Phlebotinum Muncher: Difference between revisions

Basically a creature which needs whatever [[Phlebotinum]] is being used in the story to survive. Often developing an insatiable [[Horror Hunger]] for the stuff. This can vary from a creature that eats [[Green Rocks]] to a monster called into being by [[Aesoptinum]]. The inversion of this trope is [[Phlebotinum Dependence]] - the character [[Shaped Like Itself|despises their dependency on Phlebotinum]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Dirty Pair]]: [[The Movie|Project EDEN]]'' had this as a major plot point; the Sadinga monsters fed on Vizorium ore (warp drive fuel), and the fossils they were revived from were being mined for said ore until the [[Evilutionary Biologist]] came along.

* Ungoliant in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'' pretty much subsists on shiny elf artifacts.

* ''[[Discworld]]''. Dragons eat magic, and salamanders absorb the magical [[Fictional Color|octarine frequency of light]].

 

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* Most creatures in [[GURPS]] that use magic naturally have a dependency on background [[Mana]] and will rapidly die if totally deprived of it.

* ''[[Shadowrun]]''. Strain III bacteria eats magic and lives in astral space. It can drain magic out of an Awakened creature, causing it to weaken and die.

 

 

* The Worm/Metroid Prime/Dark Samus from ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' (and other [[Green Rocks|Phazon]] [[Psycho Serum|enhanced]] [[The Virus|creatures]]) needs Phazon to live.

* The black mages and many other monsters in ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' are spawned from concentrated Mist, which is a decidedly evil fog composed of {{spoiler|souls of the dead that have been blocked from going to the afterlife}}.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has mana wyrms and arcane elementals that feed on [[Mana]], often appearring in locations with large amounts of loose mana.

* The Adephagos of ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' gets summoned into the world by an overflow of Aer, [[Green Aesop|a magical substance that all the machines in the world consume to function.]]

** It does - they ''metabolize'' it.

* The main character, splicers and little sisters in [[BioShock (series)]].

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

 

 

* The energon in all incarnations of ''[[Transformers]]''.

** Although, to be fair, in most they can synthesize it from any available source of energy, so it isn't exactly ''rare'' phlebtonium, except for all those poor stupid fleshlings who don't know how.

 

 

* Long term alcohol addicts might find that withdrawing cold turkey can kill them through shock. A theoretical possibility of death also exists with benzodiazepines and barbiturates, because withdrawal from them can cause seizures, but alcohol withdrawal is the only withdrawal syndrome to have actually killed anyone.

* A common [[Conspiracy Theorist|accusation]] is that drug companies will never cure cancer/AIDS/etc. because cures would eliminate demand for expensive treatments. A [[Up to Eleven|related accusation]] is that drug companies are in fact ''spreading'' those same diseases to make [[Take Over the World|the entire world dependent on treatments.]] They technically come about because of unrealistic expectations. For example; Cancer is in fact not ''a'' disease, but ''many'', and a cure for one type would not likely have an effect on any other type. Quite a lot of research is also done by non-profit organisations who can only really "make" money in the form of further funding (although this isn't their goal anyway) by coming up with results and would have very little reason to keep it to themselves. Similarly, even a "for profit" company would have to sell a cure or risk their copetitors discovering it and doing so anyway.

 

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[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]