| Class: | Vegimal |
| Hab: | Arid wastes |
| Fre: | Uncommon |
| Num: | 1-20 (varies by species) |
| Lair: | 70% |
| Size: | 6' twining twig to 100' creeping colossus; varies by species |
| Move: | Serpent-swift; horse-fast sprint; some leap as coiled springs |
| Def: | Tough skin, no vital organs |
| Att: | Lightening-fast strike, strangle, crush, suffocate, dagger spines |
| Int: | Basic beast |
| Spec: | Digestive juices kill ingested prey - slowly Magical items are swallowed and utilized |
| Posns: | Incidental |
These are animate cactus vegimals. They behave much like the constrictor snakes they resembles, but in addition to simply squeezing their prey they cut deeply with stiletto-spines. As with real constrictors, while it is doing crushing damage with its coils, the constrictor is also suffocating, as the victim cannot expand its lungs. While the constricting is going on, there will also be a simultaneous battle as the constrictor seeks to get a coil around its prey's neck and strangle it.
If allies seek to help the victim, the constrictor can loosen its ends, using them as a pair of dexterous spikes clubs to fend off other attackers while continuing its spike-spine enhanced crush and suffocation of its prey. At least the constricting cactus cannot also strangle while defending itself against other attacks.
Once crushed in to submission, prey is engulfed whole into a cavity, much like a vegetable stomach. However, having only a very simple digestive sac with a single opening, the constrictor cactus cannot engulf a new meal until it has finished and expelled its previous meal.
Tall-tale spinning Adventurers talk of rescuing swallowed comrades by offering the boa cactus a fresh and even juicier meal, bribing the vegimal to regurgitate a recently engulfed person to ready its stomach for the wetter reward.
Curiously, if a constrictor cactus swallows a magical item that could conceivably benefit the vegimal beast, the beast becomes magically enhanced. Such a useful item will not be excreted but rather retained in a special cyst. Examples include magical weapons and armor whose "bonuses" are transferred to the cactus, rings or other jewelry granting special powers. When this happens, the cactus instinctively learns how to use its new magical abilities. It the magical item is itself intelligent, it may migrate to the center of the cactus' nervous system and become its brain; the cactus then serves as a body for the intelligent magical item, which developed a stronger ego.
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