Giant Flytrap

I throw around words like “iconic” and “paradigmatic” too often on this blog.  But some icons just are (iconic that is).  There’s simply no plant monster more monstrous than the giant flytrap.  Because of that, the flytrap easily falls into three encounter buckets: jungle hazard (see: any Saturday morning cartoon ever), magical/science experiment gone wrong (see: Little Shop of Horrors), and druid’s pet (drool: DC’s Poison Ivy).  So the question is, where else might one find a giant man-eating plant?

The lily pads in the Velkimaar Jungle grow so large a small woman can walk across them with her water gourds.  But not all the lily pads are so supporting.  Some are actually the open, patient mouths of a waterborne variety of giant flytrap.  They feed on jaçanas, herons, capybaras, giant frogs, and unwary humanoids.

A hungry ghost monk (Advanced Player’s Guide 110) tends a giant flytrap.  He sees the plant’s predatory nature as a guide for his own meditations (not to mention a convenient means for disposing of his victims).  Besides, he sees little point in bonsai that can’t snip back.

An emerald stolen from a temple carries the Glutton God’s curse on it.  As long as the thieves are in the bounds of the forest, the gem calls every giant flytrap in the area toward it.  The flytraps may move slowly, but as they don’t need to sleep, the thieves may awaken surrounded by very different foliage than they recall from the night before.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 134