guardians the Whisperers, these plants watched as the new world took shape, seeing much and sharing it with one another as the history of the world became known to them.

But it was not just the Willows which observed this changing world, in the forests and jungles the Nagra dwelt, not quite being sapient, but still possessing great intelligence and knowledge, they shared the history of the world in it's purest form down the generations. Meanwhile across the sky's, the Oracles saw all, floating above the world itself, and thus preserved from many of the beasts below, they watched the world and shared their sights with many other creatures, often including other oracles. These many watchers observed other creatures being made, they saw the vicious Akhult prowl the northern ocean, devouring just about anything on both land and in the sea. They saw the strange Eyebeasts prowl the world, few creatures challenging them with their strange and unique abilities, thouhg even they had to fear the elements and the sudden Vile Worm attacks. They saw the strange Guardian Behemoths consume much in their hungers, even sometimes felling the watchers themselves, before growing to such sizes that they no longer hungered, and merely rested and grew.

On Forge Island new creatures emerged, the mighty Narvo slithered across the mountain ranges, these giant snake like creatures which wreaked terror for their prey, with their massive size and terrifying ability of flight, many crossing the seas to spread across the rest of the world. In the damp jungles the tiny Snappers prowled, tiny creatures stalked the jungles in massive packs, overwhelming their prey with the sheer numbers and shock of these creatures leaping out and crawling all over their unfortunate victim. And in the dark valleys emerged the viscous Eyul, deadly predators extracting strange forms of tribute from their victims, dwelling in the dark these creatures soon entered and spread through the underworld, where they became vicious rivals with the Tunnel Beasts, and sometimes emerging elsewhere across the surface to terrorize more life.

These watchers also saw the rise of the Mana Slugs, interfering with the works of many magical creatures, and greatly feared by the Willows, and would be by Beneas Favor if those plants could fear, for, if they are numerous enough, they may devour entire magical plants, these slugs spread across the world in massive numbers, hunted only individually for fear of their explosive defense mechanism. They also watched the rise of the Ghoul Blight, great plagues of this blight rising up periodically across the world, making many creatures vile carnivorous variants of themselves, ghouls, as they became knwon, and causing great carnage before the ghouls in the area die out of hunger once they have eaten all they can, only for the disease to prop up some other place later. The most feared ghoul's being the infected Vile Worms, for once infected, their occasional accidental attacks on surface creatures become deliberate and unending assaults on the life above to sate the new hunger.

Also emerging where the deadly Wraiths and the strange Espers, the Wraiths spread across the world, consuming mnay directly, or infecting them for the next generations, these wraiths steered well clear of colonies of Mana Slugs however, for fear of being drained of all their ambient magic required to function. While the enigmatic Espers rose up from great magical events, fearing only the mana slugs or other Espers, and often preying on the Wraiths, the Espers spread across the world, though they did not appear near the strange Heart of Aetheria or in fact anywhere within the Divine Spire. And above it all, across the great rings, strange stone creatures spread, the Stone Hershs tumbled through the rings, growing and multiplying, some falling to the world below, and often growing to immense size, though these earth dwelling Hershs would often find themselves devoured both physically and magically by the Vile Worms and the Mana Slugs.

And it was upon this that Deravro made his new creation, the Wardens, these orange spectral creatures could not be harmed physically, and possessed high resistance to magic, dwelling within the Divine Spire, they would often maintain the challenges and obstacles of the spire, while providing unique challenges themselves, some demanding their challengers outwit them in riddles, others demanding a show of great strength. Though unbeatable by most other creatures, the strange Mana Slugs would pose a threat to them, if they could ever get inside of the Spire, and even then the Wardens are intelligent enough to find ways to deal with the slugs when prepared.

And so strange life spread across the world, but none of this life could possibly inherit the strange magics of Aetheria, no, the creatures that would decide the fate of Aetheria would have to be sapient's themselves, but what exactly those sapient's would be, what would guide and direct them once the great beings where gone? That Deravro would leave up to the others.

