#cr 11-15

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Ichordeep Emissary

The Ichordeep Entity is an algae of vast size and apparently at least rudimentary intelligence located on Shedaklah, the 222nd layer of the Abyss. While it is largely immobile in the sense that it has never moved from its current location, the Entity has demonstrated the ability to reach out with pseudopods to grasp prey flying above it, and the ability to calve off 'emissaries' to travel beyond its main mass.

Ichordeep emissaries' shape is difficult to categorize. Aside from uniformly being quite large, they have been seen in shapes humanoid, arthropod, bestial, and otherwise. They uniformly have some appendage capable of fine manipulation like a humanoid hand, and have the capability to slip through impossibly thin gaps, demonstrating a lack of internal stalk or trunk.

Like most forms of life originating in the Abyss, emissaries are carnivorous, hunting and trapping prey to dissolve with digestive enzymes they secrete from their surface. They have telepathic abilities they use in conjunction with their grappling attacks, and appear to have the capability to magically conjure a section of the Ichordeep Entity itself, with an effect not unlike a conventional Black Tentacles spell. This all conspires to make them challenging to escape once in their grasp, but fortunately they are quite slow-moving and not tenacious when it comes to pursuing faster prey.

As their name suggests, ichordeep emissaries are adept communicators, telepathically making contact with planar travelers to demand sustenance and, occasionally, magical items or spellcasters. The purpose of these demands is quite opaque, but given the environment from which the parent plant sprung, little good can come of acceding except as needed to survive the encounter.

[bestiarybreakdown]

Graveknight

Powerful undead warriors, graveknights are to martial classes what liches are to spellcasters. If that description worries you, good. If it doesn’t, you probably won’t live long enough to find out why it should.

Graveknight is, like most forms of undead, a template applied to a creature that increases the CR, in this case adding a +2. Their core ability is Rejuvenation (Su). Should a graveknight be felled without completely destroying its armor, the armor will begin to reform the undead horror within a day. Another major ability is their Ruinous Revivification (Su), which determines the type of energy used by several other abilities. Channel Destruction (Su) increases the damage of their weapon attacks and Devastating Blast (Su) unleashes a burst of magical power, both of which are altered depending on the damage type determined by the Ruinous Revivification. Undead Mastery (Su) lets them size control of other undead, while Phantom Steed (Su) lets them conjure a ghostly mount. Finally, Sacrilegious Aura (Su) creates an area in which positive energy falters and undead creatures flourish.

Graveknights are just as versatile as liches, with a focus on martial prowess rather than spellcasting. Relentless foes who can keep coming back, they can serve as dangerous recurring antagonists to players or powerful figures in the setting.

Sir Sebastian never noticed his own demise, nor his animation as a graveknight. During a long and gruesome crusade, he served as the military commander for an exacting siege, neglecting rest, food, and his own health as he desperately tried to engineer tactics and battles to see his troops to safety. At some point he died of exhaustion, rising again as a graveknight before his body even fell to the ground. His troops have noticed a change in his tactics to become more brutal, such as animating the fallen enemies as bone golems, but most chalk it up to a desire to end the crusade without suspecting what lies under their commander's helm.

The Void’s Grasp is the most feared ship in several star systems, and for good reason. Captained by an icy graveknight clad in a powered combat exoskeleton and crewed by a mix of undead minions and half-functioning robots, the ship screams through space to prey on cargo vessels. With an unliving crew, its commander did away with a pressurized atmosphere, radiation shielding, temperature regulation, and many vital life support systems to make room for more weapons, shields, and equipment to lay waste to their foes. 

The Knight of the Sable Hills swore undying loyalty to her king, but none suspected how true the oath would be. Slain by a dragon’s lightning breath, the knight rose again to slay her killer before returning home. Despite her desire to hold to her oath, undeath has warped her mind and she now carries out her own missions backed by skeletal soldiers in pursuit of what she thinks her liege desires, even if he won’t say it.

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Alraune

Alraune are among the most highly recognizable plants of the Feywild. Large bushes with wide, heart-shaped leaves dominate the plant's mass, but their most distinctive feature is their flower. Most often scarlet or a rich, attractive pink, these flowers are as large as a standard humanoid, and the inner parts of the flower resemble a slender, androgynous humanoid figure, typically white, yellow, or pinkish in complexion.

The flower of the alraune is where much of its danger comes from; although not prone to rapid spread, alraune flowers are constantly hungry for companionship and seek it in any form they can find, most commonly in fey and mortals. Capable of using several forms of enchantment magic innately and exploiting those charmed by their potent pollen, alraune are well-equipped to defend themselves.

Alraune reproduction requires pollination, like most flowering plants; however, alraune attract humanoids to pollinate them, which most commonly takes the form of intimate contact between the flower and the pollinator. Once this contact has occurred, alraune usually keep their pollinator around for defense while they fruit, eventually producing seeds they charge the pollinator with distributing. This fruiting process typically takes about 8 hours, and produces 2-4 soft, deep pinkish-red fruit with a tough, woody pit.

Alraune are sentient enough to engage in conversation and are extremely skilled conversationalists even beside their magical talents. They often prove highly knowledgeable about the social landscape of their surroundings, and if prompted or promised pollination aid, can fill travelers in on the social affairs of their locale.

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Rainbow Bamboo

Any form of life native to the Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo must be capable of great feats of elemental endurance or reliably shaping the chaos to meet its own needs. It is telling, then, that rainbow bamboo is both- extremely durable and capable of chaos-shaping any githzerai anarch would envy, these sentient grasses are far more than they appear.

