Garaggakal

The Drift is a strange place, and the creatures native to it are stranger still. Garaggakals prove no exception. Shaped vaguely like humanoids, they have arms and legs but also sallow, rubbery skin with long, scaly tails and gauzelike wings. Most horrifyingly, their faces are almost entirely taken up by their enormous, funnel-like mouth, lined with sharp teeth. While they use these mouths for the obvious purpose of biting, they can also use its powerful suction to draw actual life force from their prey. Also known as “Drift wraiths,” garaggakals hunt down any living creatures that linger too long in the Drift. For garaggakals, anything that isn't a fellow garaggakal is prey. However, they're no mere mindless hunters. Garaggakals are surprisingly intelligent and prefer to dissect victims, learning all about them before eating them. Often, garaggakals take their victims apart while they're still alive. Xenobiologists have determined that garaggakals don't even technically need to eat to survive, so their relentless hunger is seemingly psychological. They do require the energy of the Drift to survive in the absence of food, however, and further need the energy of the Drift to reproduce, seeking out areas of intense radiation to absorb and then build a new offspring from their own cells. Their children are fully grown at creation. Garaggakals surprise their prey. They are quite stealthy and can even phase through solid matter, suddenly appearing on the inside of a starship—bad news for whatever living creatures happen to be inside. Con artists sell garaggakal repelling devices for travelers to use while in the Drift to prevent such visits. Members Garaggakal (Creature 5), Garaggakal Polymath (Creature 14) Wraiths of the Drift Garaggakals earned their reputation as “Drift wraiths” thanks to many incidents reported by unfortunate starship crews during interstellar travel. Reports from survivors and footage retrieved from ship recordings show the attacking garaggakals stepping easily through starship hulls to begin a systematic extermination of all life on board. Now, only foolhardy or uninformed salvage teams step aboard a derelict starship without some kind of force field or shock rifle to protect against garaggakals.