Overgrown Viper Vine

A voracious, flesh-eating carnivore, the viper vine has a single enormous blossom arising from a thick, leafy tangle of snake-like vines. When the plant senses the approach of suitable prey through its sensitive, shallowly buried root system, it rises up like an agitated snake and unfurls its brightly colored bloom, an act that releases a cloud of mind-numbing pollen. Persistent stories claim the viper vine can lure prey into its clutches by swaying with a hypnotic motion, but this effect is in fact created by this invisible, odorless pollen cloud.

Since a viper vine gains nourishment by consuming creatures rather than through ingesting moisture and soil, it has developed rudimentary locomotion and can drag itself along the ground with its tentacle-like roots. It even has a form of rudimentary sentience, allowing it to not only discern differences in prey and make limited tactical decisions, but also to avoid creatures that are particularly large or dangerous-looking.

The area around viper vine hunting grounds is often strewn with the partially devoured remains of victims. It's not unusual to find the rotting corpses of wild animals, ill-fated adventurers, and even giants in the plant's immediate vicinity, along with a scattering of incidental treasure left behind on the corpses. A viper vine rarely returns to the carcass of a creature it killed earlier, preferring to hunt fresh meat.