Bleeding Willow

Legend holds that these trees are born when some monstrous wickedness takes place beneath a young willow. Apart from a faint reddish tint to its bark, it looks like any weeping willow until it is cut. Then it oozes a crimson sap unlike any normal tree's, which looks and smells exactly like human blood and, some say, tastes like it too.

Its drooping fronds act like tentacles, lashing out to grab, bind and squeeze. Five frond attacks per round are possible, split between as many as two targets. A hit does 1 damage and wraps around one random limb; when a second limb is wrapped, crushing starts at 1d4 per round, plus 1 more for every frond on that victim. Fronds have 8 hp apiece and an 18/50 Strength for purposes of escaping them. Blades cut them normally, but blunt weapons cannot hurt them.

Against the trunk, slashing blows work as usual, but piercing and crushing weapons only ever roll minimum damage. Beyond that it has no special resistances or vulnerabilities.

On its own the tree would be little threat to a capable party. What makes it a nightmare is its stored horror: all the suffering and evil it has witnessed can burst out as a crushing mental assault whenever violence happens within range. Its reach is 10 feet of radius for each decade the tree has lived. Anyone inside without mental protection, such as mind blank, psionic defenses or a ring of mind shielding, must save vs. breath weapon. Failure means a blind, berserk rage in which the victim lashes out at any moving thing.

A raging character attacks with the best physical means available; spells and complex devices are beyond someone so furious, though an item worked by a single command word or by its own innate power can still be used. After any round spent attacking an ally, the character gets a new save, penalized by however much damage he suffered that round. Victims tangled in the branches are not spared. The tree's own attacks never set off the assault; outside violence always does, automatically. Uses per day equal half the tree's Hit Dice, so 3-8.

These trees live alone and can reach 160 years old, spending their first sixty years as ordinary willows. Each ten years of growth adds a Hit Die. Though able to creep a few feet in a day, they rarely do so unless prey grows scarce or a rival plant steals their light, which is why their movement is listed as nil.

They do not collect treasure, but their victims sometimes carried some. Any treasure type from J to S has a 25% chance of being found near the roots, most often partly or completely buried.

The common belief is that ordinary trees are twisted into this shape by nearby wickedness, so a character who fails a dark powers check beside a willow might produce one. Look for them on deserted river banks, fronds brushing the earth, and the sound of weeping often hangs in the air nearby. Sometimes that sobbing is a real ghost, born from the same deed that created the tree. The willow feeds on the corpses its own attacks and rages produce, and on violent emotion as well. It also nourishes itself like any plant and will die without water or sunlight.