Three Color Critters

Beyond the reach of the sweeping hands of time there exists a horde of creatures, possessed of gnashing teeth and thrashing tails, who live apart from our world, but whose appetite is felt as a part of our everyday lives.  Those who’ve bridged the gap between space and time to discover these hour-hungry horrors call them Chronovores, and attribute every lost day and forgotten stretch of time to their meddlesome munching.  In their perception of reality, time exists as an infinite series of fraying, intersecting and intertwining lengths of cord stretching from one horizon to the other.  As such, the Chronovore’s physiology is one of sharp claws and sinewy muscle, the creatures well-adapted to a life of climbing over, leaping from and latching onto metaphysical vines of varying thickness.  Their long tails help them maintain balance in a world ever-flowing, but it’s their long teeth that help them really make a mark in our plane.

As the strands of time weave and wind, parts of threads will often fray off into nowhere.  Whether these represent potential futures unrealized or progress prematurely terminated, the seers who glimpse beyond the veil still debate to this day.  But what’s known by all seeking to study the stream of time is the Chronovores feed voraciously on these faltered futures.  Acting as timestream cleaners, Chronovores consume time without a destination, ensuring there’s no clutter among the order of the threads.  The reign of rulers deposed or unelected, youthful aspirations long-abandoned and the machinations of the fallen all create these frayed never-woulds within a given strand of time, and it’s the job of the Chronovore to consume them and keep time flowing cleanly.  In our world this manifests as anything from forgotten languages and civilizations to forgotten tasks someone was on their way to fulfill.  No one remembers the never-will, and we have the Chronovores to thank for it.