A dangerous form of astrofauna, mostly found while travelling through space but occasionally seen on planetary surfaces or in xeno-menageries.
Antarean Power-Sucker
Normally only a menace to space-faring civilizations, Antarean power-suckers have sometimes been unintentionally carried to backwater worlds like Earth by alien visitors. The creatures can survive in most planetary environments but gravity wells and the lack of cosmic radiation disrupts their reproductive cycle, so at least they don't become a growing threat like many invasive species. Even a handful of power-suckers can do a great deal of harm to a technological civilization, and they're tough enough to give even superheroes some trouble in removing or exterminating them.
When found in their native deep-space and far-orbit environments, power-suckers are a serious danger to space craft and orbital stations,. With an adequate supply of energy to feast on their numbers can multiply rapidly. A large infestation can interdict traffic across an entire star system, although once the food supply runs out they'll disperse quickly by creating cosmic space rifts and blindly jumping between stars in search of fresh hunting grounds.
Description: A faintly luminescent wormlike creature, almost ten feet long with a cluster of brighter eyespots at one end. Bands of wriggling tendrils protrude from between each of its dozen body segments. The whole outlandish creature squirms along in mid-air, blithely defying gravity. When it spawns minions some of its tendrils separate from the whole and form a halo around their parent, forming an energy transference network. Silent, but the being does cause considerable static interference on radio bandwidths.
Gender: None Age: Unknown Length: 9' Energy Sensors: Glowing Magenta
Tendrils: White-tipped Integument: Dark Yellow-Orange Build: Segmented Vermiform
Approach: Leech Archetype: Legion
Health: 10 + (5 x H)
Powers: Absorption d10, Cosmic d8, Flight d6
Qualities: Alertness d8, Cosmic Leech d8, Deep Space Knowledge d8, Otherworldly Mythos d8
Status: (# of Legion Minions) 0 - d12 / 1-2 - d10 / 3-4 - d8 / 5-8 - d6 / 9+ - d4
Abilities:
Disperse Squirmlings (A) Roll your single status die. Deal yourself that much irreducible damage. Create that many d6 legion minions.
Durable Squirmlings (I) Whenever a Legion minion with a die size greater than d4 rolls a save against physical damage, instead of the normal effects if it succeeds it splits into two minions, each of one smaller die size, and you take 1 irreducible damage. If it fails its save, it is only reduced one die size rather than being destroyed.
Energy Sponge (R) When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling your single Absorption die. If this negates the damage entirely, Hinder the Attacker and Boost yourself using the same roll.
Pattern Interference (I) Whenever multiple legion minions all take the same action against the same target, you must roll all their dice at once and use the lowest rolling die amongst them for each minion's result on that action.
Power Leech (A) Attack one target using Cosmic Leech. Use your Max die. Hinder that target using your Mid die. Recover Health equal to your Min die.
Upgrades & Masteries (optional):
Power Upgrade (I) +20 Health. Increase all Power dice sizes by one (max d12).
Master of Superiority (I) As long as you are manifesting an effect related to a power you have at d12, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving usage of those powers.
Tactics
Antarean Power-Suckers are nearly brainless and have little sense of self-preservation. In combat they focus on draining energy from whatever source is most available while spawning waves of squirmlings as the next stage of their life cycle. Their usual approach will be to use Disperse Squirmlings, draining their own energy considerably. The next round they'll wait for the new minions to stabilize and start feeding energy back into them, doing massed Boosts in defiance of the limitations of Pattern Interference - each of them will usually produce a +1 bonus this way. Once Boosted, the Power-Sucker will use Power Leech on a tasty energy source, pumping bonuses into the Min die to heal and repeating the move until full. The following round it will spawn more minions, restarting the cycle. While squirmling minions are pretty weak, Durable Squirmlings makes them harder to dispose of than they initially look. Their parent will use its Energy Sponge reaction whenever possible, and may devote some of its bonuses to it to improve the chances of getting the rider effects for stopping all damage.
If the thing ever manages to get 13+ minions in play at once while the parent has at least 15 Health, they'll shift their tactics and start spreading out and Attacking and Hindering their foes sensibly to maximize their impact rather than suffering from Pattern Interference. Even if they're mostly d4 minions at that point, they become quite a bit more of a threat at that point.
An upgraded Power-Sucker is an unusually old and successful specimen of the species, and its mastery will mostly be used for getting at particularly energetic food sources or escaping if a situation goes bad.
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