Tall-biter

Summary

No one knows where tall-biters come from or how they're made, but to many explorers, adventurers, and other wild goers, it doesn't matter. These terrifying giants are experts at camouflage, blending in with any kind of tree or sufficiently large foliage. Virtually indistinguishable, they lay in wait for days and weeks for anything sufficiently large to move by them (or, underneath their 'branches'). Roused awake, the tall-biter's titular identity is made evident when its enormous, distending jaws lurch down from above, snapping up their chosen prey in mere seconds. For others, they may use their crooked, crab-claw like hands and grasp something in their crushing digits, only to shove it down their gullet. If all is well, the tall-biter rests again, digesting its meal and waiting for the next to show up.
In the rare times a tall-biter feels threatened, it can uproot itself, rising to its full and imposing height. Despite such sizes, they move fast and strike with alarming speed. However, lacking the stamina to keep going, they tire out just as quickly if one is lucky enough to survive. Unfortunately, actually harming one is a bit of a joke--the 'shell' of a tall-biter is an inordinately solid, stone-like surface. Bladed weapons are hilariously useless, while axes, pickaxes, or even explosives need a bit of force to really damage them. Fire can prove useful in burning off their foliage, revealing their horrendously misshapen, grotesque body underneath. So vile is it that some people initially believed them to be a form of undead, perhaps even a variant of the ravener.
Still, they are animals of a kind. They do express a learning mentality, with some roaming tall-biters copycatting the behavior of people. One even reportedly bore a grudge at being lit aflame, stalking its attackers across the entirety of Aerthen just to kill and eat them. That aside, they do not readily display much intelligence; in fact, their own camouflage can be a dead giveaway when the seasons change. While other trees turn orange, blue, or black in the falls and winters, tall-biters stay a lustrous green, red, or purple. An astute mind looking out across a forest can easily spot them as a consequence.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Tall-biters are giants of flesh, sinew, roots, and stone. It is hard to determine what the creature might be without the 'additions' of stone, natural growing plants, and even trees taking root within them. All of these combines together into a highly effective camouflage, blending them in their temperate and alpine environments with little problem. The great variance in this outer shell aside, they are typically two-legged and four-armed, and a rather indiscernible head. Enormous jaws suffice where the head would be at the top of the creature, and they're able to distend almost down to their 'feet' with a profoundly disturbing flexibility. As for their arms, they do have hands in the form of crab-claw like digits. Rather than grasp things, they exist exclusively to crush, and can exert incredible force when they're motivated to do so.

Biological Traits

Sedentary -- Tall-biters hate moving anywhere, and prefer to not really move at all until they have to.
Life Sense -- Lacking almost any external sensory apparatus, the tall-biter senses the life force of living beings around itself. In doing so, it can track optimal prey that approaches it, but its life sense is not nearly as strong as that of the undead.
Bile Acid -- Rarely, tall-biters may throw up their hyper-corrosive stomach acids when in danger. While the likes of armor can protect against it reasonably well, naked flesh, carapace, scales, skin, etc, will start getting eaten through in a record time.

Genetics and Reproduction

It's unknown how they reproduce at all.

Growth Rate & Stages

Immature tall-biters seem to be smaller versions of the adults, and it isn't known what they look like during the infantile stages of development.

Ecology and Habitats

Tall-biters are principally found in temperate and alpine regions; though they are rarely found in the likes of warm jungles as well.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Principally carnivorous; they do, incidentally, benefit from the photosynthesis process of the plants that grow out of them.

Biological Cycle

They're seemingly unaffected by the rhythm of nature around them, which comes to be a stark weakness of theirs during 'bad months'.

Average Height

Giant

Average Weight

Massive