Giant Waterwheel Plant

The giant waterwheel floats rootless just beneath the surface, carried wherever the current goes. One curved stem about 20 feet long bears 3-12 clamshell-like trapping leaves set around it in whorls, like the spokes of a wheel, and in high summer small white flowers poke above the water on slender stalks. It is so hard to spot that victims suffer -2 to surprise both above and below the water, and many only notice it after swimming into it. Small objects often lie in the silt beneath it, dropped when traps reopen 1-2 days after finishing a meal.

Each trap holds trigger hairs, and when something small touches one, the trap slams shut in under a second. Its lobes squeeze the prey to the bottom and force out the water, forming an airtight seal that takes a successful bend bars roll to break; a captive must try at once, before it loses its chance to brace. Traps take only small creatures, up to halfling size, and let anything larger go a round later. Every trap fights as a 2 HD monster; the central plant has 5 HD.

A closed trap oozes digestive juice for 1-4 damage per round, and the victim suffocates in 2-4 rounds unless he cuts free with a small weapon, dealing half as much damage as the trap has hit points. Blows from outside split their damage evenly between the trap and its prisoner.

Sometimes called an underwater cousin of the giant venus flytrap, it grows in acidic marshes among reeds, rushes and other water plants. Nothing preys on it, and it hunts so quietly that few communities realize it is there. Swamp-dwelling races sometimes relocate these plants to ring their island lairs.