Monster Monday: Vampiric Treant, a Sap-Sucking Fiend

Today's Monster Monday is the vampiric treant, a ghostly white walking tree that sucks the life out of its enemies with its long, probing roots.  Vampiric treants can lay waste to large stretches of forest, and drain the blood of any who would stand in their way.

It may surprise you to know that this monster is based (loosely) on a real type of tree.  A rare mutation in Sequoia sempervirens (the coast redwood) renders the tree unable to produce chlorophyll, resulting in an albino redwood.  Albino redwoods have white or pale yellow needles, giving them a ghostly appearance in the forest.  Unable to sustain themselves through photosynthesis, they become parasites, their root systems tapping into the xylem and phloem of other trees and leeching off their sweet, sweet sugars.

via Wikimedia

Albino redwood needles

It didn't take much of a leap to turn this fascinating natural aberration into a monster idea.  A treant that sucks the life out of other trees could make an interesting dilemma for a nature-loving druid or ranger: does this creature represent a threat to nature, or is its existence a part of the natural order?  This monster is also a good one to throw in when the GM wants to show that something is 'off' or threatening about a forest.

via Wikimedia

An albino redwood in the wild

Before you grab your torches and axes and go running off into Humboldt Redwoods State Park to kill some vampire trees, you should know that real life albino redwoods are not nearly as dangerous as the vampiric treants presented below.  Aside from the obvious (they can't walk, they don't suck human blood), these parasitic trees don't actually seem to harm their hosts all that much.  In fact, it has been suggested that albino redwoods actually filter toxic heavy metals out of the soil, making it safer for the other redwoods in the grove.  Only about 400 albino redwoods are known, and their locations are generally not made known to the public so that they are not accidentally damaged or killed by overzealous visitors.  If you encounter one in the wild, be careful not to trample its delicate root system or do anything that might harm it or its connection to the other trees in the area.

Of course, if you encounter one on the tabletop, you know what to do: axes, torches, etc.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.

This stunted treant has long, probing fingers and ghostly white foliage

Treant, Vampiric CR 5

XP 1,600

N Large plant

Init -1; Senses low-light vision; Perception +13

DEFENSE

AC 18, touch 8, flat-footed 18 (-1 Dex, +10 natural, -1 size)

hp 52 (7d8+21)

Fort +8, Ref +1, Will +5

DR 10/slashing; Defensive Abilities plant traits

Weaknesses vulnerability to fire

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.

Melee 2 slams +11 (1d8+7 plus grab)

Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.

Ranged rock +3 (1d8+10) 120ft.

Special Attacks blood drain, rock throwing (120 ft.), trample (1d8+10, DC20)

STATISTICS

Str 25, Dex 8, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 11

Base Atk +5; CMB +13; CMD 22

Feats Alertness, Cleave, Improved Sunder, Power Attack

Skills Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +4, Knowledge (nature) +6, Perception +13, Sense Motive +7, Stealth -1 (+3 in forests); Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth in forests

Languages Common, Sylvan, Treant

SQ double damage against objects, parasitic feeding, treespeech

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Blood Drain (Ex)

A vampiric treant drains blood or vital fluids from its victim at the end of its turn if it grapples a foe.  This deals 1d2 points of Constitution damage to most creatures, or 1d6 points of Constitution damage to Plant creatures.  For each point of Constitution damage dealt, the vampiric treant heals 5 hit points or gains 5 temporary hit points; its temporary hit points can never exceed its total base hit points, and disappear after one hour. 

Double Damage Against Objects (Ex)

A treant that makes a full attack against an object or structure deals double damage.

Parasitic Feeding (Ex)

Vampiric treants cannot make food from sunlight as most plants can; to eat, they must parasitically feed from other living plants.  They can only feed off of a plant of their size or larger.  Burrowing their roots into the other plant’s root systems requires a full-round action, after which they can begin feeding off the other plant’s sap.  A vampiric treant requires at least one hour of such feeding per day or it begins to starve.  A vampiric treant can only heal naturally while parasitically feeding for eight or more hours. 

Treespeech (Ex)

A vampiric treant has the ability to converse with plants as if subject to a continual speak with plants spell, but unlike with normal treants, most plants greet vampiric treants with an attitude of unfriendly or hostile. 

ECOLOGY

Environment any forest

Organization solitary

Treasure standard

Despite their name and reputation, vampiric treants are not undead.  A rare mutation in some species of treant renders them incapable of gaining sustenance from sunlight; their foliage grows in thinly and colored white or mottled yellow, and their roots become ever more voracious, capable of stealing nutrients from the roots of other trees or even from the flesh of non-plant creatures.  Most treant communities shun vampiric (or ‘albino’) treants since they can only survive by hurting other plants.  Some, however, are carefully nurtured by groves of treants or sympathetic druids who find that by spreading out their feeding across many different trees, the vampiric treants can survive with minimal damage to the forest ecosystem. 

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-your virescent d20 despot