Building an undead Treant - Suggestions?

[just__al]

I'm trying to build an undead Treant for a freaky kind of encounter. The players have encountered a normal treant in the past (Helpful) Sargasso Sentenials from Sandstorm (Think Cactus Treants) who were hostiles turned neutral by the end of the encounter and now since they are facing off against a necromancer I want an Undead Treant.

Once I settle on how to make it undead it's definately going to be spell stitched because the image of an old dead tree carved full of arcane grafitti suddenly coming to live just seems freaky and cool.

Any good template suggestions? The fact that plants can't normally be undead doesn't bother me at all, Rule Zero and all that...

 

[EricNoah]

Pathfinder #6 had an undead treant in it. I don't think they used a template, they just changed the creature type, HD type, gave it undead and plant immunities, gave it Unholy Toughness to beef up its hit points, and gave it some poisonous fungal growths on it.

I like your spellstitched idea. I would think an undead tree might be really thirsty, so if you can find a spell that desicates the target that might be appropriate. Or it could be thirsty for blood -- something that drains blood?

 

[just__al]

Pathfinder #6 had an undead treant in it. I don't think they used a template, they just changed the creature type, HD type, gave it undead and plant immunities, gave it Unholy Toughness to beef up its hit points, and gave it some poisonous fungal growths on it.

I like your spellstitched idea. I would think an undead tree might be really thirsty, so if you can find a spell that desicates the target that might be appropriate. Or it could be thirsty for blood -- something that drains blood?

Don't you publish Pathfinder? What a shill

Thanks. I'll have to check it out.

 

[Pat]

Not a template and it goes in a different direction, but Rich Burlew's charred horror might inspire something.

http://www.giantitp.com/articles/6AaJhMSc1hfIf1zpbML.html

 

[Varianor Abroad]

There are three different kinds of undead tree creature in Into the Green from Bastion Press. I created one of them (the uragh dhu, or black yew), which had level drain, a fear aura, a triproot attack, and the ability to rot wooden objects. The latter freaked out druids and rangers with wooden weapons like staves and bows.

In Castle Shadowcrag (Wolfgang Baur, Open Design) there's a blood-draining tree that drinks it through its leaves. Very creepy.

The idea is sound. What if the tree doesn't just drink your blood, but injects you with something that turns you into a plant? Get hit a couple times, fail a save, and now you're a tree rooted to the spot!

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

2E Ravenloft had the Undead Treant all statted out. Dunno if it made its way into 3E conversion. Maybe someone familiar with 3E Ravenloft knows?

 

[Richards]

Goodman Games has a Complete Guide to Treants that, as I recall, has several different undead treant templates.

Johnathan

 

[Nifft]

My favorite: http://www.giantitp.com/articles/6AaJhMSc1hfIf1zpbML.html

Cheers, -- N

 

[Aeolius]

and I was just looking at this the other day:

Hemlock

 

[Ydars]

There was a a type of "undead treant" called a blightsporned Treant in the WOTC supplement Unapproachable East.