Flytrap Leshy

(Illustration by Daniel López comes from the artist’s DeviantArt page and is © Paizo Publishing.)

Flytrap leshys were teased back in Bestiary 3, so it was pretty much a guarantee we would see them statted up sooner or later.  (A flytrap already has a mouth after all; why not give it a body?)

What we didn't expect was that they could have as many as 30(!) Hit Dice.

In addition to having a nasty bite and mini-flytraps for hands—because of course they needed mini-flytrap hands—flytrap leshys can combine into one giant amalgam creature.

This terrifies me.  Not as a player—as a person.  My dad took me to see Little Shop of Horror in the theater, but since a) I was in 3rd grade, b) no one explained to me it was a comedy, and c) I was in 3rd grade, I didn’t make it very long once Audrey II grew up.  We had to leave the theater, and I disliked any dark basement where a carnivorous plant could hide for a good while after.  Even years later, when I actually liked the movie (a friend of mine and I got really into the soundtrack one summer), the climactic battle scene was a hard watch—especially because Audrey grows dozens of more little buds with mouths of their own.

So the thought of a 30-Hit Dice Gargantuan amalgam flytrap leshy brimming with snapping jaws is…yikes.

Granted, most flytrap leshy encounters will be with the standard 6-Hit Dice model.  But you know in your evil GM hearts that the option is out there…

Having traveled into a magical egg made of folktales, adventurers must chase an evil fey druid through a hedge maze.  Several of the maze’s dead ends hold flytrap leshys, and as they chase the adventurers through the labyrinth they combine into one ever-more menacing threat.

A moon naga oracle named Lily tends a circle of standing stones near Medford Downs.  Prone to fits, she is often ill, so a local cluster of flytrap leshys has taken it upon themselves to protect her.  In their zeal they snap first and ask questions later.

An arctic dome hides a jungle biosphere: the science station of a long-dead horticulturalist who had the skills of a druid and alchemist.  Her life’s work continues, though, courtesy of a cluster of flytrap leshys that tend the facility.  Their devotion is cultish enough that both the horticulturalist’s spirit and that of her chief rival have become tethered to the dome, manifesting as witchfires.  Only the rival’s spirit is truly evil, but both are mad from long confinement and will lash out at intruders.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 5 156

I’m not the only one who noticed the flytrap leshy’s party trick.

Looking for the flying fox?  We covered that here.

Edit: Apologies once again to you loyal Blogger readers.  Because of my spotty posting schedule this week, you’re getting last week’s radio show link late.  Grab it before midnight!  The Mitski show is also in the past, but you may dig the in-studio link.

This radio show starts off with some Los Campesinos! and doesn’t let up for two hours.  Stream or download it here.

(The intro to this show got cut off by the computer, but you didn’t miss anything.  Link good till Monday, 9/12, at midnight.)

(Also, if you’re in the Baltimore/DC area, Mitski is doing a show in College Park this weekend.  Details are here, and here’s an in-studio she did at 88.1 earlier this year.)