Although near immobile in the conventional sense, rainbow bamboo are actually highly skilled at manipulating the chaos of Limbo to move about, creating objective gravity and rooting themselves in motes of elemental earth to cover great distances without properly moving. Intellectual capacities as great as theirs require fuel, and rainbow bamboo are consummate wanderers, explorers, and scientists of the elemental arts. Alchemists everywhere would be fortunate to study at the roots of a grove of this astute grass.

Rainbow bamboo is aptly named; each individual stem is often vibrant with colors all over the visual spectrum, and some even undetectable with the typical humanoid eye. They grow at great speed and reproduce by budding; it is my personal belief that most currently-living rainbow bamboos are all descendants of an original stand in the distant past, an impression the bamboos have yet to correct.

Woe betide any who mistake the bamboo's motionlessness for inability to defend themselves. Few are better at manipulating the raw chaos of Limbo for combat purposes, and any encounter with rainbow bamboo quickly becomes a barrage of deadly energies, sudden appearances and attacks by inanimate objects, and stomach-churning gravity phenomena.

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Krigalan Praying Orchid

Native to the forever-sunlit forests and savannahs of Krigala, the Krigalan Praying Orchid is a fascinating case of animal mimicry in plants. While some flowers are shaped like pollinating insects to draw in unwitting pollinators in turn, the praying orchid is, in fact, a plant exhibiting predator mimicry to dissuade herbivores.

Shaped like a massive praying mantis in a rich emerald or jade hue, with brightly-colored pink and purple mottled flowers kept sheltered safe beneath large leafy "wing cases", the praying orchid's mimicry is impeccable- but one must wonder what it intended to dissuade by appearance, as this plant is also more than capable of defending itself by force. Gifted at harnessing Krigala's eternal sunshine both for mobility and offense, the praying orchid's only predators are the ignorant or the challenge-intent.

Despite resembling a predatory insect, the praying orchid is content to collect its nutrients from sun, water, and soil like most plants. It mostly makes use of its sunlit jaunt ability to teleport to and from areas with better soil nutrition, lighting conditions, or pollinator access.

For those who go to the beastlands to hunt, however, there are few greater choices for prey. The orchid is both rare and beautiful if collected and pressed, and its petals have euphoric effects that make it highly sought-after; however, between razor-edged 'forelimb' leaves and the ability to weaponize sunlight both at close and long range, would-be hunters have much to overcome, and the utmost levels of caution are both warranted and recommended.

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Flameforger Tree

Few things in the Multiverse embody the raw creative potential of the elements better than the flameforger tree. Subsisting solely on thermal energy and gifted with considerable creative talents, flameforger trees have the ability to handle and shape raw magma with their hand-branches for a wide variety of purposes, most commonly in the pursuit of artistic expression.

While not exceptionally sophisticated to speak to, flameforger trees consider themselves stewards of the power of creation itself and spend much of their time sculpting statues out of magma, diverting flows and cultivating caldera cactus for performance art pieces, and finger painting with pigments derived from ash and igneous rock. They are appreciators of all forms of art, and bards in need of enthusiastic critics and creative partners would do well to consider consulting with them.

Flameforger trees are easily recognizable by their black-and-charcoal striped trunk coloration, lack of leaves, and general humanoid shape. Their heartwood, if spotted while the tree lives, glows with a faint yellow light, which is reflected in their eyes. They are typically armed with a handful of magma-crafted weapons, but they also have considerable magical abilities that they use easily and flexibly for self-defense and in service of their art.

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Kelp Dragon

This huge, ambulatory form of seaweed is characterized by the long, sinuous shape it takes when swimming and its seed pod "heart" that makes up the center of its mass. Kelp dragons, as they are most often called, are of animalistic intelligence and hostile disposition, particularly in defense of their seed pod.

Kelp dragons are only fertile to seed for a period about a year long every century, and despite their long life spans cannot afford to risk the time they have to meet other kelp dragons and mutually fertilize one another's seed pods. Once fertilized, these seeds are carried to waters with exactly the right combination of factors to be released to sprout into new kelp dragons of their own. The factors involved appear to include salinity, water clarity, depth, and presence of other life, but this seems an incomplete survey and my research is ongoing.

Gifted with the ability to rapidly regrow lost leaves and stems from predation, kelp dragons are nevertheless highly aggressive, attacking would-be predators preemptively so they cannot risk damaging the dragon's seed pod. Equally gifted at lying low in beds of other aquatic fauna and obliterating would-be predators with a thorny "bite", kelp dragons nevertheless provide critical nutrition for many inhabitants of the Plane of Water, including stranded sailors.

[justavulcan]

Airmark's Guide to Planar Vegetables: Urchin Bush

Urchin bushes are immediately recognizable by their spherical shape and huge barbed seeds, which bristle from the plant on every side. Like many plants that grow in low-gravity environments, urchin bushes have no true central stalk or trunk, instead growing radially from a roughly centralized root mass.

Aside from its many needle-like leaves and seeds, the surface of an urchin bush is relatively bare, mostly due to its growing conditions. They requires solid ground to sprout and grow to maturity, but once their barbed, thorn-like seeds are nearly mature, they uproot themselves and start their free-fall, a state in which they remain for most of their lives.

Due to their structure and resilient branches, urchin bushes are totally immune to damage from collisions, which enables them to crash into earthbergs and other solid or semi-solid objects, breaking off seeds as they roll away and likely resume their free fall.

Urchin bushes are sentient and capable of defending themselves with considerable psionic talents and their sharp seeds. However, they are typically more interested in conversation than attacking those that come into contact with them, and have been known to attract birds, aarakocra, and air genasi as students and conversational partners.