Spoiler: Creatures of Aetheria (click to show/hide)

Name: Vile Worms Creator: The Wheel
Name: Tunnel Beasts Creator: The Wheel
Name: Stone Hershs Creator: The Wheel
Name: Oracles Creator: Zur
Name: Eyebeasts Creator: Zur
Name: Magma Wyrms Creator: Zur
Name: Metal Wyrms Creator: Zur
Name: Mana Slugs Creator: Ulth
Name: Wraiths Creator: Ulth
Name: Ghoul Blight Creator: Ulth
Name: Whispering Willows Creator: Tarros
Name: Whisperers Creator: Tarros
Name: Nagra Creator: Tarros
Name: Beneas Favour Creator: Benevilan
Name: Guardian Behemoths Creator: Benevilan
Name: Espers Creator: Benevilan
Name: Akhult Creator: Oplo
Name: Narvo Creator: Odar
Name: Snappers Creator: Odar
Name: Eyul Creator: Odar

Now it's time to make your sapient race, you can only make one each, and it has to be balanced, for instance you can make giants which are incredibly smart and Strong, but they will breed incredibly slowly, and won't be allowed to have massive lifespans. Also it has to be mostly organic, they can have magical elements but they must at their core be organic races. You will also now create the Caretakers, which are they guys you will leave behind to watch and guide your race, and you will play as these caretakers. They aren't nearly as powerful as the Great Beings, but they are still very powerful and can be compared to minor gods, they can't shape the earth as a whole but they can raise a single mountain. How they interact with their race will be up to you, but they can't babysit them and solve all their problems for the race. There is more but it isn't as important and will just make this end part way too long, so for now go crazy, you guys have come up with some really cool stuff so far so I look forward to seeing what you come up with now.

[Demonic Spoon]

Zur looked upon creation and saw it to be good. Now he would make his chosen people. To see all that can be seen, even that which should not be. Deus Vult!

The darkness of the Underdark twisted, congealing into quivering masses of jelly-like flesh, birthing the first Sight-Eaters. The base of their body is like that of a four-armed starfish, four limbs radiating out from the center, equidistant to each other. From the center where these limbs meet rises a short but supple neck, flaring off into a flat disk. At the center of the disk is a large black eye, with six smaller eyes around it. The six smaller eyes are arranged in a circle around the central one, each a different colour, forming a colour wheel from red through to purple. The neck is even more flexible than that of an owl and can bend easily in nearly any direction and manner, allowing the eyes to look at anything from any angle. Several noses, ears and taste receptors are also located along the length of their neck, but there are only the eyes on the disk itself.

Spoiler: Rough Sketch (click to show/hide)

The skin of Sight-Eaters is black as sin, but oddly they do not cast shadows. Depending on their age and strength, the texture and toughness of their flesh can range from mushy jelly to a damage-resistant rubbery consistency. Their skin is covered in a layer of black slime and mucus, which allows them to slide across surfaces and stick to them, allowing them to smoothly drag themselves across the ground with their arms, and move on walls and ceilings.

Sight-Eaters are obligate carnivores, with their preferred diet being eyes. They can in fact thrive on a diet consisting entirely of eyeballs, and will do so if they can, only eating other flesh if there are not enough eyeballs to go around. The only exception to their strict carnivorous nature is the ability to also digest the eyes of non-flesh creatures, such as plants that sprout eyes.

The end of each of their arms ends in a fanged maw, each of which has a long prehensile tongue that they extend from the mouth up to a distance of a meter. These tongues, in addition to having retractable hooked barbs, are more dextrous than the arms, and are often used by the Sight-Eaters for more delicate manipulation they cannot carry out with their arms. A favoured use of the tongues is strike out with them, plucking out the eyes of the Sight-Eater's prey, depositing them in the mouth. An interesting quality of the tongues however, is that they do not posses any sense of taste, Sight-Eaters will often rub food on their neck taste sensors to savour its taste before eating it.

A Sight-Eater is roughly half the size of a adult human male for the entirety of their life-cycle, with inferior brute strength and endurance when compared to a similarly sized human, but better dexterity, agility and sprinting speed. They are amphibious, being able to survive both on land and in the sea, and deal surprisingly well with arid environments, the surface of their mucus layer drying into a protective membrane, that protects them from dehydration, but severely limits their mobility at the same time, slowing their movement speed to a crawl.


