Muma Padura

A muma padura looks like a pretty young village woman living as a hermit, barefoot in a threadbare earth-brown skirt and blouse. Her skin is deeply tanned yet never weathered. The only hint of her nature is her long dark hair, which follows the year: pale pink buds in spring open into blossoms with mossy green streaks by summer, give way to glinting red and gold in autumn, and return to plain brown in winter. She speaks the region's human tongues, though whether she reads them is unknown.

She carries no weapon but can grow her fingertips into iron-hard wooden claws at will, raking twice a round for 1d4+1 each. Anyone clawed must save vs. paralyzation or begin turning to wood. Over four rounds the victim loses a quarter of base movement and a quarter of Dexterity each round, natural AC worsens by 1 per round, and initiative suffers a cumulative +2 penalty per round. Then movement stops entirely and bark sheathes the motionless figure. Within 1d6 turns roots dig into the soil and the figure becomes nearly immovable; over the years it buds, branches and becomes an ordinary-looking tree. Throughout, the victim remains conscious and powerless, with no psionics or special abilities, until the tree dies.

Only remove curse, wish, or the death of the muma padura who caused it can reverse the change. If the tree is cut, burned or destroyed first, the victim is effectively dead, recoverable only by reincarnation or wish. She can be hit only by +1 or better weapons, has 30% magic resistance, and can cast audible glamer at will (7th-level mage).

Muma paduras roam the forests of river valleys and high mountain slopes in a gloomy dread domain, using audible glamer to fake a weeping child or a woman in trouble so that a would-be rescuer loses his way. She then trails the lost party at a distance, savoring their growing fear, and strikes when one strays alone. She likes to transform victims one by one and hates letting any escape.

Locals call them demons that relish turning men into trees; others say the forest made them to punish reckless logging. The wandering seers say they are ghosts of children who died lost in the wilds, once kind guides for other lost children, now warped by the land into wishing the wilderness would devour humankind.

Whatever role they play in the forest is unknown. They live on sunlight, never need food, water or sleep, and have little contact with other forest life or allies, perhaps only because the region lacks the malevolent fey that infest nearby human lands.