Using plants as villains

[Chaosvii7]

Anyone have any good stories about using plant-type creatures as BBEGs or recurring villains? I want to see if anybody has any good ideas for something that I imagine isn't largely explored.

[Amnestic]

I've never done it myself, but I would guess that plant-as-villain could work much the same as druid-as-villain. Someone who hates civilisation and wants nature to 'reclaim' it and all that stuff.

Something like the Thorian from Mass Effect 1 could work too.

[Callin]

A Lightning Struck Treant with Heart Rot that corrupts him into a Blighter Druid.

An Assassin Vine surrounded by a sinkhole of evil.

[Palanan]

Or, plants with no particular emotion towards humanoids one way or another. After all, they're just conveniently mobile, high-density pockets of nutrients.

Rather than a plant creature being ideologically uptight with civilization, it might simply see towns and cities as a new sort of habitat, just waiting for the right kind of exploitation. Humanoids are such clever, far-reaching creatures that they're perfect for seed dispersal.

An ecologically aggressive plant creature would want to disperse its progeny as broadly as possible, and might use explorers, seafarers, traders, and other far-travelers as hosts for implanted seeds, which would require a certain period of dormancy before germination. Naturally the seeds would ensure their hosts would be nicely docile when the time for germination comes, but until then they might confer special resilience to improve host survival, which in game terms might be represented by DR, fast healing, etc.

The implanted seeds might also give subtle nudges to their hosts, impelling them to explore further in certain promising directions, pushing them impatiently through inhospitable terrain and causing them to linger in richer, more appropriate environments. A DM could have a lot of fun with this.

[hamishspence]

This sounds like the world domination plan of The Plant in Little Shop of Horrors- only more subtle.

[thethird]

I have...

Actually in one of my campaigns the BBEG was an awakened and advanced yellow musk creeper, boy I love those creatures. Using zombies to go to town and ask nicely for people to go to the main plant.

It basically had infested an old villa, keeping the people there doing their normal shifts, "living" normally, talking/hiring to adventures to fetch items or destroy enemies of the plant. When the party realized they went to the main building, and when tried to confront it the plant destroyed the tiles of the floor making them fall into the main body of the musk which was much larger than they expected.

It was a really campaign and the faces of the table when the floor proved to just be more BBEG were amazing.

[Chaosvii7]

This sounds like the world domination plan of The Plant in Little Shop of Horrors- only more subtle.

I mean, if every plant in the world wanted to devour you alive and take over your township, then it might be a little more conspicuous.

[hamishspence]

Indeed.

There's a lot of interesting plants out there that could be used as minions for the BBEG.

[Callin]

Its not like the plants need to take over a town or anything like that. It could just be trying to survive in the Forest/Swamp/Cave what have you and people can stumble across it and be killed. Over time it would garner a legend of an evil living there that kills or devours children (what have you).

[hamishspence]

To be a Recurring Villain though, may require more than that.

[Vaz]

Perhaps a Woodling Creature becoming more attached to Nature, as the BBEG, perhaps with Dryad/Woodling Creature "Cavalry" riding Battlebriars as his Lieutenants? Or a Master of the Hunt?

[Callin]

Not for a low level BBEG. It dont need to be recurring just a Big Memorable fight at the end of the low level campaign. Imagine making your way through a jungle. Avoiding sink holes, giant mosquito's, the wrath of a tribe of indigenous people because you touched the alter of their God, and a few more games worth of encounters, only to come across colony of Blood Apes at the Heart of the Jungle at the base of a COLOSSAL tree choked with Assassin Vines. The Blood Apes feed off of the Berries that it produces and the Vines feed off the older slower Apes.

Ok i forgot where i was goin with that so i will stop lol. But im sure you could add in why you are actually there. Maybe to get a rare ingredient for a potion to save the king or whatever.

The BBEG to me is just that. Big Bad END Guy. Not recurring villain.


Then on to Mid level campaign hooks!!!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Callin
Its not like the plants need to take over a town or anything like that.

Civilization encroaches, habitat destroyed. Plant creature recognizes opportunity, uses its oppressors to spread its progeny far and wide.


Originally Posted by hamishspence
This sounds like the world domination plan of The Plant in Little Shop of Horrors- only more subtle.

Never seen it, actually. Just trying to think like a plant.

:smalltongue:

[Urpriest]

I saw the title of this thread, and my first thought was "most plants aren't even intelligent...a plant as a villain would be pretty hilarious," followed by "oh, wait, that's probably not the right meaning of plant...the thread is probably about having one of the players be a plant secretly working for the DM, ending up as the true villain of the campaign...silly me."

Then I actually read the thread.:smallbiggrin:

[mattie_p]

See follows "The Day of the Triffids (http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Triffids-John-Wyndham/dp/089968386X)." Read it, don't watch it.

[Khatoblepas]

Well, I made a BBEG build a long time ago that is plant-based (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19868846/Yellow_Ivy_-_The_Necromancer_in_the_Vines_Naturally_Cheesy_Bui ld?pg=1).

Try a full complement of spellcasting zombies that propagate and choke out every thing in it's path, never lose class levels, retain their Con score, and can't be rebuked by someone unless they have the Plant domain or Initiate of Nature.

Zombie apocalypse, meet aggressive weeds.

[thethird]

Awesomely I also did that!

Didn't mention it though because symbiotic is aberration not plant but it is actually great.

[hamishspence]

Not for a low level BBEG. It dont need to be recurring just a Big Memorable fight at the end of the low level campaign.

True- but the OP asked for stories about both- Plant BBEGs and Plant Recurring Villains.

[8wGremlin]

Invation of the body snatchers?

[Callin]

so he did..... :smallredface:

[FreakyCheeseMan]

I had one species of plant a long time ago called "Bone Temples."

They were highly magical and very old plants left over from when the region (now a desert) used to be a jungle - they got their name for the face that their dried-out flesh looked rather bone like, the fact that they were large enough and of a construction that resembled a temple, and the actual thing they did.

Bone temples produce a magical steroid/hallucinogen, which accumulates in blossoms that hold water around the temple. Ingesting this makes a person or animal larger and stronger, but also compels them to protect the plant.

Additionally, at the center of the temple is a single blossom that holds a much, much more concentrated version - this stuff massively increases strength and power, but there's only enough to keep one creature under the effects, so the temple has a Champion, as well.

These things were tied into a plot where the drugs were being gathered and sold in a city hundreds of miles away, so there were all kinds of roid-raging gang members somehow compelled to defend the interests of a plant they'd never seen. To make matters worse, those gang members were getting eaten by a pack of mind flayers, who had themselves become addicted to the drug.

[Ravens_cry]

I think they need some personality. The Joker may not have much motivation, but he has a great personality.

[Fitz10019]

Level 3: party saves a group of shipwrecked sailors.

Level 16: party finds out those sailors have been spreading seeds to every port of known civilization.

Previously, the plant had been stranded on the island.

I haven't done this -- just an idea.

[Krobar]

I ran a little side trek once that was focused around an Ancient Night Twist.

They are seriously bad news.