Creature (entity) idea: The Todal

[Error]

This is just an idea, but I like it enough to develop it. I'm open to suggestions.

The Todal, a nightmarish creature which entered the galaxy proper from somewhere out in the region of Wild Space know as The Beyond, is an immensely powerful ‘demonic’ entity which hunts down practitioners of the Dark Side and punishes or kills them for either not doing enough evil or for trying to change their ways. The Todal’s favorite punishments for offenders are enucleation (removal of the victim’s eyes), the ripping out of their tongues, the pulling of their teeth, and the melting away of their face and/or hands with its acid regurgitations. The worst offenders (those who have turned back to the Light Side completely) it simply kills and/or takes with it.

The legend behind the creature tells that it was once imprisoned frozen under miles and miles of ice inside a colossal comet, but the unforeseen interactions of twin black holes somewhere in deep space inadvertently altered the comet’s course so that it passed too close to a star, thawed and released the monster. There are records of ancient civilizations describing what appears to be the passage of the Todal’s comet, some of them millions of years apart. If these sightings are used to plot the comet's course, its trajectory indicates that it is extra-galactic in origin, and it appears to have been merely passing through when it released the Todal.

The Todal is best characterized as a ‘galactic interloper,’ an entity which has no precedent and which is so far completely incomprehensible. Its mode of relocation is a mystery; it has no known starship, yet it can appear on any world in any place at any time. Its choice of victims also seems to be random or at least erratic, though it is integral to even a basic understanding of the monster to note that all known victims have been current or former practitioners of the Dark Side of the Force. Also, encounters with the Todal tend to be far apart temporally as well—some individuals who otherwise fit the criteria for a visit from The Todal never see it as long as they live.

The Sith regard the creature as an enigmatic but fundamental galactic force, the ultimate agent or vessel of essential hatred, fear, and anger, which executes judgment against those who are weak in the Dark Side of the Force or who throw off its mantle to strike a new path. The Jedi, for the most part, do not acknowledge its existence, and regard the Tale of The Todal as a moral myth intended as a warning against what they see as the inherent hypocrisy of the Dark Side.

The Todal appears as a huge, mostly shapeless and semi-transparent gelatinous mass, colored with striations of brown, green, black and pink. A closer looks reveals a network of black blood vessels that throb within The Todal's body. As a creature composed primarily of slime and goo, it undulates and shifts its form mercurially as it moves, making it basically a two-meter tall mound of mucus capable of assuming any shape its whim invents. Within its body, human and alien body parts—mostly eyes, teeth, tongues, and digits—can be seen floating, pieces the creature is said to have picked up from the most unfortunate among its victims.

The Todal can form arms, hands, and tentacles from within itself, appendages that emerge dripping and jiggling from within its body. Survivors’ descriptions tell that it engulfs its victims completely within itself while it carries out their punishments, only releasing them once the deed is done. It leaves a trail of foul-smelling slime behind it, a trait which is often the only clue that someone has been visited or carried off by the Todal. Survivors recall noticing the noisome stench of the Todal first, describing it as a mix of decomposing flesh and an entire food market which has been allowed to spoil. These same survivors state that once the Todal was sufficiently proximate to them, its odor was so overpowering that it interfered with their thinking, their movements, and their processing of sensory data.

Obviously, visual descriptions of the creature vary considerably; it seems that no two see the same Todal. Other attributes of the creature which are also described by multiple survivors include: a feeling of dread which grows greater as the Todal approaches; the ability of the creature to spit powerful acid a distance of several meters from any of its numerous orifices; and most saliently, the seeming existence of a bubble around the Todal within which Force powers are either inoperative or do not have their intended effect.

Should a character ever find him or herself entering combat with the Todal, he or she will be facing down an exceptional and formidable foe. The Todal is impervious (or at least highly resistant) to a number of weapons, including melee weapons such as swords, knives, axes, clubs, and staves; energy weapons such as lightsabers, ion and laser cannon, and many kinds of blasters; and bullets from firearms or fragments of metal such as shrapnel or pieces of detonated grenades. However, the Todal does not like fire at all and will flee from it immediately, a behavior that suggests that the creature may be damaged by it. It is also vulnerable to explosives, though it can re-form itself from the bits of slime and mucus which are thrown everywhere after such an attack, and the Todal needs only a minimum of such bits to regenerate itself. Obviously, so far it is unclear whether the thing can actually be killed, or if the best result that can be hoped for is to drive it off temporarily. However, it seems that once an individual has entered the Todal’s perception and has been targeted, voluntary disengagement is no longer possible. Even decades after brushing with it, witnesses whose punishments the Todal could not complete—for one reason or another—have an almost 100% chance of encountering it again, ostensibly so the monster can finish its work.

(This concept came from the description of a similar creature in the children's novel The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber (read it, it's brilliant). In the end, the Todal consumes the evil Duke and drags him off to Hell for not doing as much evil as would befit his station. As for the Todal's physical form, I took heavy inspiration from D&D's Juiblex, the Faceless Lord, the demon king of all slimes, oozes, and jellies.

I'm not sure exactly the kind of roleplaying blunders my PC's would have to get into before attracting the Todal. They would have to be Dark Siders first of all, and I don't really like GM'ing for PC's like that. So it may be a creature I never use, but I really like the idea. I am retaining the name because I am regarding the Todal as an extra-galactic (or even interdimensional) phenomenal entity which could appear in any mythological universe under the right conditions (here's looking at you, H. P. Lovecraft).)
_________________
The only words of explanation you need for any concept in the entire Star Wars universe are the words Science Fiction and Space Opera.

[garhkal]

Interesting monster. Maybe the PC's could come against it, as they are working with say a local band of rebels who have amongst their members a former dark sider who has been redeemed..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Error]

Here are some images of D&D's demon lord Juiblex, the Faceless Lord. As the lord of all slimes, jellies, and oozes, he is made of goo and mucus himself. What I have in mind for the Todal is just a little different: instead of being solid black or green, he is semi-transparent, which means the PC's will be able to see all the eyes, tongues, teeth, fingers, and other body parts suspended inside his body. Anyway:








_________________
The only words of explanation you need for any concept in the entire Star Wars universe are the words Science Fiction and Space Opera.

[Error]

Also, I expanded the original post significantly to delve a littler deeper into the creature's origin, the mythology surrounding it, its physical appearance, how it behaves, how it came to be here, its effects on the places and objects around it, and how one might fight it.
_________________
The only words of explanation you need for any concept in the entire Star Wars universe are the words Science Fiction and Space Opera.