Awakened plant life? Options

[Axe]

I'm still pretty new to SR and I was wondering, is there any mention of awakened plant life? If so where can I find it?

[Kagetenshi]

Year of the Comet has that tree the name of which I don't remember… the "eating people tree".

~J

[Kanada Ten]

Additionally, Guardian Vines are described in the main book (SR3) or Magic in the Shadows (MitS). They are dual-natured vines that attack astrally projecting mages and spirits.

There are also Awakened plant compounds in Man and Machine (M&M). Several books reference the Awakened plants of the Amazonian jungles, as well.

[Dashifen]

[sidartha]

And doesn't die when shot.
Stupid tree. :dead:

[Dashifen]

[Smiley]

But just think about how much cash you'd get for one of them things. I don't remember exactly how much, but it's defnitely worthwhile. Just look for the pile of regurgitated bones.

[Necro Tech]

IIRC Predator and Prey has a couple as well as paracritters deployed as guard animals. Giant snakes and disease carrying monkeys. Fun can be had by all.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Why wouldn't the tree metabolize bone?

I like the idea of a grove of Awakened lawyer vines (yes, they're real)--faster, stronger, better.

[Smiley]

I just assumed they didn't metabolize bone because in the picture, there's a skeleton in its clutches.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Ah.

That's a pretty good reason.

[Kanada Ten]

The skeleton is just a lure! The trees put the body there to trick us! While you flamethrower the mundane tree, the Diablo creeps up behind you (on its tippy-toes!) and goes CRUNCH! SMASH! Gobble.

[Bull]

There were two Awakened Plants in Year of the Comet, actually. The Sangre Del Diablo (WHich means Blood of the Devil) and Glomoss. Glomoss was a fun little thing I came up with as a nasty Anti-Magic security measure that didn't require a mage or even anything that would be magically visible. Much the fun.

The Sangre Del Diable was a bit more involved though. When Mike Mulvihill accepted my original proposal, he asked for a couple awakened plants. I had originally done a cobnversion of an ED critter... Some sort of thorn bush treeman thingy, but Mike wanted something different. IIRC, he specifically asked me for a "evil, sentient, carniverous tree". Tall order.

I knew that we were messing with the Yucatan in YotC, and knew that there was lots of jungle down that way, so I actually did some research (go figure) to find a tree that I could "Awaken". I ended up finding the Sangre Del Drago, or Blood of the Dragon (Alternatively Dragon's Blood, and the new evil tree would be is Demon's or Devil's Blood). The Dragon's Blood tree sap supposedly has healing properties, according to tribal lore, and at least one pharmaceutical company was harvesting it's sap and extracting some sort of chemical from it, so there was apparently some truth to this.

So my idea was that the when the tree awakened, it basically went totally 180 and inestad of healing, it's sap could paralyze you, and then it would slowly digest you. One of my goals for the YotC critters was to make them tough, and since the Sangre Del Diablo was rooted in place, I was able to go a bit more nuts with it than I could normally, giving it some insanely high stats :) The Compulsion power would lure vctims in, the sap would paralyze, then it would engulf you in an d digest you.

There were a few tweaks to all the critters, but I'm pretty happy with the way they came out, and I'm always tickled pink when people mention the SDD, since I think I'm most proud of the way it came out. I also didn;t have enough room to really put in any backstory for it., which sucks, since I thought that there was a very cool connection between the Source Tree and the Awakened Tree.

Bull

[the_dunner]

An adaptation of Shambler Trees from David Gerrold's War agains the Chtorr novels might be a cool Awakened plant to throw at 'runners. Basically, the trees are mobile, but walk around very slowly. They don't have leaves. Instead, what appears to be foliage are a variety of small, flying, bloodsucking critters. When the "roots" detect movement, the flyers head towards it and devour it. The tree survives through a parasitic relationship with the flyers.

[Smiley]

[Alania]

[Axe]

Hmm, cool stuff. I was thinking along the lines of ancient plants which had powers in myths and the like though. I'm planning to have my runners crash into a heavily forested are and live off the land for a bit :S

[Sargasso]

Amamzonia's packed to the birm with awakened life, and there's no Ents? Tolkein would feel slighted.

[Herald of Verjig...]

The books list creatures that have been documented. No survivors = no documents, especialy when the headware memory is "mysteriously crushed."

[lokugh]

[Sargasso]

There's one thing, a modern real life thing which stick ot in my mind when "Awakened Plant Life" is brought up. The State of Michegan has a single mushroom which covers half the state. There's not a towering mushroom cap, rather, the underground hyphae system (roots are a close anaology) cover a tremendous area. It's all one organism. Imagine if it awakened. It's the largest living thing on earth, though there's a copse of trees which also turns out to be a single organsism, tied by the roots.

[Bull]