2025 Apr 4: Bloodthorn

 Bloodthorn is a rare plant cultivated by the Wood Elves. Normally it grows unassuming leafless barked vines studded with thorns, however it has an unusual life cycle. In order for the plant to bloom, it need to absorb large amounts of blood. It can do this through either its roots, or its vines and thorns. As the plant stores more and more blood, the vines gradually become red, becoming the color of fresh arterial blood just before flowering. A healthy plant needs dozens of liters of blood to be able to flower.

 As one can imagine, it is quite difficult for an immobile plant to gather the amount of blood needed to reproduce in any reasonable time frame. As to how these plants managed before, there are multiple theories ranging from them being indigenous to other worlds, having been adapted to steal blood from gigantic animals that have since gone extinct, or just having been a one-off experiment of the gods, demons, or just unusually malevolent sorcerers. Whatever the truth, the plants are almost entirely dependent on the Wood Elves to water them with blood.

The Wood Elves mostly use the plants as makeshift barricades and walls for settlements, as a large hedge of the stuff is almost impossible for anything smaller and less armored than a rhino or an elephant to get through. On rare occasions however, Wood Elven druids create so-called Gwaedurs using these plants. A Gwaedur is essentially a mobile sentient plant, similar to the walking trees or vegetation-based bog monsters with the exception that the Gwaedur is made from a bloodthorn plant, and is actively bloodthirsty and predatory. Gwaedur are mostly made in the image of humanoids or stags, but theoretically they can look like anything. Unlike other forms of ensorcelled vegetation, they are fast and quite aggressive. As one imagines their creation mostly happens during wars or assassination attempts. While Gwaedur aren't usually very intelligent, they sometimes possess a sort of animal cunning, and there are records of one that successfully terrorized a small frontier town for years by imitating vampire attacks, then killing would-be vampire hunters who showed up with precautions that didn't work against it.

From Deep Rock Galactic