The game itself, features quite a number of interesting creatures (dragons, the Kodo beast, etc)
which have a "devour" ability. It works like a spell or special ability when controlling the creature in the game, its description is something like "devours an enemy unit and deals 5 damage per second to it until the targets lifepoints reach zero. If the kodo beast/dragon is destroyed while the digested unit is still alive, it will "pop out" again.
The world editor of warcraft allows to create and edit any unit/creature and use it in the game at will, so it is possible to give the "devour" ability to, for example a dryad (warcraft dryads are cute female deertaurs, you will like them)
in the level editor the devour ability is similar to other "carry units inside another unit" abilities (like the zeppelin, tank and some buildings have) and really are two abilities working together.
a "load" ability to shove other units inside, and a "cargo" ability to be able to carry stuff inside.
failing to give a unit the correctly matching pair of abilities will crash the game with a segmentation fault *sic*
it is also impossible to give the same unit both a devour and a load cargo ability, since they need different cargo abilities that cant work at the same time
("devour cargo" holds one unit and deals 5 damage per second, the carry cargo ability loads up to 4 units without damage)
that means you cannot create a beast that can devour lethally and non lethally at the same time
there are also some limitations to the devour ability. it is not possible to devour units of your own player (though you can devour units of a a player who shares unit control, wether allied or not)
while loading cargo will only work with your own units.
also its impossible to devour a unit which has the devour ability itself
(probably an attempt of the programmers to avoid recursion)
in some cases it is possible to mix abilities that werent supposed to go together. for example the "meatwagon" unit can store corpses on board and load/unload them with separate (get corpse/ drop corpse) abilities.
it is not possible to combine "get corpse" with "devour cargo" (there is a separate cannibalize ability though), but "drop corpse" WILL work with devour cargo, and in that combination create a unit which can spit out a devoured unit at will.
I made two additional dryad types, one which devours opponents, and one which can store up to 4 own units in her body.
it is possible to load a devouring dryad into a storing one, and then devour that one with another players devouring dryad, creating an interesting chain.
however when one of the eaten carrying dryads dies, its "cargo" will reappear outside the outermost dryad (aka its meals meal will be spit out) with full(or at least their original) health.
you can use the devouring dryad to carry an allied unit to safety and then release it again with the "drop corpse" ability (if you are fast enough to not digest it completely)
if you still have that game, feel free to play around
