Generic Space Opera Bestiary: Carnivorous Plant

The carnivorous plant litters the bestiaries of fantasy and space opera gaming, likely due to its association with early 20^th century adventure fiction, from which nearly all RPGs eventually draw their core inspiration from. The carnivorous plant typically shows up in jungles, where it signals that the jungle is so hostile and so predatory, that even the plants try to eat you. They also signal a truly alien landscape, because while carnivorous plants exist, they absolutely do not do so on a scale that could threaten a jungle hero.

Functionally, they typically behave like traps rather than monsters, though some will simply act like immobile monsters that lash out and grab people and try to drag them to its sap-dripping maw. Of course, some just haul themselves out of the ground and go rampaging after their prey, but that’s not what interests in this particular post, because what I’m looking for, a the end of the day, is a sessile predator, because, in part, I want to explore the idea of space monster as trap.

How realistic is a sessile predator? Well, of course, carnivorous plants exist, but they tend to rely on natural geometry and stickiness to trap something no more intelligent than a mayfly and slowly dissolve it. Heroes tend not to be that stupid, and so we need things like grabby tentacles and chomping mouths to actually make this work. Do those exist in biology? Sure! There are, for example, carnivorous sponges, but the best example are probably sea anemones. So all we need to do is extrapolate some sort of larger version of these. This means that what I’m talking about probably isn’t a “plant” at all, but “Land Anemone” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

 

Carnivorous Plants in GURPS Space

A Carnivorous Plant is a carnivore. It’s in the name! It should be noted, however, that one can make a pretty effective sessile filter-feeder, and while these are technically carnivorous, GURPS Space treats them as a variation of herbivore. So when it comes to the sort of predation we’re imagining, where our creature captures a passing hero that didn’t notice it, we’re talking a Trapper.

When it comes to mobility, this is obviously an immobile creature. Trappers don’t need to be immobile, of course, and we don’t even need to call this a “plant.” But the themes and aesthetic demand an immobile creature: if you can escape the clutches of the trapper, it doesn’t come rampaging after you, and it cannot pick up and run away if you start to fight back. It likely has a phase of its life where it is mobile, similar to anenomes, but we’re imagining the “interesting” phase of its life rooted to the spot. Any terrain can support an immobile organism (on a roll of a 2), but water terrain seems to be the most supportive, likely because water wafts food past the immobile creature. And, indeed, how many immobile predators do we see on land? Not many! However, I’m more interested in terrestrial, rather than aquatic, sessile predators. I would tend to lean towards biomass rich areas that don’t require a lot of movement, so a jungle or a swamp, or possibly a forest. Sorry, Sarlacc, but a desert is a terrible place for a giant, sessile predator.

It should be noted that some sea anemones aren’t entirely sessile. They actually slither, but they do so so slowly that you need time lapse photography to even notice the movement. From a GURPS perspective, this is still Speed 0 with some sort of feature that, yes, given days you can actually relocate (though I found some entries that have values like 1/60 movement and gives the creatures a “Semi-sessile” trait; unpriced, alas).

When it comes to scale and size, none of our choices thus far give us any size modifiers. Most real world examples tend to be quite small, and the largest sea anemone I could find clocked in at 1 meter across (or about SM -2). The problem with such a small carnivorous plant is that it can’t eat our human-sized adventurer, not without chopping them to bits first, and that doesn’t really fit what I have in mind, which is the sort of creature that tries to swallow the hero whole while others fight to save them from the monster-trap’s clutches. This suggests a minimal SM of +1 and likely pushing into “Large” scales (SM+2 or larger). This isn’t the craziest idea either, as filter feeders are the largest carnivores on Earth, and a trapper is similar enough to a filter feeder to plausibly reach similar dimensions.