At the beginning of their life-cycle, Sight-Eaters can only see in monochrome, but can see perfectly in darkness. This central eye also possesses the power of petrification, turning any who locks eyes with it into stone  Only their central black eye is open, and in fact this eye lacks an eyelid entirely, the other six possess eyelids, and are completely sealed, unable to be opened.

Six years after their birth their first outer eye can open, allowing to see infrared, red and heat, in addition to becoming immune to visual illusions, giving them the ability to crudely join their consciousnesses with any who meet their eyes. Six years later this process repeats with their second outer eye, allowing them to see into the orange spectrum of light, and see the invisible and burn things with their gaze. And so on the process repeats every six years until all six outer eyes are open, each allowing the Sight-Eater to see further into the electromagnetic spectrum, increasing their general visual acuity, unveils a further aspect of reality to their sight, and finally, giving them an additional gaze power.

However, their sight is not infallible, though they can see better and more as more eyes open, their sight is definitively inferior to what they would gain from possessing the Lenses of Sight.

The eyes are firmly sealed before the appointed stage in the Sight-Eater's life, and if forced open with brute force before then, will drive the Sight-Eater completely insane, though the gaze attacks will function normally.

The abilities of the eyes are as follows

Zeroth (Black): Black and White, Darkvision, Petrification
One (Red): Infrared, Pierces Illusions, Mind-Joining
Two (Orange): See Invisible, Sleep
Three (Yellow): See Magic, Fire
Four (Green): See Lies, Life Draining
Five (Blue): See through Solid Object, Magic Draining
Six (Purple): Ultraviolet and the entire Electromagnetic Spectrum (Radio Waves etc), See Gods and Greater Spirits, Soul-Eating

Spoiler: More detailed version of eye powers (click to show/hide)

Black: Slowly turns the victim into stone
Red: Can see the illusion as an misty afterimage, with the true images also seen with crystal clarity. The Mind-Joining is a highly uncomfortable process that forcibly submerges to two participants minds in that of the other, allowing them to know each others thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, feelings and memories. It's usually pretty traumatic when used on another sophont, making Sight-Eater's reluctant to use their outer eyes on other intelligent creatures.
Orange: Can see creatures that are invisible, either magically or naturally (transparent), as well as those that are simply camouflaged. "Sleep" will put the target into an unconscious state or otherwise incapacitate it depending on the physiology of the victim.
Yellow: They can see the Flows of Magic. Anything that meets its eyes is set ablaze. Fake eyes also work, so for example you could carve eyes into a piece of wood, look at them and set the wood on fire.
Green: They can see lies, naturally able to know when something they see is untrue or saying something untrue. They can drain the lifeforce from a victim, weakening them while healing and strengthening the Sight-Beast, as well as increasing their lifespan slightly.
Blue: Can see through solid objects. Can drain magic from a target, empowering the Sight-Eater.
Purple: When all seven the Sight-Eater's eyes are uncovered, they are said to be able to see everything, even Zur itself, circling the planet if they look up into the sky, past the great Rings. Of course, any who do look at the sky with all seven eyes uncovered become insane so that's hard to confirm. With the sixth outer eye open, the Sight-Eaters can eat the very soul of their target, giving them their power, greatly strengthening them. However, eating souls is very mentally taxing and if overdone can leave the Sight-Eater a braindead drooling imbecile.

Their gaze powers have nowhere near the tyrannical might of the Eyebeasts, it is possible to resist all of them, though the Petrification of their central eye, which is their strongest gaze attack, is the hardest to resist. With each additional eye they can open, the strength of all their gaze attacks increases, and it becomes harder to resist. However, they must open all the preceding eyes to open a specific eye, if a Sight-Eater wanted to open its sixth eye, it would have open the other five outer eyes as well.

In addition, once opened an outer eye shares its gaze attack with all the other outer eyes, so for example, if the red and orange eyes were open, both would have the sleep and mind-joining powers. This does apply to mundane vision as well, allowing each eye to see a larger amount of the spectrum, but does not apply to other eye abilities such as seeing the invisible or piercing illusions.

It is thus not possible to "cheat" the system by covering specific eyes with eyepatches. The only way to do so would be forcibly open eyes out of sequence by external means, which will cause insanity like forcing open a sealed eye would.

