Ravager

Ravagers were synthetic-organic creatures the Reapers fashioned from captured rachni, turning the ancient insectoid species into walking weapons of war. They appeared in 2186 among the Reapers' ground forces, where they served as mobile artillery, bombarding distant targets while spawning swarms of smaller creatures to overwhelm their enemies. Like the husks made from humanity and the other twisted forms the Reapers raised from living species, the Ravager was a grim testament to the harvesting of an entire people into instruments of the harvest.

Origin#

Ravagers were among the many forms the Reapers created by corrupting living species into servants of their cause. Where the husk was made from humanity, the Ravager was grown from the rachni, the ancient insectoid race that had once waged a centuries-long war against the galaxy in antiquity. Through Reaper technology the rachni body was reshaped and burdened with heavy armament, producing a creature that retained an insect-like form but functioned as a piece of artillery. They first appeared in 2186, during the Reapers' assault on the galaxy, fighting as part of the ground forces that accompanied the Reapers themselves and the other converted creatures.

Form and capabilities#

A Ravager was armed with two powerful long-range cannons mounted on its body. It engaged from a distance, locking onto a target with visible blue targeting beams before firing in salvos of three rounds, and its accuracy and rate of fire made it dangerous across an open battlefield. Alongside this bombardment it continually produced small creatures known as Swarmers, releasing them in modest numbers to scatter toward its enemies. Individually the Swarmers were fragile, but in numbers they were volatile, able to wear down defenses and disrupt a target's recovery.

The creature was heavily armored, the plating serving in place of any soft, vulnerable point. The large single eye that appeared to be its head offered no weakness, and a Ravager possessed no true head or analogous target. Across its body it bore orange sacs that could be ruptured by gunfire, though doing so often released a fresh cluster of Swarmers. The Ravager had no conventional melee attack and generally would not fire its cannons at close range, preferring instead to withdraw to a safer distance. If forced into close quarters, however, it could spontaneously burst its sacs, spraying acid and sometimes loosing several more Swarmers at once, an act that could prove devastating to anyone standing too near. Even in death the creature remained a hazard: a slain Ravager collapsed into a smoking pile that left a corrosive acid pool, harmful to any who stepped into it, and its body lingered as an obstacle on the field.