"The Devourer" is a title of the demilich Acererak, and the word inspired the name of the dhours, but the term "devourer" is most commonly applied to a race of skeletal, soul-devouring beings found in the Astral and Ethereal planes. Opinions are divided as to whether these beings are truly undead, but they certainly look it. The souls they capture take the shape of small, wizened humanoid figures entrapped within the devourer's ribcage.
Devourers seem to be created from soulless corpses exposed simultaneously to the forces of the Negative+Energy+Plane and either the Astral or Ethereal. They wander the planes searching for their lost souls.
According to one tale, the first of the devourers were exiled Githyanki whose souls were imprisoned by Vlaakith CLVI over a thousand years ago.
Sources: Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix III, Monster Manual (D&D 3.5), "The Ecology of the Devourer" in Dragon #355
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