Corporeal Forces: 1
Strength: 3
Agility: 1
Ethereal Forces: 0
Intelligence: 0
Precision: 0
Celestial Forces: 0
Will: 0
Perception: 0
Vessel-Equivalent: 1
Body Hits: 6
Skills: Climbing/3, Fighting/4, Move Silently/4
Songs: Numinous Corpus/3 (Acid)
Discord: Need/3 ('Fluids'), Vulnerability/3 (Sunlight
or Fire)
Saminga may not be the smartest Superior out there,
but he's a dedicated researcher, in his way. Of
course, his particular way would make even Vapula roll
his eyes (and almost make Jean wince), but it has to
be admitted that occasionally the Prince of Death will
hit on something interesting. Vampire Ivy is
'something interesting'.
And bloody dangerous, to boot.
Zombification of plant life has always been possible:
even fairly easy enough. The standard Create Zombi
ritual (at -1) can be used: in this one case, it can
allow for up to 10 Forces' worth of Undead plant life
to be created at a time. It's just that there usually
wasn't much point to it, unless of course the idea was
just to try to tick off Novalis. Even then, most
sensible necromancers were reluctant to make the
attempt - the problem with trying to tick off the
Archangel of Flowers is that you might somehow
succeed. There's no telling what might happen
afterwards - and is it really worth it, just so you
could have an Undead houseplant? Just what were you
going to do with it, besides use it as a conservation
piece?
Saminga's innovation - and it was one, make no mistake
about it - was actually two breakthroughs in one. The
first was making the zombified plant mobile. Ivy and
kudzu are best suited for this sort of modification:
after the ritual, their new method of locomotion is
much like that of an inchworm. An oozing, disgusting
inchworm with a taste for any sort of liquid and a
smell that kills flies at ten paces, true - but that's
just part of the Vampire Ivy's charm.
Another part of said dubious charm is its attack
habits: these things aren't remotely sentient, even by
a regular Zombi's relaxed standards. They're barely
capable of waiting motionless until something gets
within range, then swarming all over him, her or it.
The favored feeding 'technique' is to coil around any
handy repository of fluid (tree trunks, canteens,
arms, legs, throats and... other places), constrict
and use their modified roots as fangs. Once attached,
they stay attached until dead or there aren't any more
fluids.
This might not be so bad a problem - even a regular
human can kill a sprig of Vampire Ivy, and celestials
can always take celestial form - except for the other
breakthrough. You see, while individual sprigs of
Vampire Ivy may not be so tough, nobody ever
encounters just one sprig. These buggers usually hunt
in packs of about, say, twenty or so.
That tends to change the tactical situation a bit.
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