In the course of contributing to Phoenix Knight's Alien Madness thread, I came up with something from my ancient past, the Lokar. Here was my post -
[spoiler=The Lokar]The Lokar are a race of sessile invertebrates that begin their lives as barnacle-like carnivores with an odd feeding mechanism - essentially, they produce from within themselves a small mobile insectlike creature that ventures forth from the chitinous mound of the lokar proper, gorges on as much protein as possible, then returns to the lokar and is devoured. The lokar uses the biomass to fuel its own growth, producing a larger and thicker shell in the process.
The 'feasters' of the lokar are innocous to humanoids, at least on an individual basis, but about the time the lokar is the mass of a human it begins to produce swarms of feasters and release them to procure more food. As the lokar grows, the feasting swarms become large enough to annihilate the ecology in an ever-widening area, until the hill-sized lokar is at the center of an increasingly desert-like climate.
At this point in the lokar's development, it begins to cease to produce feasters and becomes quiescent for more than a century, during which time it's nervous system becomes far more complex, as does its ability to produce mobile biologics. At the end of this interval, it produces another swarm, but one with far more complex behavior - in addition to acquiring mere mass, these feasters observe and record the environment. When they return to the lokar and are devoured, the lokar reads their nervous systems in the course of digestion, and thus learns about the world outside its shell.
The lokar then begins to produce far more complex biologics, ones that mimic the pertinent appearance, odor and behavior of larger animals proximate to itself. It then sends these forth with the intention of luring or forcing these creatures back to the lokar to be eaten. Their nervous systems are read in turn, and more complex creatures are produced in consequence, some even more precise imitations of the local plants or animals, some more idiosyncratic expressions of the lokars will.
These creatures are then sent forth to perform more complex tasks, depending on the circumstances. The increasingly mountainous lokar becomes essentially the king of a vast ecological fiefdom, which could easily include sentient creatures. Some lokar take the roles of gods, hungry deities who require constant sacrifice and from whom emerge heros and prophets whose neurons are programmed to influence policies for the benefit of their progenitor. Others conceal their own existence, producing plants and fungi intended to camouflage their shells as cave-riddled hillocks; legends frequently speak of people entering such places and emerging therefrom sometimes decades or centuries later but appearing as if they hadn't aged at all. Sometimes, their personalities seem changed in odd ways...
A very few lokar produce huge, animallike beings intended to uproot them from their moorings and carry them like gigantic turtles. These individuals are more direct in their meddling than others; they do not particularly care what lesser races think of them, and thus are considered merely vast monsters from whom even the mightiest of heroes must flee.
Regardless, in humanoid terms the lokar are almost inherently evil. The lokar proper only has one sense - the sense of taste. This circuitous means of perceiving the world makes them narcissistic to the point of solipsism; although they interact with ecologies with precise complexity, they cannot imagine that anything beyond their own shells might have sense, will or intellect worthy of consideration. What the lokar call peaceful exploration and diplomacy, other beings call the worst kind of engulf and devour expansionism.
A lokar only dies from trauma; on such occasions, enclaves of cells within the shell produce one last feaster (or, if the lokar is old enough, a swarm of feasters.) These creatures fly far before they begin eating. After they have eaten their fill, they find a solid surface against which they secure themselves with resin, and there metamorphose into a juvenile lokar. Thus, a generation of lokar tend to arise generations after the death of one large individual of their race. In such regions, the secrets to finding and defeating the growing lokar might only be traceable in truly ancient folklore.[/ic]
Phoenix, is this what you are looking for? A single lokar could easily pass for a cultic god, a monster beyond mortal imagining, or as a local mystery defying all comprehension. They can function as 'body snatchers', in any sense of the term you like. They might possess psychic or mystical awareness, although they don't need to be approachable on even such abstract levels unless you would find it entertaining. They can serve the dramatic functions of the Great Old Ones in any number of ways. A lokar who had 'examined' a wizard of some sort might even begin extending its influence through multiple dimensions, which could have truly bizarre effects.