For once, we don’t expect a bilateral creature! A sea anemone is radial, and we might expect this creature to be radial as well. After all, it cannot move, so it cannot optimize its facing towards its prey, thus it needs to have all facings. We only really need one limb per “side,” though more than that is possible (I just don’t know what it would use those other limbs for). A tail is also unnecessary. But manipulator limbs might not be unnecessary. The typical carnivorous plant has no limbs, of course, but that’s because plants lack the musculature to grab a target, so all they can do have some sort of “snapping” mechanism that closes a lid like a trap. We can do that, but it won’t be that effective against a human target, who can just hack their way out. No, some sort of manipulator or limb, like a sea anemone, would be a much more effective tactic. If we assume one such manipulator per side, GURPS Space caps us at 6 manipulators.

Skeleton and skin is an interesting topic. By the numbers a strictly average roll on a large, land-dwelling immobile organism suggests an internal skeleton. However, sea anemones have a hydrostatic skeleton, and I would imagine a tough exterior would help a lot when fighting with captured prey, and you don’t need to worry about the weight of it, because you don’t move anyway. So I could see nearly any skeleton or covering, though I lean towards a sturdier covering. When it comes to Temperature, we expect, on average, to see a Warm-Blooded creature, if that matters.

When it comes to sex, immobile creatures have some issues. Sea anemones breed by spitting out, er, reproductive material into the water and hoping for the best. They also breed asexually. We could go with either asexual reproduction or pollination, though the latter is more likely unless there’s a more mobile juvenile stage. Sessile predators would also want to spread their numbers pretty far, otherwise they risk creating a “den of death” that most of their prey would quickly learn to avoid. This also suggests a Strong-R strategy.

When it comes to senses, expect weak vision, weak hearing, good sense of touch, and terrible taste/smell. Immobile creatures evidently don’t need much in the way of vision, so the average result put them at Bad Sight with Colorblindness, with “Blindness (Can Sense Light/Dark)” as a definite option. Hearing tends to improve as a result of the lack of sight, but immobility counters that: we average Hard of Hearing. Touch, assuming no External Skeleton, is Human-Level, unless the creature is almost blind, in which case it has Acute Touch; Vibration Sense (Ground) might help it a lot, actually. Finally, with Taste/Smell, as an immobile trapper, we expect an average of No Taste/Smell. Everything goes in the gut! Everything! For special senses, 360° vision is the most plausible (assuming it can see at all). Detect (Heat) is also interesting!

When it comes to Alien Minds, the average roll gives us Low Intelligence, but not Preprogrammed. Still, I see little benefit to much more than IQ 1-2. Mating is going to trend towards utterly solitary creatures.

This gives them a generic Psychological Profile of -2 (Broad-Minded, if we assume solitary and split the difference on scavenging), Concentration 0, Curiosity -2 (Incurious), Egoism 0, Empathy -1 (Oblivious), Gregariousness -3 (Loner), Imagination -1 (Dull) and Suspicion 0.

Generic Carnivorous Plant Stats

Pizard has nothing for us, surprise surprise; while this is a popular concept, a man-sized land-anemone is not especially realistic. That said, it is a popular concept, so there’s lots of possible references, including the following (not exhaustive) list:

• Cage Tree: GURPS Space Bestiary page 72

• Carnivorous Plant (“Green Death”): Lands Out of Time page 30

• Cougar Lily: GURPS Space Bestiary page 50

• Dreadstalk: GURPS Creatures of the Night 5, page 6-7

• Fisher Tree: GURPS Space Bestiary page 50

• Haldon: GURPS Space Bestiary page 51

• Octopus Blossom: Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3 page 16

• Pungee Pit: GURPS Space Bestiary page 54

• Rendervine: GURPS Space Bestiary page 55

• Stomach Trap: GURPS Space Bestiary page 76

Note that the Crushroom (DF Monsters page 19) fits into “carnivorous plant” (well, fungus) but is far too mobile for our purposes, and the Strangling Fern (GURPS Space Bestiary 76-77) is actually a pretty good example of the sort of tactics we might expect, but is technically “just” a mobile trapper predator, not a sessile one.

