Tsaalgrend

Strange, translucent gas bladders carry this tangle of thorny, purple vines and clumps of mold through the air. A dusting of spores floats to the ground beneath it.

Tsaalgrend (CR 2)

Small Plant
Alignment: Neutral
Initiative: +2
Senses: Darkvision 60 feet, Low-Light Vision; Perception +4

Speed: 10 feet, Climb 10 feet, Fly 40 feet (poor)
Space: 5 feet

Defense

Armor Class: 14, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +1 natural, +1 size)
Hit Points: 19 (3d8+6)
Saving Throws: Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +1
Immunity: plant traits
Energy Resistance: acid 5, electricity 5
Weaknesses: light blindness, vulnerability to fire

Offense

Melee: bite +5 (1d4+1 plus Grab), 2 tendrils +0 (1d4 plus Grab)
Reach: 5 feet

Special Attacks: Grab, spores

Statistics

Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
13 (+1)	15 (+2)	15 (+2)	3 (-4)	10 (+0)	8 (-1)

Base Attack Bonus: +2
CMB +2
CMD 14 (16 vs. Trip)

Feats: Fly-by Attack, Weapon Finesse

Skills: Climb +9, Fly +5, Perception +4

Languages:

Special Abilities

Grab (Ex)

A tsaalgrend can grab a foe of up to one size category larger than itself.

Spores (Ex)

As a standard action, a tsaalgrend can release a cloud of toxic spores in a 10-foot-radius spread. Each living creature within this area must succeed at a DC 13 Fortitude save or become paralyzed with fear as the victim vividly hallucinates for 1d4 rounds. A creature that successfully saves against this effect is immune to the same tsaalgrend's spores for 24 hours. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Ecology

Environment: Any Underground
Organization: solitary, pair, cluster (3-6), or pod (7-20)
Treasure: none


A tsaalgrend is a predatory creature resembling a tangle of sturdy vines with jagged purple thorns. Its coloration is mottled with brown, green, and yellow mold patches that flake and fall as the creature writhes through the air. The tsaalgrend's vines barely conceal two translucent, gas-filled sacks that act as balloons, enabling it to float along above the ground. Stretching from the creature's center are two longer vines that the tsaalgrend uses to capture its prey. An opening filled with rows of spiky thorns serves as the creature's mouth and is positioned on the creature's underside, where it constantly emits a wet, rancid stench. A tsaalgrend typically grows to be over 3 feet long, and weighs about 40 pounds.

Ecology Strange and sentient plants, tsaalgrends float up to the surface from their underground habitats in a constant search for prey. Growing in the darkened depths, these fungal creatures shun light, only hunting at night near the cave openings from which they emerge. Tsaalgrends can fly, albeit awkwardly, by forcing air into and out of their gas bladders. This helps them not only get around in the difficult conditions found underground, but also avoid becoming snacks for enterprising predators. When not flying, the creatures constrict and relax their tangle of vines to provide a roiling form of locomotion. They can move slowly across the ground and even climb vertical surfaces. Tsaalgrends are often found clinging to the walls in subterranean chambers, and sometimes whole colonies can fill a cave with the airy sounds of rustling vines and the ventilation of their gas bladders.

Tsaalgrends are carnivorous hunters that paralyze prey by hovering above their victims and raining toxic spores. They then use their thorny vines to wrap up their prey and transfer it to their mouths. Since tsaalgrends are small and relatively weak, larger prey often eludes these creatures' grasp. Instead, tsaalgrends feed on insects, rodents, snakes, and other similar creatures they find crawling around in caverns. A tsaalgrend's mouth is lined with crisscrossed rows of jagged thorns, layered in rings, appearing like a shark's teeth. Inside its mouth, quick-moving tendrils covered in tiny barbed spines wrap around food and pull it to the creature's stomach, rasping its meal against its rows of teeth to help break down the body into more easily digestible chunks before finally allowing stomach acid to complete the digestion process.

Tsaalgrends not only produce their own fungus, but also play host to a multitude of other molds, fungi, mosses, and epiphytes. The most powerful mold growing within a tsaalgrend is the fine, dustlike black spores it generates. Used for hunting, these spores can be released in a wide area. Any creature breathing them in is immediately subject to an overwhelming fear response as its mind is flooded with the most frightening things imaginable. The victim's breathing becomes quick and shallow, the heart rate rises dramatically, and nearby sounds become dull over the rush of blood in the ears. The mind screams to run away, but the muscles simply cannot react.

Opportunistic alchemists have been known to hunt and trap tsaalgrends with the intention of painstakingly harvesting the black spores from living specimens and using them to fabricate new and potent inhaled poisons. Securing a living tsaalgrend is important to the process, as the spores lose potency soon after they are released, making storage for later utilization impractical. Such alchemists often run afoul of druids with an affinity for fungal creatures who have an interest in communing with and protecting tsaalgrends.

Though tsaalgrends display only limited intelligence, they seem to be capable of communicating with each other through the deliberate transfer of spores. These bouts of communication involve bursts of various colors and types of spores in quick succession. This behavior has been observed just prior to coordinated hunting efforts. Some creatures that have spent time around tsaalgrends claim that the plants also respond to spoken language. Critics of this theory say that the plant creatures are simply responding to the noise and the presence of a potential meal. Several distinct patches of stubby 1- or 2-inch growths found along the creature's sides are believed to serve as eyes.

Though tsaalgrends favor damp environments, they have extremely dry exteriors which make them especially vulnerable to fire and fire-based attacks. Tsaalgrends exposed to fire can be reduced to piles of ash in just a few moments. As such, tsaalgrends avoid open flame, and creatures that share environments with these floating plants use this knowledge to their advantage to keep their caves free of floating predators.

Habitat & Society Tsaalgrends live and breed in underground caverns and other dark, damp places, but it's strongly suspected that they didn't evolve naturally on Golarion. Even though the creatures live almost exclusively in underground environments, those who explore the Darklands rarely report the creatures too far afield from caverns directly below Numeria, suggesting that tsaalgrends may have come to Golarion during the Rain of Stars. The plants also tend to share environments with vegepygmies and the russet mold that spawns them, however, leading other scholars to claim that tsaalgrends are somehow magically manipulated offshoots of those creatures, if not the direct product of drow sporecrafting. Still others believe that the plant creatures must stem from a subterranean portal to the First World, perhaps a breach broken open by the immense impact of the crashing Silver Mount. Only further study will reveal the truth.

Tsaalgrends bloom infrequently, producing offspring only when certain conditions are met. Environmental conditions linked to moisture levels, available food, and the presence of other fungal creatures trigger the growth of sacs that produce vegetative spores. These spores are distributed safely on damp ledges covered with slimes, fungi, or other fertile organic matter like guano. These spores develop over the course of a few weeks, forming the young tsaalgrends' spore sacs first. As they mature, the spore sacs lift developing tsaalgrends into the air, making them vulnerable to predators as they lack the ability to control their flight until they sprout their thorny tendrils. It takes a full month for tsaalgrends to reach maturity. On average, tsaalgrends live for about 4 years, though larger specimen have been reported, suggesting that their lifespan can be extended under ideal conditions.

While most sentient, underground races treat tsaalgrends like nuisances and avoid these creatures, a tribe of derro living in the Darklands beneath Numeria corrals dozens of tsaalgrends in caves secured with iron grates. Eager to breed larger tsaalgrends or those with even more potent fungal poison, these derro explore the Darklands in order to seek out new and unusual tsaalgrends to capture and add to their corrals as spore stock. Rumor has it that the derro have bred a massive tsaalgrend that fills an entire cavern room by itself.