The exception to all this is the Central eye, which doesn't share its petrification ability with the other eyes and can thus be covered with an eyepatch to prevent that ability from being used. It also does not gain the other eyes' gaze attacks,

All their gaze attacks are mutual, meaning that the victim needs to meet the Sight-Eater's gaze for the power to activate. In addition, keeping too many eyes open for long periods of time is taxing to the Sight-Eater, eating away at their energy reserves and their sanity.

Finally, if a Sight-Eater can eat enough eyes, or the eyes of particularly powerful creatures, they improve the power of their gaze attacks, making them more effective and harder to resist, as well as increasing their own physical strength and resistance to magic and gaze attacks. If the eyes of powerful creatures who possess their own gaze attacks are eaten, such as Eyebeasts, Sight-Eaters might even unseal their eyes earlier than normal, or if all eyes are unsealed, improve their gaze attacks to the point where they don't need to meet the gaze of the target or object, merely look at it to have it be effected by the power.

This would work sequentially, first effecting the petrification gaze and then moving on from red through orange until purple is reached. If at that point, they continued eating the eyes of gaze attack monsters, they might even gain the gaze-attacks of the eaten eyes, though this only has a small chance of occurring, and if they succeed the Sight-Eater's entire body will be wracked with unbearable pain for months as it assimilates the ability.


When the Sight-Eater's last eye has been unsealed, usually at the age of 36, but potentially earlier if they had feasted on eyes, they only have another seven years of life left. As such, unsealing all their eyes earlier means they will also die earlier. On the other hand, life draining can be used to help them live longer, and the Sight-Eater is now considered sexually mature.

Once an Sight-Eater has unsealed its final eye, they can mate with another Sight-Eater who also has all its eyes unsealed, by having all seven their eyes open and then meet the gazes of their partner. This causes a positive feedback loop, where their minds are continuously being joined, constantly draining away the life and magic of their partner, eating each others souls and of course, slowly getting turned into inanimate lumps of rock. However, due to a quirk of Sight-Eater physiology, their gaze attacks still function if they are petrified, and the two stone Sight-Eater's will continue with the feedback loop, even as stone burns, their locked eyes forming a small squall of magical power from which fledgling Sight-Eaters will eventually emerge. Obviously, the two parents do not survive the mating process.


Due to the nature of their Central Eye and their other eyes, especially the mind-joining one, it's generally taboo to meet the eyes of another person in Sight-Eater society. Losing an eye is seen as the worst possible wound or punishment this side of death, because you will be unable to procreate and never be able to achieve your full potential or see the true nature of reality.

As such, criminals might have one of their eyes removed, if one of the outer eyes, possibly breaking the chain of how many eyes they can open. Sight-Eater eyes are of course highly valued by other Sight-Eaters, due to the benefits of eating the eyes of a creature with gaze-attacks, so these eyes are usually eaten. A grim tactic sometimes used by certain Sight-Eaters is to petrify other Sight-Eaters and have them serve as unliving guardians with their gaze attacks. Joining your mind with that of unliving rock is even more traumatic than regular meldings as well.

Sight-Eaters are fond of petrifying Mana Slugs and Wraiths, as this automatically crystallizes their internal mana, for easy use and storage once extracted from the slug or wraith-heart, hunting creatures with their sleep gaze and cooking creatures with their fire gaze, whether directly, or indirectly, setting wood on fire by harvesting from eye-trees or carving eyes into the wood, and then cooking the meat on the fire.


Zur saw the Sight-Eaters squirming through the bowels of the earth, mewling for the protection and guidance of their progenitor and felt his eye-heart soften slightly. His stare bored into the tip of one of his tentacles, making a tiny pinprick wound, from which a single drop of ichor welled up, falling down to the planet below, falling faster and faster, long since having surpassed terminal velocity, even as it solidified, crashing into the ocean, causing a massive tsunami as it bored down through miles of water, crashing through the seabed into the underdark below, flooding many tunnels.

Then it shuddered into coherent motion as the unbound potential of life contained within it finally stabilized and took a permanent form. The herald of the absolute Zur had descended upon the world. Zu-Ur was born!

