Asuran Mantrap (Ah-soo-ran)

Physical Characteristics

Asuran Mantraps are a species of tree that can be found all across the surface of Hesper. It bears a passing resemblance to the Asuran native Willow Tree, from which it's name is derived. It has a similar structure of long and hanging stems with flat oval shaped leaves, however the leaves of the Asuram Mantrap are a surreal and unnaturally dark black. Compounded with the tree's Psychic Characteristics, the leaves look like small holes in reality. The bark is a medium-dark grey, with bright red fissures underneath the outermost layer of bark, which sometimes form patterns that resemble the symbolic Eye of Ra in the bark. The tree has a watery pink sap that smells like warm, rotting flesh, which occasionally oozes from the fissures in the tree bark. Every Asuran Mantrap tree grows to a full adult height of exactly 38 feet.

The Asuran Mantrap has no discernable natural lifecycle. The fruit it produces does not contain seeds, the plant does not produce flowers or pollen, and the tree is known to appear seemingly out of nowhere. Documented instances of sprouts range from otherwise empty pots of soil on board Cherut Das, empty expanses of desert near Cirrus Mot, to the dark, frozen jungles of Syllva Cirros. The tree's sprouts are incredibly aggressive, the roots will wrench and choke out nearby plants in their monstrous growth rate. A tiny half-inch long first appearance of the tree's sapling will grow to the full 38 feet of the adult length within a year of it's first appearance with no regard to available sunlight, soil nutrients, or water availability. Individual instances of Asuran Mantraps are rarely within a few miles of each other

Despite it's unnatural growth speed, and lack of need for water, soil nutrients, or sunlight, it is still just a tree, and can be felled, which will kill the tree. A sufficiently protected adult with a good, sharp axe can kill a still growing juvenile Asuran Mantrap before succumbing to any permanent damage from the psychic characteristics. However, by the time it is fully grown, the tree is incredibly resistant to damage, it's bark shrugging off blows from a steel axe as if it were made of hardened stone. Only metals made from pure orichalcum can cut into the adult trees bark. On occasion, fully grown adult trees are known to spontaneously wither and die within a few short days. A tree that is killed will no longer exhibit any of the psychic characteristics that a living tree does. The normally toxic parts of the tree are still highly toxic after the tree is killed, though their toxicity does fade over time, and can be safely handled around a week after the trees death.

Toxicity

Asuran Mantraps are extremely dangerous to all sentient life, possessing potent neurotoxins in the leaves, bark, sap, flowers, and fruit. Exposure to any of these parts of the tree to unprotected skin causes a painful burning sensation and abundant fatigue. Victims of a large enough dose of the neurotoxin eventually collapse to the ground, unable to move, but are kept awake from the painful burn.

Psychic Characteristics

The trees also have powerful psychic cognito-hazardous effects. Sentient beings who look directly at the tree immediately begin to suffer eye strain, headaches, dizziness, and blurred vision which persist for as long as the tree is continue to be observed. These symptoms increase in intensity with closer proximity to the tree.

Long-term exposure to the tree is deadly, even if one manages to avoid effects of the tree's toxicity. The tree is a Psychevore, it "feeds" on the life or psychic energies of sentient beings within range. Sentient beings underneath the branches of the tree suffer inexplicable and total brain death within a few days under the tree. Smaller and less intelligent creatures are not affected by this psychic feeding. Shorter periods of exposure to the tree has less severe, but still serious symptoms. Exposure of less than an hour only causing dizziness, and disorientation, which tends to fade with sufficient rest and time away from the tree. Longer periods of exposure before the point of death causes increasingly severe short to long term memory loss.

Those with even minor Psychic sensing abilities report that the presence of a tree can be felt from up to a full mile away. The tree radiates with an intense psychic aura of hatred which can completely drown out other psychic energies in the area, dampening users from being able to sense anything but the tree if the user is close enough.

History

The Asuran Mantrap first appeared all across Hesper during 178 RA, as thousands of sprouts suddenly appeared across the planet within one season. Since then, individual trees have died off and sprouted without known cause or pattern. This sudden and global spread, combined with the supernatural characteristics of the tree contribute to a general belief in the population of Hesper that the trees are somehow connected to Ra. What purpose Ra has for these deadly trees is subject to vast, though whispered, speculation.

The Toxicity and deadliness of the trees has caused them to be a popular method of execution, torture, and murder. The Dread Pirate Agazhug is famously said to have tied several mutineers up and thrown them into a tree as a punishment for their attempted mutiny.

Non-Sedentary City States will regularly reroute the city entirely to avoid the trees, and stationary locations will send out patrols to search for and cut down saplings before they become a larger problem.

Character Knowledge

Characters just now arriving on Venus:
Everything about this tree feels wrong. It hurts your head when you try to look at it, it hurts your skin with even the faintest touch, and you can't shake the feeling that you're being watched when you're near it.
Characters not from Venus, who spent some time there:
The locals are rightly afraid of such a toxic tree, everything about it is awful and dangerous. 
Characters from Venus:
Nobody wants to say it out loud, but the Asuran Mantraps were probably created by Ra, but to what end?
Characters with Psychic Skills as class skills:
This awful tree can be felt long before it is seen. I've never felt such strong emotions from any being, much less hatred...from a tree.