Planar Bestiary
Khasasia fruits are delicious and spicy, but they must be cooked, dried, or eaten before they sprout and grow into their adult form.
The khasasia, or pollen snake, is a mobile plant creature native to the Beastlands. The creature resembles a thick wooden branch covered in moss, leaves, and flowers, with a cluster of thorny growths at one end that somewhat resembles a toothy mouth. They attack by making bite-like strikes with their thorns, which trigger their flowers to release bursts of irritating pale dust. Like many carnivorous plants, khasasias need to eat only for supplemental nutrition, and they require much less food than a typical predator of their size (such as an animal snake).
After a kill, khasasias roll over and around their prey, using tiny rootlets to absorb the trace nutrients they need, and leaving behind large patches of pale dust. Another pollen snake that encounters these leavings will perform the same maneuver, pollinating their flowers so they can produce small pepper-like fruits that eventually drop off, go through a sedentary stage, and develop into young ambulatory khasasias.
The pale dust produced by a khasasia's flowers is irritating to the eyes and noses of most creatures, causing sneezing, redness, itching, and similar symptoms. Gnomes are immune to these effects, and khasasias ignore gnomes unless attacked first or controlled by another creature.
Motive: Hungers for flesh, defense
Environment: The Beastlands, wherever they can hunt food, alone or in small groups of up to four or five
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (3 points)
Armor: 1
Movement: Short; short when swimming; immediate when climbing
Modifications: Speed defense as level 2 due to large size; stealth as level 5 (or level 7 in forest or jungle terrains)
Combat: The khasasia's bite deals damage and, on a failed Might defense task, inflicts an additional 2 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) from poison this round and each round thereafter. A poisoned victim's perception tasks, and all tasks requiring clear sight, are hindered. The poison lingers for one minute or until the victim succeeds on a Might defense task on their turn to end the effect early.
If the khasasia dies, they explode, and creatures within short range that fail a Might defense task take 5 points of Speed damage (ignores Armor) from poison, and are poisoned for up to one minute as if bitten.
Interaction: Patient ambush hunters, khasasias may pursue almost any size prey vulnerable to poison, especially if part of a group. They're not intelligent but understand that the sacrifice of one khasasia may benefit others, so they rarely back down from conflict.
Use: Explorers into a remote jungle island face many dangers, including disease, strange groups of humanoids, and terrifying "living branches" of the forest that slither like snakes.
GM Intrusion: A character poisoned by the khasasia is fully blinded until they manage to clear the poison with a successful Might defense task.