Assassin Tree (Basic Lore)

Assassin Tree (Heavy; CR 18)
Pure Evil - Colossal - Plant
This creature possesses the Heavy role, and therefore counts as 2 monsters for purposes of encounter size, XP award, and treasure. This monster frequently has the Heavy role, but may be set to other roles if desired. Assassin Trees are full-sized trees that are animate and perfectly hostile to all other animate existence. As a plant, the Assassin Tree considers all non-plant creatures to be enemies. Assassin Trees are thankfully rare compared to other sorts of trees, but that still means they are uncomfortably common. They can be found in forests and jungles, hilly or mountainous wilderness, swamps, and even tundra and deserts. Indeed, more than a few desert oases have been lost to these vegetable menaces. Even worse, it is not uncommon to find Assassin trees in ruins and abandoned structures everywhere, often in the company of Leatherleaf (which explains how the ruins came to be ruined). In the wild, Assassin Trees can be attracted to campfires and the like, although thankfully, these wooden beasts seem to be less active in the hours of darkness. Perhaps worst of all, it is not uncommon for the rich and powerful to have Assassin Trees as part of their landscaping. A grove of Assassin Trees in the center of a decorative garden can be a useful thing for the rich and evil... The Assassin Tree is a carnivorous plant that creates its own grisly fertilizer by smashing animals with its long, heavy branches. These remarkable plants can detect movements in the earth and air and detect changes in light and heat through their broad leaves, giving them exceptional awareness of the area around them. Possessing limited intelligence or agenda, they lash out at whatever living things pass nearby, rarely worrying about how dangerous those things might be. Unfortunately, Assassin Trees are hard to pick out in a vegetated setting. Their bark and leaves can grow in any of several ways, sometimes even on a single plant, meaning that up close it is hard to be certain you are looking at one. If you can see one from a good distance, it is easy to spot that they look like a pair of long, narrow trees that have grown together in the center of their slender trunks. They have two root balls at the ends of woody 'legs', a central trunk, and then two or three distinct leafy crowns. The entirety of their massive bulk is unnaturally flexible for such a wooden creature, and they move with startling speed. When they attack, which is almost always when they sense anything warm or moving nearby, they stride close on their wooden 'legs' and then smash the ground below with deadly force. They are terribly poisonous, the merest brush of their leaves or bark raising painful weeping welts. If they are successfully attacked, by heroes able to withstand their attacks or by town guard with siege weapons, they shatter before their final destruction into a jagged mass of debris, which is still horribly animate. Worst of all, if you shatter one but fail to finally put it down completely, the mass of debris will eventually sprout into dozens of new assassin trees. Assassin Trees do not seem to be directly related to assassin vines, although there are obvious parallels between the two creatures.