Feeder

The Feeder was a Necromorph created from the corpse of a human who had eaten Necromorph flesh. They were encountered on the frozen world of Tau Volantis, formed from starving Sovereign Colonies soldiers who, trapped and without supplies, began to consume the creatures they had killed. Emaciated and guided almost entirely by sound, Feeders were a grim record of what desperation and the Markers could make of men.

Appearance#

The Feeder was extremely thin, its torso grotesquely emaciated, with the bones of its skeleton visible beneath parchment-thin skin. This lightness gave it speed and agility and let it leap from platform to platform. Much of its head was bare skull, the flesh and skin stripped away, while its jaw stretched wide enough to engulf a human head and concealed an array of sharp teeth formed from jaw bone that could extend outward like mandibles. Its hands had been twisted into bloody talons for hacking and slashing at prey.

Transformation#

The change from human to Feeder was slow but steady. When a person ingested Necromorph flesh, the tainted meat began killing off their internal organs one by one and taking them over. The victim grew sensitive to bright light and ravenously hungry, desperately consuming more flesh, including human flesh, to satisfy a hunger that could not be satisfied. Eventually the infection destroyed their vital organs from within, and the corpse reanimated as a Feeder that retained the same craving to consume.

While some cases among the Sovereign Colonies soldiers could be attributed to Marker dementia, most were the product of desperation, the men finding themselves trapped in snow-covered shacks with nothing else to eat. Audio logs left by Sam Ackerman recorded his hiding from colleagues in the early stages of becoming Feeders, one of whom claimed he could smell Ackerman and described the scent as fresh meat, suggesting the creatures had a heightened sense of smell.

Behavior#

Feeders were found scuttling about in search of any source of food. They had heightened hearing and relied on sound to navigate and locate prey, while their sight was impaired; they could not see their surroundings clearly, but a glimpse of light drew their attention. When startled by either light or sound, they attacked aggressively in waves. Their light bodies made their movement nearly silent. An enhanced variant of the Feeder, more resilient and more dangerous, was encountered by Isaac Clarke while exploring the inner cavity of the Nexus.