The assassin vine is a carnivorous plant that collects its own grisly fertilizer by grabbing and crushing animals and depositing the carcasses near its roots. These remarkable plants can see minute 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 no intelligence or agenda, they lash out at whatever living things pass nearby, regardless of the target’s size, sentience, or potential deadliness. A mature plant consists of a main vine, about 20 feet long; smaller vines up to 5 feet long branch off from the main vine about every 6 inches. These small vines bear clusters of leaves, and in late summer they produce bunches of small fruits that resemble wild blackberries. The fruit is tough and has a hearty and typically bitter flavor, although some say the berries change in taste depending on what victims composted a given plant’s roots. The most murderous assassin vines supposedly produce the sweetest berries.

An assassin vine can move about, but usually stays put unless it needs to seek prey in a new vicinity. The plants use simple tactics, lying still until prey comes within reach and then attacking. Once an assassin vine is engaged, it pursues prey (albeit slowly) in order to catch and compost the creature. The plants prove tenacious, as long as their quarry remains within sight. Once a creature moves beyond the plant’s ability to perceive it, the unthinking vine falls still and lies in wait for the next passerby.

Assassin vines lurk within dense forests and swamps, but some might encroach upon poorly tended fields and vineyards. The vine’s seeds might be spread far by birds swift enough to pluck them and escape. Tales often tell of assassin vines appearing in flower beds or infiltrating greenhouses, murderous surprises planted by rivals and enemies or arbitrary doom dropped by unsuspecting wing.

This is my Neverwinter character Gertie Paws and her faithful dire wolf companion Lycaon. As you can see I’m a Halfling Greatweapon fighter. Feel free to add me for adventuring times. I play on Mindflayer. Gertie has a secret, she is a lycanthrope!!

Desert giants rove the stark and majestic sands, rarely dwelling in permanent camps. They roam from oasis to oasis, sleeping beneath the stars or in easily dismantled yurts, breaking camp as whim strikes or when food sources grow scarce.

Desert giants stand 15 feet tall on average, but have slender builds and rarely weigh more than 2,000 pounds, a fact that greatly contributes to their grace and speed. The giants favor loose robes with keffiyehs for protection from the scouring desert winds, as well as traveling leathers worn beneath the robes. They require little water, and are able to survive for as long as 2 weeks on food alone. When such goods are available, they drink water, milk, and juices in prodigious amounts, but they spurn beer, wine, and stronger spirits. The bulk of their diet comes from figs, olives, and similar bounty of the oases, supplemented by meat if required. The eldest desert giants live as long as 300 years.

Despite their nomadic ways, desert giants guard their territory fiercely, driving away all interlopers, whether intelligent or bestial.

In the last few weeks I haven’t really posted anything, that’s because I was laid off from my job and I have been busy with looking for a new one. 

A wraith is an undead creature born of evil and darkness, despising light and all living things. They can drain the life from living creatures, turning them into new wraiths upon death. Wraiths are powerless in natural sunlight, appearing as a sinister, spectral figure robed in darkness. They have no visual features or appendages, except for their glowing red eyes.

After a 3 week hiatus due various illnesses in our gaming group we started up again last week. The heroes of Hirot traveled through time and did some undercity exploring. After many tense battles we freed a powerful god called the Carnifex. Here are some wonderful drawings by Emily DeLisle of things we saw,

Planetars are mighty generals of celestial armies that also help powerful mortals on missions of good, particularly those that involve battles with fiends. Despite their vast array of magical powers, planetars are more likely to wade into melee with their powerful greatswords. They particularly enjoy fighting fiends.

The eblis are a semi-civilized society of birdmen that make their homes in desolate swamps and marshes. They rarely have interactions with other races, preferring the company of their own kind and the serenity of their marshland homes. An eblis is a large bird that strongly resembles a stork — so much so that eblis are often called “stork men.” An eblis stands about 8 feet tall, and the neck is extremely long and snake-like and is unnaturally flexible and capable of blindingly fast movements. An eblis’ beak is long, sharp, and deadly. A male eblis has gray-brown feathers with reddish patches on its head, while a female lacks the red patch.

Storkmen are very fast at shifting and striking, and their necks are very powerful despite their slenderness. They attack by stabbing with their beak.

Of the numerous wonders and horrors that emerge from the technological ruins, the androids who periodically crawl from the wreckage are among the most eerie and amazing. Though they appear to be almost human, these artificial wonders are of a completely foreign and utterly alien nature.

Androids are created, not born, and come into the world fully mature. The strange, alien -forges- in which new androids are created are hidden in strange ruins, and most androids have little to no memories of these regions. Strange circuitry-like markings that look like faintly glowing tattoos, a faint metallic sheen to the eyes, and watery, almost translucent red blood are all ways to tell an android from a human–providing its awkward mannerisms haven’t revealed the truth already.

A typical android is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds.

Whereas the succubus is a demon that works her wiles by exploiting the physical lusts and needs of her prey, the glabrezu is a tempter of a different sort. Ferocious and bestial in form, the glabrezu is in fact a master of trickery and lies. With its ability to cloak its true form in pleasant illusions, the glabrezu uses its magic to grant wishes to mortal humanoids as a method of rewarding those who succumb to its guile and deceit. A wish granted by a glabrezu always fulfills the wisher’s need in the most destructive way possible—although such methods might not be immediately apparent. A struggling weaponsmith might wish for fame and skill at his craft, only to find that his best patron is a cruel and sadistic murderer who uses the weapons to further his destructive desires. A lonely man who wishes for a companion might have his wish granted in the form of a lost love returned to “life” as a vampire, and so on—the glabrezu is nothing if not creative in addressing a mortal’s desires.

A glabrezu stands 18 feet tall and weighs just over 6,000 pounds. These treacherous demons form from the souls of the treasonous, the false, and the subversive—souls of mortals who, in life, bore false witness or used treachery and deceit to ruin the lives of others.