Heck, a sufficiently old and powerful lokar could stand in for R'lyeh itself, reshaping an entire locale according to its own alien aesthetics.[/spoiler]
I thought of the lokar years ago when I was trying to make coherent sense of the Cthulhu Mythos. (This was clearly before I realized that Cthulhu and the gang didn't exist to be made sense of.) Since then, I've used them a few times for various dramatic purposes. Besides their occasional appearances in horror games, they've also done duty in a superhero game to explain the reason for the interstellar spread of the humanoid form. (The lokar find it a convenient shape for large-scale biologics. Humanoids are the lokar equivalant to off-the-rack designs.)
So now I've gotten to thinking about what the lokar might come to look like in a D&D type world. What I'm trying to do here is create a kind of pantheon of hideousness, a companion thread to that of Phoenix Knight. Anyone who cares to is invited to contribute, and the results shall be useable in anyone's campaign.
For purposes of conceptual clarity, D&D 3.5 rules pertain. YMMV. (Oh, it should be added that the lokar wouldn't think of themselves by individual names - these names are occasionally used by other creatures, or rarely are imparted by supernatural sources.)
[spoiler=Potens]Potens is a typically prosperous adult lokar, the power behind the throne of a wealthy but small kingdom. Potens is esconced in a lone mountain in an environment dominated by temperate rolling hills. This region is near the capital, and for good reason - although Potens himself is not widely known, he has produced a unique manipulator biologic known as the God-King. This heroic figure makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Mount every three years or so, and returns with renewed purpose and insight. This is because he enters the mountiain, is dissolved into Potense substance, and then replaced with a duplicate sufficiently exact that humanoids can find no difference.
The God-King is worshipped extensively, although he appears to not grant spells to his clerics. He has no priesthood at his own insistence - his people insist that when he finally ascends into his power, he will cease to be a king and become a true divinity. The God-King is careful to ensure that his nation's system is fair and beneficial to everyone; Potens has other far less visible manipulators to ensure the appearance of the occasional policical scapegoat to assist in the nation's unity.
Potens has siezed control of a few other local populations; communities of gnolls, lizard folk, locathah and wasp-folk (using the statistics for giant wasps, but with an intelligence of 8 ) sometimes give a very public obeisance to the God-King, thus reinforcing his authority.
Potens has an unusual ally - a wizard named Kyursol, who has transacted with Potens for effective immortality. In essence, Potens acts as a 'clone' factory for Kyursol, producing a copy of Kyursol in his youth into which he places the soul from a kind of soul gem when Kyursol dies. Kyursol, in return, acts as a subtle manipulator for Potens - he suspects Potens is placing commands into his subconscious, but since these commands don't appear to be self-destructive, Kyursol doesn't resent the alternative to lichdom he has been enjoying for the last three centuries.
In dreamland and other mental or telepathic perceptions, Potens appears as a vast fortress in which no light or life is visible, and into which there is no entrance. His plans right now include ensuring a constant flow of sacrificial biomass pouring into the Holy Mountain that is his shell; he is preparing his land to conquer other regions from which to exact tribute.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Bilos]Bilos is an undead lokar, having been killed by divine powers at the height of its empire building power. It is entirely subterranean, and it's shell is long gone - Bilos' body is a essentially a pool of rot at the center of a network of sinkholes. In the thousand years since his death, people in the vicinity have learned to dispose of their dead carefully - Bilos has the special ability to Create Undead once per day, and has never lost the lokarian urge to experiment.
This could easily explain the appearance of new forms of undead; Bilos has no aversion to creating a new form of undead just for experimental purposes. Bilos can absorb any undead with which it comes into contact; in doing so, he can scan and record it's memories much as a living lokar can scan the memories of a living creature. Bilos cannot command undead, however, which somewhat limits it's options but does help to keep Bilos' existence a secret - it's region is simply known as a cursed land, but the idea that there is a being creating undead in an organized fashion is suspected by only a few.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Ressente]Ressente is a rather impoverished lokar; in the ages of his feasting swarms, he defoliated hundreds of miles of land, but in the dormancy of his metamorphosis into a sentient bing the land around him did not return to it's previous lushness. The first scounts he sent out returned barely nourished, reporting that there was little food to be found. Ressente perceived that if he sent out swarms, they would have to go so far that by the time they returned they would be able to provide only a little more food than that with which they had been made.