The oceans boil at his touch, mountains groan and shudder in the wake of his passing, deserts melt beneath the weight of his presence, forests turn into iron and salt at his gaze, grasslands wither under his breath and creatures are obliterated at the faintest scent of his indomitable will. Also, he can shoot laser eyebeams. He would be the Sight-Eaters' shield, destroying the greatest threats to their existence, as well as being their guiding lantern, illuminating the myriad paths of the future to them.


Well that ballooned rather terribly. Brevity not yet mastered!

[Deny]

Very cool, but I am a bit iffy on the petrification of the central eye, however since it appears to be a core part of their society I won't make you get rid of it, however I will have to ask you to weaken the petrification, perhaps it just makes the target stand still or turns them to stone very slowly. Remember these races have to be balanced, aside from that the rest of their powers have enough caveats and costs to make it acceptable, but this goes out to everyone, these races need to be balanced.

EDIT: And a reminder, the caretakers are meant to guide the races, not babysit them, it's only in really extreme circumstances that the caretakers can take direct role to protect their race

[Demonic Spoon]

I did mean for the petrification to be slow yes, seems that wasn't quite clear. Vis a vis the caretaker, he's going to get as involved as he's allowed to be, however much that may be.

EDIT: Edited my caretaker somewhat, tried to clarify petrification slightly as well.

[Iituem]

Ulth, feeling the inexorable pull of the cosmos dragging her away to other worlds, set about leaving one final bite-mark on creation...


The Wights are descended from the Wraiths.  Like Wraiths, they are a small parasitic body rather than a wholly independent creature, and like Wraiths they must exist within a host to survive.  Unlike Wraiths, they possess keen intelligence and body-snatch their hosts rather than replacing them.

The actual Wight parasite appears to be a dull red organ, a little larger than an adult male human's fist.  As its ancestor, it consumes and replaces its host's heart.  This does stop said heart for a period of time, mimicking death.  Blood starvation usually damages the host brain in this time, but this is not a major concern.  Once suitably in place, the Wight resumes the function of the heart and starts extending tendrils through the central nervous system, repairing and replacing the lower functions of the host brain while using its own higher functions in the host's place.

In effect, they puppet the body but use their own minds instead.  As one might expect, little to none of the original host's personality or memories remain after the 'death' period.  Additionally, a newly born wight will have no learned abilities such as speech, only their instinctual behaviours.

Usually, a wight parent will tend to their newest spawn after implanting it, teaching them speech and cultural mores whilst the infant gets used to the body it now controls.  Typically, once a wight has learnt how to control a particular creature it will usually pick hosts of that type in the future.  An older wight changing hosts, if changing to a familiar type of host, will experience little to no difficulty adapting to the movement of that body.

Wights reproduce via parthenogenesis, being asexual.  Once they are old enough and have enough nutrients (and the desire to do so), an adult wight will produce 8-12 spawn and keep them attached to themselves until they can find new hosts to infect.

Infecting a host with wight young is fairly straightforward.  Either a hole is torn into the chest cavity or the wight presses their mouth to the target's mouth, usually keeping the target in place by force while they eject one of their spawn into the target's oesophagus.  Once the wight spawn is in the oesophagus (or equivalent) it will burrow its way down, making its way closer to the rhythm of the target's beating heart until it eventually reaches it, tears it apart and replaces it in its entirety.  The heart tissue is the only flesh it 'digests' directly, incorporating it into its pumping organ.  If inserted via a tear in the target's chest, the spawn will instead burrow through the target's flesh directly until it reaches the heart.

Adult wights do occasionally need to change hosts, usually if the host is elderly or dying.  This essentially follows the same process as with seeding spawn, except that the adult will break all its 'puppetry' connections with its host and force itself out of the former host's mouth into the new one.  This process is still relatively quick, but does require the target to be restrained or subdued, as the former host's body cannot be controlled.  Instead it will freeze in position for a few minutes before collapsing and dying from a lack of heart and brain function.  The new host still experiences a short 'death' period, but the adult should gain control of its new faculties almost immediately.

Wights cannot survive outside of a body for more than an hour (unless one were to replicate the conditions of a body using science), as they possess few bodily functions beyond their 'pumping', reproductive and puppetry organs and their brain.  They lack stomachs, sensory organs (they co-opt the host's) and have only the bare minimum of mobility, enough to navigate the digestive tract of a creature and burrow through their soft parts to reach the heart.

