The Devourer

This document has been contributed by: Sha'Ren the Lost

I apologise in advance, this is a pointless topic. I tried to convince him not to write this, but something something "fate of the universe" something something "monsters" and I didn't bother to listen to his explanations, seeing as he didnt bother to listen to me.

The Devourer is a creature of debated existence. Many dismiss it as a fairy tale made to scare children, but I have reason to include it in my compendium. As this creature appears to be native to the Astral Plane, it is only natural than most folk would not encounter this creature, and so the question as to whether or not it actually exists, to most, remains a mystery. If that were the end of it, I would leave this out of my collection - however, there is more to this than what meets the eye. Most scholars would argue against the existence of the Devourer, and there is reason to - there is no direct evidence pointing to the Devourer. But for a creature such as this, I would argue that there is unlikely to be direct evidence. Of course, most do not encounter this creature, and no doubt whoever does would meet a grizzly fate. But its children, that is where the evidence as to this creature's existence lie. In this article, I will argue for the existence of such a creature, extrapolate potential origins, and discuss the potential implications of its existence.

Point 1: Extraplanar Monsters

There are many monsters in this world - I consider myself an expert on them. Most monsters have a clear origin: skulks are summoned from the Shadowfell, and Chosen of Wrinyth are abominations formed by their goddess. However, there are some creatures that even the most trained of scholars fail to classify. We call these creatures "abberations", a catch-all term. But inspecting closer, we can notice that these abberations fall into one of two categories: creative, and destructive. Creative abberations have restorative or generative effects on their surroundings, while destructive abberations feed off of their surroundings for energy.

1.a: The argument for a greater entity

The reasons that this is interesting is twofold: first, the creative energy generated by the first category of abberation appears to be almost pure magic directly from the Astral Plane. Second, and more importantly, the destructive abberations feed off of neither life, nor material energy, but planar energy. One could extrapolate easily that these creatures have come from the Astral Plane, from these capabilities. But a far more compelling argument lies in the theories of the creation of this world.

1.b: The age of the world

Though it is impossible to know the exact age of any of the planes, many scholars have attempted to make estimates, most often based on ages of the oldest known elves, dwarven stone-dating techniques, and in-depth analysis of folk stories and legends. Due to the subjective nature of this field, there is much debate on these ages, though there are a few "facts" that are generally agreed upon. These are a) that the Material Plane was the first of the central planes to exist, and b) that the Astral Plane pre-dated the rest of the outer planes. For the purposes of my argument, we will assume that both of these theories are correct. On a much smaller scale, these creative abberations are doing what is essentially the creation of planar energy - on a larger scale, this could translate to the creation of entire planes of existence. Given that the destructive abberations feed off of this energy, it would not be a stretch to assume whatever they came from was capable of this as well - the same argument could be extended to the creative abberations, but for now, we will focus on the destructive.

1.c: An argument for the origin of abberations

Following this chain of logic, one can assume that the creature capable of feeding off of planar energy is likely to come from one of a few sources. The first, and most obvious, explanation may be the Abyss. However, I do not believe this to be the case. Many would argue that demons are the most likely source of this type of power; however, demons are a well-documented phenomenon, and we know enough about them to disprove this theory. First, while demons do feed on the energy of other beings, the types of energy that they can consume is restricted significantly. Many demons feed on celestial energy, and some are known to feed on life energy, but none are able to feed on planar energy. Second, if demons were the source of these creatures, there is no feasible explanation for the origins of the creative abberations. Demons are simply incapable of any magic near what these abberations are capable of, and seeing as creative and destructive abberations are undeniably tied to one another, an argument for strikingly different origins for the two types would simply not hold up.
As such, I believe a secondary source for these destructive abberations: one from the Astral Plane. The Astral Plane is the only one of the planes known to be capable of both creation and destruction of this caliber - one must look no further than red magic. A creature able to live within the Astral Plane could easily have capabilities of either creation or destruction, as is expressed in the abberations that make their way on to the material plane.

Point 2: The Astral Hole

It is no secret to those studied in the arcane that there is a noticeable gap in the Astral Sea. There have been many arguments as to its origin, but its existence is undeniable. It is also known that this hole has been expanding at a near-imperceptible pace ever since it was first documented, and likely far before that. In order for a hole of this magnitude to have been created, the planar energy eminating from the Astral Plane had to have been consumed. As established previously, destructive abberations are likely to have originated from a creature in the Astral Plane, and this deterioration of the plane is charactaristic of such creatures, albeit at a much larger scale.

2.a: Calculations for the size of such a creature

So, if a creature akin to these destructive abberations exists within the Astral Plane, it is the most likely explanation for the hole that is growing. The scale of this creature can then be determined by the growth of this hole over time. We can first examine the speed at which the smaller destructive abberations are capable of consuming planar energy. Thankfully, this is a topic that has already been studied, as it is frankly tedious to observe. The relationship between the size of the creature and how much energy they are able to consume seems to be exponential - slight increases in energy consumtion translate to large differences in size. As such, it can be extrapolated that the size of the creature that lies within the Astral Plane is around 100 times the size of an average human.

2.c: The origins of the Devourer

This topic is the least clear of everything I am discussing in this article. If the Devourer does exist, which from the previous evidence can be logically assumed, then it would have to have existed since before any known records we have of the Astral Hole, and based on a formula derived from the speed at which the hole is forming, we can deduce the amount of time that it has existed. When completing this equation at first, one gets a number much larger than is reasonable, putting the creation of the world at well before -5,000 E.G., which does not make sense will all other evidence that we have. However, upon further examination, there is an explanation for this. As previously established, the Astral Plane was created before the Material. Furthermore, the existence of the creative abberations implies the existence of a creature capable of creating planes of existence, with this creature originating from the Astral Plane. Would that then not imply that the Astral Plane was simply the base upon which the rest of the planes were built? The argument for an overgoddess is left to another article, but I believe that concept and this one go hand in hand.

Implications

If I have managed to convince you in my argument of the existence of the Devourer, the question can then be asked, what does this mean?Well, while we may never be able to observe this creature directly due to the danger that would pose, we can envision a few things from this. First, if the Astral Hole is ever to stop expanding, we can assume that the Devourer no longer exists. Second, the balance between creation and destruction can be assumed to be held up in part by this creature, and in part by the Overdeity (which for the sake of argument here, I am assuming also exists). Third, and most importantly, this information can help us determine other facts about the state of the world. The once-lost continent of Kaurenis, for example, can now be studied with the lens of the Devourer's position in the Astral Plane to explane the continent's apparent disconnect with the Celestial Plane. The existence of the Devourer would explain many different unsolved or unexplained phenomena in this world, which is why I think that the Devourer does, undoubtedly, exist.

Oh, you actually read the whole thing? I'm not sure if I should be impressed or concerned. Well, if it counts for anything, Sha'Ren's on the right track.

-Yxjun

Notes from Saibra

The existence of the Devourer has been speculated since any living mortal can remember. It did exist, once, but is in a similar state to Sesais at the moment - fractured, but with a remaining undeniable influence over reality itself.