Bloodvine

Travelers in a certain great crescent forest of the desert world fear this vine most when they are weak from hunger or thirst or lying asleep. Its handiwork is easy to recognize: skeletons of good-sized creatures bound tightly against ironbark trunks by its tough coils.

The bloodvine crawls at just half a foot per round and moves only after dark, drawn by heat and especially by living bodies. Reaching a target it has crept up on takes an attack roll, but bare skin touching the vine, at any hour, means an automatic hit. It feeds by pushing roots into flesh. Their sap numbs the wound, so a sleeper stays asleep and an awake victim needs an Intelligence check to realize anything is wrong.

Once rooted, it deals 1d3 damage and drains 1 point of Strength each round with no further attack roll. Tearing it away takes a Bend Bars roll by the victim or a helper, once per round. Success rips the vine off for 1d6 damage; failure leaves it in place and adds 1 point of damage from the wrenching. Lost Strength returns at 1 point per hour after the victim is free.

Crushing blows do half damage, and fire does double; the vine will not come within two feet of a flame. Cold deals only 1 point per die but freezes the struck section in place for as many rounds as the damage rolled. Electricity hastes it for 1d4 rounds. Warp wood kills it outright, as does the life-draining effect of a defiler casting a spell.

Forewarned travelers just walk away from it, and it never strays more than a few tens of feet from its tree.

Bloodvines grow only on ironbark bark, and only in that one forest. A vine starts at the roots and spirals up the trunk. Deep in the forest some trees are wrapped entirely, carrying hundreds of feet of vine and posing a grave threat.

Insects and small mammals supply most of its blood. In lean times it can survive on rain and fluids drawn from the bark for up to three months, though after the first month it can no longer move, and at three months it dies. Each vine is bound to its host for life; it cannot be moved to another tree and grows on nothing but ironbark. No one knows how it reproduces, but clearing a tree completely is futile, as fresh vines sprout within a month.