In the event that a wight's host is dying, they can overpower the host's death processes for a few hours, forcing the body on despite growing levels of toxins and structural damage to the body.  If they can swap bodies during this time, they will survive.  If not, the toxin build up will kill them.  A stab to the heart (i.e. the parasite) will kill the actual wight outright.


Wights by nature tend to be fractious, typically only living by themselves or with immediate siblings or children.  Small clans of wights tend to exist, but by default they will either live as solitary troops or integrate themselves into host culture instead.  An adult wight infecting a new host amongst civilisation (provided they studied the host enough beforehand) might be able to pass themselves off as the former person for a time, especially if that person was not well known.  Infant wights cannot.  They tend to appear at first as uncoordinated, shambling, incoherent wrecks - and other races tend to think of them as 'zombies'.  They tend to stick close to their progenitor for protection and guidance, and later on as companions or servants.

Wight society is therefore based on familial links; wights trust those who brought them up or who they have brought up (or whom they were brought up with), and infiltrator groups might not even recognise other wights outside of the family.  Non-infiltrator groups tend to be small, roving bands, usually of one type but sometimes possessing a multitude of bodies.  A traveller with an unusually loyal and intelligent series of beasts as pets might well be a roving family of wights.


In Brief:

Wights are bodysnatchers.

Wights are obligate parasites and will die without a host.  They take nutrients directly from the host, so must keep their bodies well-fed.

Wights take on the physical capabilities of their hosts.

Wights replace the mental capabilities of their hosts with their own.

Wights have human level intelligence.

Wights reproduce asexually, via pathenogenesis.  So long as one wight survives, the race can survive.

Infant wights are functionally zombies until they learn to properly inhabit the bodies they control.

Adult wights can swap bodies without the zombie stage, retaining their memories and personalities during the crossing.

Wights may swap between bodies indefinitely, resisting ageing, but can die if trapped in a dying or dead host.

During initial possession, hosts appear to die, but rise again hours or days later as a wight.


With her last bite, Ulth ate away a part of herself and spat it down to Aetheria - a piece of her hunger to devour the world in her stead.  This facet fell into the Valley of Lack, tumbling through the dark waters and drawing upon fragments of their antithesis.  She drifted out to sea, a formless clump of absence, until she came upon a fish and devoured its self, replacing it and giving her form.  She became the school of fish, devouring their selves until she could swim as a shoal to land, her bodies disintegrating beneath her all-consuming hunger.  As last of the fish she was eaten by a hungry bird, whom she became and took flight to the skies...

Ulth-Goresh is born, a Caretaker who can only take form through the destructive possession of other creatures.

[Demonic Spoon]

Excellent Iituem, nicely designed bodysnatchers you got there.

[Generally me]

What happened to my creatures? Also I'll edit in my sentient race later on.

Shifters They differ in shape depending on their Role but averagely they take a humanoid form around 6ft. They require only energy to continue living. This can either come willingly from a creature meaning the creature will continue living and regenerate the energy. Or will be taken forcefully after the creature is dead.

Because of this the Tamerians tame and control a huge range of creatures to sustain themselves. They are extremely efficient beings. But are also capable of emotion to creatures and other species when needed to strengthen a relationship. This emotion is never conveyed to other Tamerians as it is not needed.

 They reproduce by building a form for the Tamerian out of stone and clay, then a ritual that includes killing a creature to imbue the form with life. This then turns the clay into flesh and stone into bones, making a shifter. For war, Shifters start mass producing massive Shifters specially designed for combat.

They live for as long as they are useful. When they become a drain on resources they kill themselves.

They are focussed mostly on industry and science as they realise that the taming and taking of energy from creatures to sustain themselves may not be viable with a larger population.

Overview

Can take any form

Good at taming creatures

Requires energy to live (animals, electricity or any other form)

Reproduce through building(slow reproduction)

Focussed on science and industry. What ever make them most efficient

Caretaker

A 20ft Humanoid made from all the possible materials in the world.

[Deny]

Gah, I knew I missed something, I'll edit them in now