A cloying candle burns steady atop the terror’s gourd-like head, its sallow wax dripping down a grinning, rotting face. A tangle of thorned vines with wide, serrated leaves comprises the rest of its hulking body which some say resembles a humanoid too closely. Claws comprised of rusted pitchfork heads jut from the sidewick’s ropey arms. Its legs and feet are not like two tree trunks, they are two tree trunks with flattened bottoms. The candle atop its head burns brighter when prey is near or a spell is directed through it. It burns even brighter still whenever it lances a victim with eldritch flame. Smoldering Sorrow. The candle atop the sidewick’s head is a mixture of blood honey and the fat of a fairy from either the Summer or Winter court. The poor creature was caught and slowly rendered down by the cult as a living sacrifice to the waning princes. Not only does this ultimate act of depravity earn the scorn of the other courts, but it channels the dead fey’s energy into the r...

In its true form, Broken Bough is a mockery of a humanoid comprised of branch, brier, earth, fungus, and thorns. Trapped within the gorse are hunks of meat and bones harvested from its victims. It is from these rotting nodules that the plant horror generates an animal disguise so it might continue its hunt. At the heart of the terror resides a sliver of stone chiseled with the druidic symbol for hate. All Flesh Must Die. Broken Bough was once a dryad sapling in a druid grove. It was showered with attention by the nature priests who worshiped there. It hummed along to their ritual songs. It swayed along to their dancing forms. It listened to their words and gained a crackle of sentience. Then men and dogs came to claim the grove for their own. Broken Bough was watered with its beloved druids’ blood, stunned by their final screams and sobs, shuddered as ancient stones were toppled and shattered. Before the usurpers left, they set the grove aflame, so they might build souless bui...

A single burrspur stands around a foot tall and resembles a leafy melon at first glance. Across its bister surface jut dozens of hooked thorns. Within its mustard leaves hide beady black eyes and a wide mouth full of fang-like spines. A trio of squat stumps serve as legs. Alone, such a plant might appear comical despite its carnivorous, mobile nature. One rarely encounters a solitary burrspur, however. Dozens of the chewing, rending pods roll and bounce against one another whenever they form a swarm. The tide of sallow, gnawing doom pulls down and devours whatever meat it comes across, all while spewing obscenities when their gobs aren't full of flesh. Well-Tended Killers. The first burrspur was the work of an artificer who was also an accomplished horticulturist. He harbored little desire to create simple homunculi like his peers. Instead, he delved deep into plant-based alchemy and designed all manner of uncanny, hybrid plants to serve his needs. The burrspur was designed to...

This flagon-shaped plant grows amid the slow-rotting meat of a frozen humanoid's corpse. Its outer layer mimics the appearance of leathery flesh with a ring of putrid pink along the rim. Many a hapless adventurer has mistaken a nepenthe for a cadaver's exposed organ. That is, until, the plant's ruddy roots tear free of its putrescent soil and the carnivorous creature skitters toward the soon-to-be victim. Sinister Sacrament. These plants are primarily cultivated by the cult of its namesake, the Nepenthe. The growth sucks the spiritual residue from a corpse and produces a psychically-charged sap. The cultists willing imbibe the viscous fluid gathered in the nepenthe's pitcher-like core and relish the way it burns away their passions and personality. The dangerous draught tastes somewhat like a strong wine and produces a similar intoxication if the drinker survives. This repeated rite is eventually terminal and that's what the cultists prefer. Each member hopes the...

Sometimes fey knights so catastrophically fail to uphold an oath their unsettled spirit lingers after death. Unable to rest, the brume is an ethereal creature of fallen leaves, pine needles, burs, and other forest debris. When actively interacting with the world the brume forms itself into a silhouette of its former body. The conglomerate wields a blade made out of necrotic-tainted gorse that mars the wounded with a carpet of blinding thorns. On the move, it becomes a cloud of dead grass, nettles, and scrub that flows around and through obstacles in its path. Sinisterly, the disgraced fey can appear to be a pile of woodland’s detritus until ready to strike down fresh victims. Fettered Soul. While not a true undead, but rather the essence of the fey’s magic, the brume shares many psychological traits with the restless. Some obsessively and repetitively attempt to fulfill the broken oath out of the hope of release from their torment, but their minds are too fragmented to realize...

