Venus Weed

The Venus weed looks like an oversized, viciously thorned rose bush with one snow-white bloom nearly 4 feet wide. When it opens, a lovely naked woman sits at its heart, pale and flawless, with long strawberry-blond hair and wicked emerald eyes. She is only a plant organ, legless, her hips rooted in the flower.

Highly intelligent, it understands speech but cannot talk; the woman only sighs while luring prey or shrieks when hurt. Speak with plants allows conversation. Its petals redden as it feeds.

The weed senses any intelligent creature that comes within 60 feet and opens its bloom. An intelligent humanoid who looks at her is charmed unless a save vs. spell succeeds; human males take -4 on that save. Charmed victims feel an irresistible desire to approach her. A successful save protects that person for as long as they stay near this plant.

When anyone, charmed or not, comes within 15 feet of the flower, spear-like thorned tendrils burst out of the soil. The weed has 2d6 of them and can bring up to four against a single target. Each hit deals 1d6 damage and latches on, sucking away 1 Constitution point each round until it is removed or the plant dies. A tendril is severed by 6+ points of slashing damage. A victim reduced to 0 Constitution dies; survivors regain 1 point every two days.

The woman fights on her own as well, flinging up to three magical darts per round out to 40 feet. They look like red roses with sharp stems, deal 1d3 each, and she never runs out.

Blunt weapons do 1 point less damage per die against the weed, while fire, magical or not, does 1 extra point per die. The plant is terrified of flame: attacked with fire, it must pass a morale check or let go of everyone it is feeding on.

Venus weeds grow in wild temperate lands and thrive in poor soil. Any mammal's blood feeds them, but they prefer human blood and root far enough from villages to stay hidden yet near enough for steady prey, sometimes among bloodroses.

Territorial and aloof, they ally only with evil beings who guarantee fresh blood. Occultists think the first was a rose a hag watered daily with blood as an experiment; they now spread like normal flowers, but the method might still create new ones.

Like other carnivorous plants, the Venus weed uses digested prey, in this case blood, to supplement what it gets from sunlight. It blooms earlier than true roses, in early spring, and the flower lasts until late summer, giving it as long a hunting season as possible. At the end, the woman-structure dries out and splits open, releasing pollen. The plant is very rare but can fertilize itself.