Wortling (CR 3)
Small Plant
Alignment: Always neutral
Initiative: +6 (+2 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative); Senses: woodsense
AC: 16 (+1 size, +2 Dex, +3 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 14
Hit Dice: 3d8 (13 hp); DR: 5/bludgeoning or slashing
Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +1
Speed: 30 ft., climb 15 ft.
Space: 5 ft./5 ft.
Base Attack +2; Grapple -7
Attack: 2 claws +5 melee
Full Attack: 2 claws +5 melee
Damage: Claw 1d3+2 plus poison
Special Attacks/Actions: Poison, swarming
Abilities: Str 15, Dex 14, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 11, Cha 6
Special Qualities: Plantmind, plant traits
Feats: Improved Initiative; Stealthy
Skills: Climb +10, Hide +11, and Move Silently +7
Advancement: 4-9 HD (Medium-size)
Climate/Terrain: Temperate or warm plains, hills, and marsh
Organization: Band (5-20)
Treasure/Possessions: None
Source:
Monster Manual II
Poison (Ex): A wortling delivers its poison (Fortitude save DC 11) with each successful claw attack. The initial damage is sleep for 1 minute, and the secondary damage is sleep for 1d10 minutes. Both of these sleep effects work only against living creatures but otherwise function as the spell of the same name.
Swarming (Ex): Wortlings can swarm over and around each other with ease, so up to three of them can occupy the same 5-foot-by-5-foot space. They are likewise adept at attacking as a group; for every wortling that is grappling a foe (grapple bonus +0), every wortling gets a +1 competence bonus on attack rolls against that foe.
Plantmind (Ex): All wortlings within fifteen miles of their orcwort parent are in constant communication. If one is aware of a particular danger, they all are. If one in a particular group is not flat-footed, none of them are. No wortling in such a group is considered flanked unless they all are.
Partial Immunity to Piercing (Ex): Piercing weapons deal only half damage to orcworts and wortlings. The minimum damage per hit with such a weapon is 1 point.
Woodsense (Ex): An orcwort or wortling can automatically sense the location of anything within 60 feet that is in contact with vegetation, even objects or creatures that are not in contact with the same vegetation as itself.
Skills and Feats: Orcworts and wortlings gain skills and feats as though they were fey.
Wortlings use very simple tactics - overwhelm, subdue, and return with the food. In melee, they prefer to gang up on one foe rather than attack separate enemies. They fight with a great sense of urgency, and when they do manage to bring down a foe, a few of them immediately carry off their prize to feed the orcwort, leaving any remaining wortlings to continue the hunt.
They never willingly enter areas without natural vegetation because they are effectively blind in such places.
Wortlings are the mature fruits of the orcwort plant. When one of the orcwort's pods opens, it falls to the ground and breaks open to release a wortling.
When first "hatched," a wortling resembles a small wrinkled, purple orc. Its body seems portly, and its arms and legs are somewhat lumpy compared with those of a real humanoid. Although its face resembles that of a humanoid, a wortling is blind and cannot speak, hear, or smell - its apparent sensory organs are merely blobs of plant tissue with no actual function.
A hungry orcwort dispatches up to twenty of its "ripe" wortlings at a time to hunt food and bring it back. The wortlings navigate terrain using their woodsense. When on the prowl, wortlings seek out Medium-size or smaller prey because such creatures are easier to transport back to the parent plant than larger creatures.
The average life span of a wortling is 1d4+1 days. If any wortlings are left alive when the parent plant is ready to move on, the orcwort commands them to arrange themselves well apart from each other at the extreme range of its telepathy and root themselves. If left undisturbed for one year, each of these wortlings grows into a new orcwort, which pulls up its roots and begins looking for food. During its maturation period, a rooted wortling is immobile and helpless.