Leaf Ray

This creature looks like a broad leaf with whiskers like a catfish and a dangerous stinger trailing behind it.

Leaf Ray CR 1

XP 400
N Small plant
Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +5

AC 14, touch 14, flat-footed 11 (+3 Dex, +1 size)
hp 15 (2d8+6)
Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +1
Immune plant traits

Speed 5 ft., fly 40 ft. (average)
Melee stinger +3 (1d4+1 plus poison)
Special Attacks poison, seed

Str 12, Dex 16, Con 17, Int 1, Wis 13, Cha 4
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 14 (can’t be tripped)
Feats Flyby Attack
Skills Fly +9, Perception +5

Poison (Ex)

Sting—injury; save Fort DC 14; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Dex; cure 1 save.

Seed (Ex)

Once per day, a leaf ray can implant a seed into a helpless target with its stinger. As a full-round action, the leaf ray stings its victim, depositing a seed into the victim’s flesh. This process deals 1 hit point of damage to the victim, but the implanted creature isn’t subject to the leaf ray’s poison in this process. The seed germinates inside the victim, making it sickened while it harbors the leaf ray seed, and dealing 1d2 points of Constitution damage to the victim each day the seed grows within. This damage is negated with a successful DC 14 Fortitude save. The seed feeds off the victim’s body and only grows into a new leaf ray tree when the victim dies from Constitution damage. Removing an implanted seed requires a successful DC 20 Heal check (a full-round action); each attempt deals 1 hit point of damage. Although immunity to disease offers no special protection against a leaf ray seed’s implantation, remove disease, heal, or similar effects automatically destroy any implanted seeds.

Environment temperate or warm forests
Organization solitary or rustle (2–20)
Treasure none

Growing in the upper canopies of massive trees, leaf rays fly through the air in search of food. Barely sentient, leaf rays have just enough intelligence to find nourishment and pick out creatures suitable for harboring their seeds. These creatures are hardly picky in their quest for either, merely requiring a warm-blooded living creature, preferably mammalian, for each purpose. Leaf rays begin their lives as buds in the tops of deciduous trees, and form a symbiotic relationship with these trees, often leaving the husks of their victims under their host trees to decay and fertilize the soil. During its budding stage, a leaf ray spends its time flexing its body in reaction to blowing winds in order to prepare itself for flight. Once a leaf ray has matured, it can separate its stinger-like stem from the parent tree and soar through the air. A leaf ray measures 3 feet across and weighs only 2 pounds.

Variant Leaf Rays

Leaf rays change color in depending on the season, but they do not die off during winter. The stats above represent a leaf ray in the spring and summer. The following variations follow the changing seasons.

• Fall: A leaf ray turns shades of yellow and red in the fall, and its poison’s purpose shifts to deal Strength damage instead of Dexterity damage.
• Winter: A leaf ray in the winter turns a dull range of browns and grays, and its poison deals Constitution damage instead of Dexterity damage. Because of this, few leaf rays are successful in implanting their seeds during this season.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 4 © 2013, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Authors: Dennis Baker, Jesse Benner, Savannah Broadway, Ross Byers, Adam Daigle, Tim Hitchcock, Tracy Hurley, James Jacobs, Matt James, Rob McCreary, Jason Nelson, Tom Phillips, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Sean K Reynolds, F. Wesley Schneider, Tork Shaw, and Russ Taylor.