Bloodsipper Podling
Bloodsipper Podling
CR 3 N Aberration
This little horror looks something like a giant seed with no face except for a fanged maw. It has four limbs, each with two toes, which it seemingly uses as hands or feet interchangeably. It is connected to a pulsing yellowish vine by a tendril growing from its underside like an umbilical cord.
The bloodsipper vine grows in the cracks and crevices of the Plateau of Leng. A carnivorous horror somewhere between plant and animal, they use motile pods to grab onto passing creatures and drain them of their blood. They are tenacious and invasive, and can spread far and wide from a single nightmare to become an infestation. Once it is well fed enough, a bloodsipper vine can intentionally detach one of its pods. The freed podling hides itself in a quiet, dark place and erupts into a new vine growth in a matter of days.
The podlings of a bloodsipper usually hide inside its vegetative mass, concealed by the pods from which they grew or the coils of pulsing vines. They are blind, but can smell and detect movement with pinpoint accuracy, and when a creature approaches they launch themselves to the attack. A bloodsipper podling does not have any strategic abilities—they simply attach themselves to the first creature they can and drain blood, then repeat if other moving creatures are in the vicinity. Only a bloodsipper vine that is weak or injured will have a single podling—they are commonly found in whole squads. They are attached to their vines by an umbilical cord; if this is severed through violence, the podling slowly bleeds out.
Bloodsipper Vines
The vines from which bloodsipper podlings grow fill a 20 foot square with light undergrowth. They smell of blood out to 100 feet, which attracts carnivores and scavengers for the podlings to grab and drain. A podling can move through the area of a bloodsipper vine without penalty. The patch has 90 hit points, DR 5/slashing and the podling’s vulnerability to salt. The bloodsipper vine has no way of defending itself except through its podlings, but if the patch is burned, the smoke gives off a horrid stench in a 10 foot radius (as per a stinking cloud spell, CL 4th, DC 14).
Bloodsipper Podling CR 3
XP 800
N Small aberration (extraplanar)
Init +7; Senses blindsight 40 ft.,blind, Perception +6
Defense
AC 17, touch 14, flat-footed 14 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 natural)
hp 30 (4d8+12)
Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +5
DR 5/slashing; Immune gaze attacks,plant traits, visual spells and effects
Defensive Abilities floronic; Weaknesses tethered, vulnerable to salt
Offense
Speed 20 ft., climb 20 ft.
Melee bite +6 (1d8+3 plus grab)
Special Attacks blood drain (1d3 Con), grab (Large)
Statistics
Str 14, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 1, Wis13, Cha 4
Base Atk +3; CMB +5 (+9 grapple); CMD 17
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Improved Initiative
Skills Climb +10,Perception +6, Stealth +12
Ecology
Environment any land (Plateau of Leng)
Organization solitary or grove (2-12)
Treasure incidental
Special Abilities
Floronic (Ex) Although it is an aberration, a bloodsipper podling has all of the immunities of the plant type. It is treated as both a plant and an aberration for the purposes of spells and effects.
Tethered (Ex) A bloodsipper podling cannot move more than 20 feet from the bloodsipper vine that is grows from (see above). Its vine can be severed with a successful sunder check made against the podling’s CMD with a slashing weapon (hardness 0, 5 hp), which removes the tether but deals 1 point of bleed damage to the podling.
Vulnerable to Salt (Ex) A handful of salt burns a bloodsipper podling as if it were acid, dealing 1d6 points of damage per use.