The Quasar
A Hunted Devourer of Stars
Loosely resembling whales found in the oceans of the material plane, these entropic creatures originate from a realm far beyond comprehension. Their many writhing tentacles allow quasars to navigate the vast void of space by sensing the mass and gravitational pull of anything within their general vicinity. The reason behind their voyages through the vast emptiness of space, like that of any migrating animal, is their endless search for food. A quasar requires an unfathomable amount of energy to function, which it acquires by traveling from star to star, fully consuming each one as it passes.
Within each quasar’s mouth lies an organ that both resembles and behaves like a black hole known as a “singularity gland.” This gland absorbs the radiant energy produced by stars at a rapid rate until they are extinguished and then converts the consumed energy to fuel the quasar’s activity. When sensing danger, a quasar can also utilize its singularity gland to burn its energy reserves and manipulate its own density at will. In order to traverse the vast distances of open space between its meals and to be as efficient with its energy reserves as possible, a quasar will bend space around itself and create wormholes using its singularity gland.
While quasars are amongst the rarest and most dangerous creatures found amidst the stars, these interstellar travelers are thought to be solitary. This has led some of the more ambitious and dastardly astral travelers to form large expeditions to hunt down the creatures solely to harvest their singularity gland and create their own sphere of annihilation. The few hunters who return successfully do so having suffered heavy losses. Should a quasar hunter fail to kill their quarry and live to tell the tale, that hunter should be wary of the stars. Quasars have a perfect memory and will seek out their former tormentors for revenge once they have restored their energy reservoir and have the energy to burn.
Illustrated by Therése Pierrau
The quasar is the first truly original monster created for Lukallion’s Ledger of Legends. The concept initially came from a doodle I had made while on my lunch break and from there my imagination ran with it. This creature is meant to fill the trope of a “space whale” while also dipping its toe into the entropic concept of cosmic horror.
The theme of the quasar is the manipulation of density and physics. My thoughts behind its Resistances all circle around the thought process that its body must be incredibly dense to the point that general impact likely doesn’t do much to it. Additionally with it existing in the vacuum of space and approaching stars I figured that its Immunities were also warranted.
For the quasar’s traits, I figured that a creature this dangerous should be rare and have Legendary Resistance and Magic Resistance. Its Gravitational Field comes from the idea that this is a massive and incredibly dense creature that essentially has a black hole in its mouth. It just made sense to me that it would generate its own gravitational pull. It took me a little while to figure out how I wanted to handle it mechanically but I eventually landed on using the rules for falling damage as an outline.
The quasar’s actions are all relatively simple. It would use its mass to slam into attackers and this would be the basis of its general method of self defense for the purpose of game balance. Its Consume ability mixes the rules of a Sphere of Annihilation from D&D 5e with the rules for other large creature’s Swallow attacks. Finally, its Nova Blast is meant to be a massive release of the energy of the stars it consumed over a wide area.
All of the legendary actions of the quasar were meant to revolve around its manipulation of the laws of physics. Bend space was simply it creating a small worm hole to give it extra mobility. Satellite was meant for it to make space between it and an attacker so that it might get a chance to escape. Its Manipulate Density was the most difficult to design as most creatures with legendary actions don’t have sub-options like this, but it felt necessary in the design. This legendary action had multiple rewrites before landing on its final composition. Each rendition I kept looking deeper and deeper into what happens to solid objects and the physics around them when their density and mass increase or decrease.