We can do our own, with a focus on what came out of GURPS Space, but we’ll keep it very minimal and add some elements later. The idea here is some sort of minimal trap-monster: it can move, but only at one yard per minute (inspired by the Dreadstalk) and mostly focuses on grabbing prey and stuffing it into a toothless maw where it proceeds to crush/digest them. It can see, but just barely, allowing it to aim more distant strikes. They are just large enough to fit a human inside their body per the constriction attack rules, but it should be noted that this largely suggests most of the creature is a gut and that it’s on the large side. This suits the “trap-like” nature of the “plant:” it can grab a hero and drag them in, which creates a sense of drama, and then characters (including the hero) can cut them free. Biologically it’s plausible, but it’s not ideal.

ST: 17	Basic Speed: 6	SM: +0
DX: 12	Basic Move: 1/60*
IQ: 1	Perception: 8
HT: 12	Will: 10	DR: 2 (tough skin)

Traits: 360° vision; Acute Touch 4; Born Biter 2; Bad Sighted (Low Resolution); Colorblindness; Constriction Attack (Engulfing); Extra Arms (6 Arms; Long, Extra Flexible); No Taste or Smell; Semi-Sessile; Restricted Diet (Carnivore); Vibration Sense (Ground); Wild-Animal;

Tentacle Strike (12): 1d+2 cr; reach C-1; can also grapple.

Digestive Constriction (NA): Roll contest of ST vs ST and apply difference as crushing damage; in addition, target takes 1 corr per turn.

Variations

I won’t focus too extensively on the options here, because the list above should give you plenty of ideas to work with. This is mostly aimed at making small tweaks to the “land anemone” design above.

Venomous Plant

Our “Land Anemone” looks a lot like the sea anemone, but it lacks a crucial trait that the sea anemone’s use: venom. The sea anemone stuns its prey with stingers in its tentacles and then devours it. This makes much more sense than just grabbing a live and struggling prey and stuffing it into its mouth, even though heroes might call that foul play.

Lens (Stunning Venom): 1 fat; HT-5 or suffer Stun (Fail by 5, suffer Paralysis); Follow-up on tentacle strike or grapple.

Toothy Plant

Our “Land Anemone” devours things whole rather than biting off chunks. This is to suit the horror of being devoured whole, as well as to offer heroes the opportunity to save the devoured. Very few creatures actually devour creatures whole, because rendering prey into component parts helps the predator survive any retaliation by a struggling prey. This is less “heroic” because the plant will just rip its prey to shreds, leaving our heroes nothing left to rescue, but it’s more plausible.

Lens (Toothy Plant): Replace Constriction Attack with:

• Bite (12): 1d+2 cut; Reach C.

Massive Plant

My first attempt had this at SM+1 and ST 30, as this seemed a slightly more plausible size for such a creature if it was ingesting people directly.

Lens (Massive Plant): Increase ST to 30 and SM to +1.

• Tentacle Strike (12): 3d cr; reach C-2; can also grapple.

Ambush Plant

The basic design assumes the plant just stands around waiting for stuff to get close. Realistically, it may disguise itself, and then suddenly “snap” into action. Treat the plant as having a Stealth of 12 at least. The rest of its advantage comes from heightened perception, intelligence and faster reflexes. Pair this with allowing it to “multitask” with its arms for multiple simultaneous attacks.

Lens (Ambush Plant): Increase IQ to 2, Per to 12 and Basic Speed to 7.0; add Chameleon 1 (Slow) and Extra Attacks 3;

Armored Plant

A lot of the cousins of sea anemones have an exoskeleton or shell into which they can retreat. This makes a lot of sense for a sessile creature: what it cannot kill, it will hide from. After all, predators can be prey too!

Lens (Armored Plant): Increase DR to 5 and remove the Tough Skin limitation. This protects everything except the arms, which become switchable as they retract into the body for protection.

Filter Feeder Plant

If we scale the plant down a lot, or focus on numerous, small, airborne prey, such as large collections of tiny “land corals” feeding on a large population of alien gnats, we get something that feels quiet alien and intriguing. It falls below the level of resolution, of course, because heroic, human-scale PCs don’t need to know the stats of a critter that can’t even hurt them (nobody stats flowers, even though you could), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth mentioning!