Ceroptor

ABOUT

Environment any
Organization solitary, pair, or mass (3-8)
Treasure standard

Ceroptors hail originally from a near-lifeless moon. Created by the dark and alien manipulations of the jagladine, they were designed to manipulate weaker species of the neighboring moons in order to break them into revealing the secrets of the Ancient gates. Of genius and entirely alien intellect, a typical ceroptor appears almost as an oversized, hideous head trailing long ganglion-like structures of thick cartilage. Parasitic predators, they capture, enslave and breed the various humanoid races as if they were cattle. They eat humans when they so desire, but also use their bodies by removing a host’s head, inserting their ganglion into their necks and taking over their central nervous systems so they gain full control over the body. This mounting process kills the humanoid host, although the body can remain ‘alive’ and in the possession and control of its host for as long as the host desires or until it is killed. They also reproduce by laying eggs inside a host body. When the eggs hatch, a brood of tiny ceroptor larvae eats its way out of the corpse. Upon escaping the host, the larvae go into deep caves where they sleep for several months as they mature into fully developed ceroptors. Ceroptors believe themselves to be a paragon species, far superior to all others. Currently ceroptors travel from moon to moon by mentally projecting themselves form their existing head-like bodies, through inner space and into recently hatched ceroptor larvae on other moons. The original form dies, but the same personality lives on in the new form. In this way, they are somewhat immortal.

How ceroptors originally traveled between the moons is unknown, though it is speculated that an earlier humanoid race possessed the ability to moon jump and became infested with ceroptor eggs after an encounter with the hostile creatures.