Cedar Spawn

Raw chaos animates these hostile trees. They usually take the form of a dry, brittle-seeming evergreen, but any tree of adequate size can become one. They look dead and do not draw on soil, water, or light the way living trees do.

A cedar spawn lashes out on every side with whiplike branches that leave deep, painful cuts. It gets up to six attacks a round but can aim only three at any one foe, or at a group standing in one direction; the rest must target other enemies on its opposite side.

On an attack roll of 16-20, whether it hits or not, the branch may wrap around the target. The victim saves vs. breath weapon to avoid it; on a failure the branch locks around the waist, chest, or a leg. Each branch has 12 hit points and is cut away by 12 or more damage, but damage to branches does not count against the tree's own hit points, which only blows to the trunk reduce.

Though it has no eyes, ears, or sense of smell, a cedar spawn locates enemies easily, and it considers every living thing an enemy, attacking anything that comes within reach. Unless assigned a specific task, it can move to close with foes.

Their dry wood makes them deadly vulnerable to fire. Any flame attack makes a cedar spawn burst into flames at once, blasting everything within 20 feet for 4d6 fire damage, halved by a successful save vs. breath weapon. Every other cedar spawn inside that 20-foot radius ignites the following round with the same effect, and the chain can continue through a whole grove as long as more trees stand within range.