A long-lived direfly hive transforms the oldest of trees into terrifying deadwoods ; lumbering husks enveloping a network of blood-red honeycombs. While this is certainly a grisly result, the transformation of a dryad attached to an infested tree is far worse. The fey resembles the plant she’s bound to; hollowed and on the verge of death. Her bark-like skin is riven, with blood honey dripping from the wounds. The dryad’s malformed mouth hangs open with more cloying crimson fluid streaming out. This leaves the fey’s chin and chest ruddy and sticky. The top of the dryad’s head is broken open by a honeycomb crown complete with lazily buzzing direflies. Hollowed Mind. It’s not only the dryad’s body that has been eaten from the inside but her mind as well. The burrowing of direfly larva has left the fey’s brain riddled with holes resulting in a greatly diminished intellect and sapped will. This allows the autumn court to hold sway over the afflicted dryad when normally they’d balk at th...

Riddled with white rot, the armillaria dryad is a pitiful creature driven to madness by insidious contagion. Her once-verdant physique is riddled with dense clumps of sallow white mushrooms. The fungus drips a viscous ooze and becomes an adhesive mess when struck. Hints of the dryad’s veins can be seen within the base of the mushrooms wherever they rupture from her bark-like skin. Her hair, somewhere between mangy strands and withered vines, frames feverish features. The infected dryad’s eye sockets are more like swollen knots than anything else, forever weeping spore-clogged pus. Leprous Luminescence. While the mushrooms tormenting the armillaria dryad slightly glow, the tortured fey can expel the glowing particles into the air around it. The spore cloud produces an effect similar to that of faerie fire but also sickens creatures who get too much of it on their skin. Many of those stricken by the fungal foxfire report the feeling of something crawling under the skin. This has led ...

A gloom bloom is not much to be concerned about, at first glance. The cloud of sentient spores drifts through a thick forest with the appearance of morning mist along the ground or a dusk-born patch of fog. The shadows around the swarm lengthen and twist with a threatening air. Once the gloom bloom sets upon prey its nature becomes clear, the mass writhing through the air as to a single, living creature. Within the swarm, its individual spores become distinct, barbed balls of ashen fungi intent on boring into a creature to feed its life cycle. Unnatural Blight. A gloom bloom doesn’t form without the cultivation of sinister fey influence, such as by a hag’s hand or a direfly infestation in the forest. Though, it can be grown by a cultist of Zuggtmoy. Imbued with a rudimentary intelligence the fungus serves the will of its tender. Often, the swarm is given an area to graze and an order to slow any intruders; kill them if able. This befouled nature also grants a mystical edge to the s...

Festooned with white bulbs around an intestine-purple trunk an eyestalk bears some similarities to the aberrant beholders, and some theorize a connection between the two. However, it is still a plant, driven by an instinct to hunt, kill and consume. The average eyestalk specimen stands just over two feet tall with thick, bark-like growths on its top and behind each ‘eye’ bulb. When the carnivorous plant burrows these growths snap closed to protect these vulnerable parts. Magic Eaters While usually thought of as eyes the fruits spread along the eyestalk are reservoirs of arcane energy coalesced into berry-like pulp. Arcane botanists suspect these plants pull this energy directly from its victims just as a normal plant pulls its food from the soil. This theory is further collaborated by the eyestalk's typical behavior of attacking spell-casters among a party first. Often it will burrow up close to the caster, barrage it with eye rays, and then attempt to pull the body back with t...

Like its diminutive cousin’s the giant sundew crushes the life out of its prey; feeding off of the bodily fluids and digesting the rest of the carcass over time. However, due to its size, this variety of the carnivorous plant entraps game animals and even humanoids with ease. The center of the plant is covered with tender shoots and leaves, adorned with violet flowers that give off a soothing scent. Around its base, however, wider leaves lay flat against the earth and wait for an unwary creature to step onto them. From there sticky, purple tentacles, around a foot long, entrap the prey’s legs. As the captured creature struggles these tentacles are designed to use the target’s panicked motions against itself, aiding the plant in wrapping the animal tighter, and tighter until it expires. Then the tentacles exude corrosive enzymes to break down what remains. Giant Sundew large plant, unaligned Armor Class 14 (natural armor) H...

Hogweed gets its name both from its general shape and its favored growing conditions. When at rest a hogweed bush is an ugly plant full of thorny branches, sparse yellow leaves, and small sepia flowers. However, when roused it charges on four cumbersome branches, its ‘head’ a tangle of the thickest, most-barbed tangles reminiscent of boar tusks. The bush isn’t carnivorous, despite folktales claiming otherwise, just ill-tempered. It grows best when its roots are planted deep into pig, hog or boar waste. Because of this, hogweed is a constant ban of pig-farmers or where wild boars are prevalent. Blinding Pollen. If a plant that can get as riled up and violent as a wild boar wasn’t bad enough, exposure to hogweed pollen can blind an animal. Its sepia flowers are laced with the potent agitatent for much of the year, the way petals are shaped stores the dust as it is formed. When confronted with an animal it can’t easily drive off or kill, the hogshead violently shakes and fills the ai...

