Tar Demons Never Clean Up After Themselves
Posted by Meg
Nathan brings us the messiest demons yet! Check it out.
The Tar Demon
Bubbling up from the core through tar-sands and oily pits, this rare demon comes out at night to feast on the flesh of animals that have become hopelessly trapped in the mire. Tar demons are extremely slow moving and can be escaped quite easily at a brisk walking pace, so long as their prey does not become stuck. Tar demons are considerably affected by the ambient temperature around them, moving slower on cold winter nights than on warm summer evenings. They get along quite well with rock demons, but flame demons take particular pleasure in lighting them on fire and watching them slowly burn and sputter away.
In appearance, tar demons are hideous to behold. They are short creatures with such sagging flesh that the normal observer is unable to make out many discernable features other than a globular, lunging mass. A sinister mouth and numerous eyes slowly repositioning themselves all over the demons body are their only prominent features. They do not have arms or hands but can shoot out small globs of themselves at short range to latch onto their prey and pull their struggling captives back to their awaiting maw. The bite of a tar-sand demon is often more fatal than a typical demon’s bite as the oil tends to foster the growth of additional diseases.
The smell of a tar demon is foul but if the scent of one is beheld, it is usually too late to escape as the tar pits tend to mask the stench quite well. Of particular note, the odor of sulfur repels a tar demon. Normal fire will ignite a “tarrie”, but the demon usually needs to be incapacitated or coated in something much more flammable than itself to get the flames going.
As the sun begins to shed its rays on the world, the tar demon descends back to the core leaving a slick mess behind on whatever surface it descended through.
Thank you to Nathan for sending in his entry. Glad I’m not on the clean-up crew for these demons! They remind me of quicksand (which has always terrified me) except it can move. Yikes.
The clock is ticking! Get your entries in by 11:59pm on May 18th, 2012. There is an abundance of worthy prizes including Red Sonja comics, warded dice, signed copies of The Desert Spear and, for the Grand Prize, a Graphic Audio recording of The Warded Man. Check out the contest guidelines and send in your best (or worst) corelings.
Is anyone else thinking that the tar demon looks kind of loveable?