Ressente hit upon an unusual solution for a lokar; he assumed mobility. He manufactured a number of biologics that would provide his shell with movement and sense, essentially covering his outer surface with a symbiotic aggregate.
That was nearly a thousand years ago. At this point, Ressente has seven sites across the planes of his domain. Every decade or so, the small hill that occupies one of these sites gets up on a dozen or so vast legs and stumps it's way to another such site. When it arives, several small swarms emerge from the hollows and defolliate the local area. Some seeds and roots are left to maintain and regenerate the biosphere, but the area itself remains exceedingly dangerous.
Any animal passing through the area within about ten miles of Ressente's present location might be subject to an attack from a swarm of centipedes of locusts or centipedes; anyone actually approaching Ressente will certainly be attacked by such a swarm, as well as a number of stirges, manticores and ropers that function as Ressente's line of defence.
Ressente himself counts as colossal creature with an armor class of 45 and a walking speed of 10. There are few other stats that count for combat purposes; like most lokar, Ressente is more of a location to visit than a creature to fight.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Kraud]Kraud occupies the deepest reaches of the ocean. His thrall races include krakens, merfolk and sahuagin. These creatures no longer actively fight each other, although they do compete. The surface dwellers who occupy the islands in these regions have begun to develop rituals and beliefs that incorporate Kraud worship, including regularly yielding up sacrifices in the shallow areas of the ocean; the occasional reappearance of those who are sacrificed with revelations from the deep have cemented Krauds reputation as the King of the Sea.
Kraud's only real enemies in his territory are tritons. The local tritons have successfully resisted Kraud's influence, and have divined his nature. They oppose him at every possible turn, but are beset with so many enemies that they can do little real damage.[/spoiler]
Very interesting, I like how they are all distinct but nevertheless are clearly a race of 'godlike' beings. I had always wanted to put stuff like that in a game of mine, so I may steal some of this. ;)
Nice details on different lokar. I also like how you note that they don't give themselves names. Makes sense for the description of solipsism.
Kraud wins, just because an undersea terror is always scary.
Tybalt, feel free. And folks, I have a specific bit of advice to ask for. What should the supernatural status of the lokar be? Should they be able to grant spells to full clerics, or perhaps only to empower adepts? Perhaps a more specialized class, like wu jen? Might they even be the originators of psionic erudites? I've already decided that they are too alien to be contacted by normal psionic telepaths, but might that simply mean they have a stratospheric Power Resistance, or that they interact with astral reality in some more subtle fashion?
Basic question - should worshippers of the lokar get anything more substantial than an unusual catch of game/fish?
I think that as well as the gamefish that I am droolingly thinking of this.
I am thinking that for my own purposes it would be a wonderful explanation for the existence of psionics in my world--people being 'twigged' by a sinister race of beings that are entirely nonhuman and are almost never seen because of their very nature.
I don't think the worshippers need to be granted spells. It sounds like a dark Cthulu cult which might know some forbidden magic, and may even have learned it from other cult members, which may have learned it by some subtle influence of the lokar. But I don't think it needs to directly grant anything, certainly not to clerics. I'd say their priests should be something other than divine casters - either just crazy guys of any class, wizards, or maybe psions.
Tybalt, Phoenix, I appreciate the advice. Psionics is the obvious angle, of course, but there might be others. See below -
[spoiler=Korromor]Korromor is an old lokar who endured great losses in the previous millenium, and responded thereto by withdrawing from material reality. Through careful examination and collation of arcane knowledge, Korromor found a place brimming with the kind of food he could consume, but only if he partook in it's nature.
The experiment worked. One day, the mighty crumbling shell of Korromor was in the material plane, the next it was in the Plane of Shadows.
Since that time, Korromor has taken over a vast swath of shadow territory. His creatures are indistinguishable from the local shadow creatures, save that after feeding it departs to Korromor to give it additional shadowmass. Korromor has made a tenuous alliance with Bilos, but in truth he has a vested interest in connecting the plane of shadows to the material plane through sentient minds. For this reason, he has begun to impart shadow-substance to cultists and arcane scholars in the form of shadowcasting ability.
In a significant way, Korromor has become a kind of patron for shadowcasting, possibly over a very wide area indeed.[/spoiler]