Bestiary

Hungrily, thorn gorgers spread across worlds, ravenously hunting for nutrients. These creatures are dominant feeders — vegetative apex predators — and few plants or animals can withstand their ever-growing gluttony.

Thorn gorgers, at one time in the ancient past, were little more than pest-like plants. They invaded gardens and farms, devouring all the plant life there. Farmers cut them back, but such pruning just gave them room to grow back, twice as thick as before. Ripe, sickly sweet berries grew amongst their thorns, and eventually the farmers gave in and allowed these irritating plants to live. And so, the gorgers transformed the diets of humankind. Then, as humanity expanded and good farmland became scarce, the farmers sought new soil. In the process, they brought thorn gorgers with them.

Everywhere the farmers brought these plants, they spread like wildfire, consuming native plant life and eventually evolving a thirst for blood as well. Indigenous animals were devoured to the last drop; when the animals became scarce, the gorgers devoured the humans who tried to cultivate them. Rarely, though, did mortal eyes witness a thorn gorger feeding, and so they continued to spread with the aid of their prey.

Eventually, these creatures were noticed by the Awakened. Certain mystics cultivated these ferocious plants as barriers, traps, and occasionally even pets. Early pre-Progenitor Cosians found thorn gorgers’ semi-sentience fascinating, and eventually brought gorgers into their labs to dissect, splice, and propagate. These scientists created a multitude of strains with different features. The original gorger plants closely resembled blackberry vines, but the newly created varieties mimic the appearance of loosestrife, kudzu, and ivy.

During the long and bitter warfare between the Traditions and the nascent Technocracy, Verbenae, Hermetics, and Dreamspeakers uncovered the blasphemous Cosian crossbreeds. During one especially epic battle in

the Appalachian Mountains, hundreds of thorn gorgers were spiritually awakened and directed to assist the mystics against their Daedalean rivals. While this tactic proved an advantage powerful enough to undo the Cosian handiwork, something changed forever within the thorn gorgers. As the greenhouse where the Progenitors practiced their experiments was smashed to smithereens, the semi-sentient plant life escaped; soon, new varieties quickly spread across the world in the same way the original strain did. Certain new strains, however, were capable of crossing the Gauntlet into the Umbra; since then, they’ve found a whole new collection of worlds to grow into. Invasive species of a spiritual nature, they crowd out all that is native, slowly choking it to death until the thorn gorgers are the only living things left.

Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 7, Charisma 0, Manipulation 0, Appearance 2, Perception 1, Intelligence 1, Wits 0

Abilities: Alertness 2, Brawl 2

Willpower: 2

Health Levels: OK, ‒5, Incapacitated

Armor Rating: 2 (eight soak dice, total, which makes the plant incredibly difficult to destroy as a whole, although it’s easy to rip out individual vines.)

Powers: Strength + 1 lethal damage per vine; four to six vines can wrap around the average human being in a turn. Any creature grappled by the thorn gorger is at +2 difficulty to escape.

So far, this infection has progressed slowly throughout the nigh-infinite Otherworlds. As both the physical and spiritual worlds became harsher and more difficult for plants and Naturae of the more mundane variety, however, the gorgers continue to spread.