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Lunastur

Name: Lunastur, aka Howler Vine

Size: Huge

Region: Forest and Jungle

Lifespan: Individual bulbs can survive between 5 and 30 years. The entire plant lives indefinitely.

Appearance

The lunastur is primarily only recognized by the tail-like tendrils that it dangles down from high in the trees in which it resides. Just one of these vines can be as long as 10 feet, depending on how far up the bulb (the heart of the plant) is. The plant as a whole is a dark green color, though the liquid inside the bulbs is a vibrant orange.

The bulbs look very similar to a very large, very long pitcher plant turned on its side, and can be up to six feet long with up to a four foot girth. Bulbs are mostly hollow on the inside, save for the chemical bath it secretes that can eat through most organic material, except for the plant itself. These bulbs are also exceptionally hard, similar to tree bark except more pliable, with the only opening being where the vine comes out on one side.

Bulbs are attached high in tree canopies by small, spiny tendrils that sprout along all but the opening of the bulb and latch onto the first thing they touch, only to coil around it continuously for the life of the plant. These tendrils continue to grow as long as the plant receives nourishment, and very old lunastur bulbs have been found to have literally strangled entire trees.

Behaviour

The lunastur lures in its prey by its dangling vine that looks highly reminiscent of a monkey's tail. The vine sways back and forth slowly due to the natural movement of the solution inside the hollow of the bulb.

This vine is also coated in a highly viscous paralytic slime that begins to paralyze its victim on contact with skin, quickly spreading throughout the victim's body. The vine, which is extremely sensitive to touch, then curls under or around the victim and quickly lifts to the bulb's opening. If the object grasped is larger than the opening of the bulb, the bulb opens very slowly and essentially crushes the victim as it tries to force itself closed. The vine, which has been known to be able to hoist things weighing well over two hundred pounds, stays inside the bulb as the victim is slowly consumed.

The digestion process can take as little as an hour for small insects, to as long as a week for a fully grown person. Once the bulb is empty the vine will descend and lie in wait once again.

Curiously, the vine's motion when raising prey for digestion causes natural gasses to be forced out of the bulb, causing a very loud howl or screech that can be easily mistaken for that of an animal.

If a single bulb should die or become diseased, the stems connected to it will shrivel and it will die alone, thus allowing the plant as a whole to live on.

Diet: Anything that gets stuck to the vine will be consumed by the lunastur at some point, provided that it is organic. This include animals, insects, other plants, and sometimes even people. Non-organic items will sit in the hollow of a bulb for as long as that bulb lives. It also digs spines into the bark of the tree in which it survives to siphon off essential water.

Habitat: The lunastur exists only in the mid-canopy of forest and jungles where it is high enough to be able to dangle its vine, but low enough to be shielded from most sunlight. It is usually only found in the darkest regions of these canopies, though outlying bulbs have been occasionally spotted in lighter areas.

Reproduction: Over time, bulbs will begin to sprout a stem which will grow for some undetermined distance and begin to become a new bulb. A single bulb will produce a stem once every five to ten years. There is no known limit to how many stems a bulb can produce, but the highest discovered thus far has been 31. Because of this, a single lunastur can potentially cover many acres of forest, depending on what directions the stems grow. Also, if a growing stem extends into another bulb, instead of producing a bulb itself it will grow into the encountered bulb, thus causing a web of stems and bulbs that share nutrients in every direction.

Special Information

Strengths/Abilities:

• The secretion on the vine has the ability to slowly paralyze any living being it comes in contact with.
• The solution inside the bulbs can break down almost all organic matter.

Weaknesses:

• The plant as a whole is extremely flammable due primarily to the gasses that store up inside the bulbs.

Uses:

• The vine's secretion is often used on assassins' long-range weapons, such as darts, due to its paralytic properties.
• The bulb's digestive acid is sometimes used in more grotesque tortures, but has no other known use.

Origin: The lunastur, more commonly known as a howler vine due to the piercing sound emitted when the vine recoils into the bulb, was first discovered by the Priesthood of Xanth when constructing a temple in the Yondallar Rainforest. The plant was thought, at the time, to simply be a form of natural pest control and some merchant decided to try and transplant one into the Fae Forest. This caused the evolution of two distinct subspecies of the plant that now grow separately in their respective habitats.

By the time people realized what the vines were truly capable of, the temple had been finished, at least six priests had already been confirmed to have lost their lives to the plant, and the bulb that had been transplanted into what is now the Chandric Forest had already spread far enough that removing it was too difficult.

The highly flammable nature of the vine's secretions is one of the reasons why the Chandric Forest has not returned to its natural state, as well as being the primary reason the plant has not simply been burned out of existence.

Other Info: In one famously calamitous tactic employed by the Skotadi during the Civil War, howler vines functioned as a sort of bomb. The bulbs were cut from the main plant and then delicately flown to an Apali outpost in the Dusky Mountains. There they were placed in strategic positions and the Skotadi lit the vines, making them function like wicks. Once the vines burned back to the bulbs, there was a large explosion and the building went up in flames. However, once the torches touched the vines to light them, the vines whipped back into the bulbs faster than the Skotadi could fly away and they were also caught in the blast. Over four dozen people, both Skotadi and Apali, died that day, and countless more were injured.

Creator: Russ