Demons of the Nightless Lands

Source

Whatever you are that makes you alive, the Demons are more. This is their defining feature. They're more natural, more cruel, more obsessed, more beautiful, more everything. They are both splendid eagles and the mites that make home in their feathers.

In the far-reaching deserts where the sun never sets, these demons roam 'cross scorching sands and unearthed oceans, treading upon the bones of billions, knowing of the death and contemplating it. Their concerns are those of a hyper-natural order. They want, nay, they must live. They must live with every breath, affirm it with every action. You may be killed without remorse and your entrails feasted upon by a demon, while it simultaneously mourns your passing and weeps with emotions of sadness well beyond expression.

Where do they come from? The exact point and conditions are not known, but some things are clear.

They only appear in places of tremendous 'natural' death, past or present.

Ancient ocean beds.
Jungles.
Meteorite craters.
Fossil-laden Strata.
The Bellies of Whales.

They're more likely to appear at Fall, or the Wet Season, or right after a hurricane. Their numbers proportional to the magnitude of death. They do not appear in places of 'unnatural' death - battlefields, famines, mass war graves, man-made ecological disasters.

DEMON

d20	Where Did It Come From?	It resembles a...	What It Wants
1	Dried Lake	Stork without a head or neck. Triangular eyes and mouth ventral side. Big as a house - blocks out the sun. Claws that grasp like grapeshot cannons.	To eat you alive - Preferably screaming
2	Ancient Ocean Bed	Bucktoothed cannonball. Four massive teeth, spherical grey-flesh body. No digestive tract - it dissolves then vomits what it eats. Its teeth can break a grown elephant in half.	To murder then eat you - And gobble down in one bite
3	Animal Graveyard	Pair of eyes on stalks so deep and dark that they suck the light out of everything. Where they connect is a weak and fragile body.	To be eaten by you - Piece by piece, preferably.
4	Cooled Lava Field	Thousand beefy crab claws that detach at the slightest touch. If they aren’t grabbing onto something they’ll flail about like bear-trap rubber balls.	To maim and play with the body then leave it - It doesn't care about the pain
5	Jungle	Million buzzing things, humming discordant tunes. It moves like how you think skin crawls. Small sharp teeth.	To eat you, but only some - Any bit counts - hand, skin, hair, fingernails.
6	Poisonous Vents	A solid weeping metal ball. It has blue eyes. It emits a silver-black lava that will kill you if you touch it.	To weep and lament - It wants you to join it. How long will this last?
7	Below the Floodplain	Air-drowning worm. Or a person trapped in a bodybag. A long smooth writhing tube, wide as a shield, long as a man. It has no mouth - where it is cut or wounded it forms one.	To die, but they can't commit suicide - It must provoke its own murder
8	Fossil Strata	Skeleton dripping in black oil. What kind of skeleton it resembles changes from moment to moment, but it is always strong.	To atomize itself and spread like dust in the wind - This is quite hard. It might give up before then
9	Meteorite Crater	Green fire, slithering along the ground. It follows gravity, and begins to die upon touching water. Its upward teeth flicker like sparks. It turns black and lunges into the wind to catch moving prey.	To be you - It's not sure how it can. Perhaps it will follow and mimic.
10	A Beached Whale	Long, bony, reaching white hands. Again and again. Always more hands, always reaching. Is there anything but hands?	For you to be like it - It will offer its last kill, if it still wears it.

Theories/Rumors:

• Demons' are a form of cosmic balance. If too many things die, they spontaneously arise.
•  The corpses of demons have extraordinary value as fertilizer or feed for growing things. Growth and fertility rates will double for anything which consumes a demon.
• Though, that which consumes a demon becomes one, at least in part. Eating a modest portion (say, a shredded hand's worth) will remain a part of the body for years until it's eventually replaced. Eating large amounts (a steak) will take decades. A limb's amount centuries.
• Demons have some connection to the Sun. Is it spiritual? Metaphysical? Is it a physical, biological requirement? Demons do not appear atop the frozen glaciers of the Sunless Sea.

Demon

AC  As Mail   HD 1d8  HP Varies

1d12  Attack

Proximal Vitality - Demons have an HP pool equal to the combined Strength of everything it can sense by any means. Provided there is no large game or creatures around, assume this is 1-10HP base, depending on how lively the environment.

Critical Consume - If a demon kills something and eats it, it permanently gains +1 max HP.