Hunting Cactus

A pale green trunk about 3 feet tall studded with oval pods, the hunting cactus has no sense organs and perceives everything psionically.

Its 11-30 pods each hold 10 hollow 3-inch spines tipped with nerve toxin. Each round it can fire up to 10 spines at as many as six targets within 30 feet. Every hit deals 1d6 points of damage and demands its own save vs. poison, with paralysis for 3-6 rounds on a failure.

Sensing a paralyzed victim, the cactus moves within 5 feet and plunges in a feeding spine that hits automatically and drains 1-6 hp per round, until it has drunk 30 points or something damages it. Then it withdraws to face the threat. Any edged weapon hit severs a feeding spine; new ones regrow at one per day. Against threats it favors aversion.

Typically it kills one creature from a group and lets the rest go unless they keep fighting or try to steal its meal.

Psionics: no sciences. Telepathic devotions mind thrust, life detection, contact, aversion; clairsentient devotions see sound, psionic sense.

They live alone or in pairs with no lair, resting wherever they stop, often among ordinary cacti. They prefer meat but can live on plants indefinitely, though they view this as cannibalism.

Their minds are alien and sharp (Intelligence 15). Psionic contact works, but a cactus assumes any thinking voice is another plant and denies that a 'meat-creature' can do more than eat, move, and breed.

To reproduce, two cacti each shed a pod; the pods, set together on the ground, fuse, then sprout a trunk and pods within a day. Young start at 6 inches and grow 3 inches monthly. Lifespan is unknown, since none survive captivity.

Not native to the desert world, the hunting cactus has no predators there and eats anything it catches. Thirsty travelers hoping for water inside are its main foes. Its spines make fine blowgun darts, with or without the poison.