While lovely and perpetually in the full-bloom of youth, behind the alarune’s becoming features and beguiling smile lurks a sociopathic ‘heart’ that is in truth a pulsing, poisonous tuber. Blood doesn’t flow through the alarune’s veins, but a crimson sap three times as viscous. Their skin is as soft as a leaf, as it is made from the same material, and the pale hair atop their head is literally corn silk. The alarune wears whatever costume best fits its current angle; crafter, peasant, noble or whatever suits. However, they only ever wear done premium fabrics cut to accentuate their beauty and adorn themselves with bits of jewelry and other accessories taken as trophies from their victims. While legend holds all alarune are female those that appear male are not uncommon. In truth, these plants harbor no gender, only superficial features. Sins of the Father. Sometimes an accidental creation of happenstance, sometimes the work of a mad druid or hag, alarune’s are produced by the mixin...

Caught somewhere between fungus and fern, an inkhorn reminds most of a drawing of a plant with the bottom ruined when the inkwell spilled. Thick, black residue weeps from each leaf’s bottom, runs down the stem, and collects along the festering roots and spores below. Most fail to notice this runoff is actually metabolized blood, harvested by the inkhorn’s thorns and then dripped fed to its exposed innards. Lurking Predators. Common in city gutters and rookeries, feeding of beggars, drunks and the like inkhorns also lurk within dank caverns and deep forests. They prefer anywhere dim and where easy prey wanders by. When a warm-blooded animal wanders to close the inkhorn oozes magical darkness to confuse the creature. Unaffected by darkness the inkhorn besets its pray, beating it with veins and then burying the corpse under its fungal roots. Inkhorn Medium plant, unaligned Armor Class 12 (natural armor) Hit Points 51 ...

A strangleweed drudge is often mistaken for a zombie, but in truth, the shambling horror is merely a vessel for the malignant plant feeding off of the rotting meat. At some point, the strangleweed seeds bore their way into the now abused corpse. The plant’s black stems and roots wound through the remnants of the cadaver’s circulatory system, giving the appearance of vibrant-green veins holding together its sagging skin. Crimson leaf clusters that look like scabby growths crop up across the body shortly before the parasitic plant learns how to contract and relax the muscles within its roots. Then the drudge stumbles about, destroying other vegetation in the area. Red sap oozes out of its wounds, and its throat looks constricted by veins, its dead eyes bulging. Herbicidal Maniac. The strangelweed drudge has but one purpose, and it is not to torment the living. Instead, it seeks to eradicate as many competitor plants in the area as it can before the corpse it controls gives out. Onc...

A transparent membrane envelopes this mushroom’s trunk and roots, which happen to embedded within a skull. Within this bubble, a strange gas produced by decomposition produces an eerie, red glow as well as providing the buoyancy needed to be lighter than air. The ‘horns’ which lend the skull a demonic feel are, in truth, sprouts linking the fungus within to the covering without. This cap isn’t perfectly airtight and leaves a faint trail of sulphuric stench wherever the lantern floats. Seed of Evil. The origins of this grisly gourd are traced to a succubus who was as interested in gardening as she was in seducing the innocent; some would even say more so. However, this green thumb didn't temper the fiend to sew evil. Her thralls met a grisly fate as she used their willing bodies at planters to experiment with horrific crops. By far, the demon-skull lantern stands out as her greatest achievement. Germinated from a cutting of the fungal queen the succubus seeded the first of its ...

Mistaking a creeping carpet swarm for ivy and like plants is easy to do. After all, this carnivorous colony is distantly related to such vines. However, a skilled survivalist can distinguish a creeping carpet first by its serrated leaves, and then by the ruddy root clusters at the base of each stem. On the other hand, a hapless traveler staying overnight in a ruin infested with a creepy carpet swarm will likely not know the danger they are in until it is too late. Messy Eater: Unlike other predatory plants the vines of a creeping carpet swarm do not simply entrap their prey and bath them in caustic juices. The vicious tangle is much more proactive. After constricting a potential meal the individual plants work together to crush the life from it. Then the serrated leaves saw into its body, drawn back and forth like a sawblade by the swarm’s writhing motion. The creeping carpet pushes and pulls until it tears the corpse apart. These smaller chunks are easier to hide away at the swarm...