D&D Homebrew Monsters - Barometz, Darkwood Sheep
A homebrew vegetal sheep-like monster for Dungeons & Dragons 3e/3.5; created by Aboleth Eye!
As always, though this homebrew was made with D&D 3.5 edition in mind, with a few tweaks you can absolutely use this material with Pathfinder 1st edition! -- Aboleth Eye
The sound of bleating can be heard from just beyond the treeline. Following it, past a withered section of forest, you see a lone lamb grazing in the middle of a lavender glade, surrounded by shrubbery. The lost sheep must have been rolling around--its thick shaggy coat appears green and speckled with purple wildflowers.
The lamb trots away playfully as you approach--to the middle of the glade. And you notice suddenly, beneath its black hooves, the half-buried remains of a wolf's skull. Suddenly the encircling bushes all rise up on four legs, revealing themselves to be grassy sheep with deep red eyes, pawing the ground with their hooves. The bleating is overwhelming, but it is not a sound of panic... It is a sound of the flock's ambush…
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The Barometz, also known as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, the Scythian Lamb and many others; is an esoteric creature from world folklore. As early as the 11th century, it is described as a lamb, held by the umbilical spot to a ground plant. The lamb would graze around its base until all plant life was eaten, then it died. These sorts of creatures are referred to as zoophytes--an outdated term meaning it is a "median between plant and animal".
The creatures, hereafter known as Barometzes, are supposedly a mis-translation or misunderstanding of the cotton plant. It was believed the lambs were literal animals, with meat, bones and blood; and wolves were attracted to the animals atop their stalks. Folklorists and fiction writers have utilized these creatures in many different ways. The latest is the idea from the Delicious in Dungeon manga (and anime adaptation) by
Author's Note:
I wrote up these creatures long before I read the Delicious in Dungeon manga, and so I went with an entirely new direction. I wanted to expand on these creatures, beyond being a simple lure for predators. Their mimicry is how they draw in warm-blooded creatures, and the lamb-on-a-plant is actually a stage of these carnivorous plant's life cycle. So I created the mature Barometz, focusing on why they are dangerous to the environment and animals around them, but also valuable.
Then, as is plain to read, I went a bit overboard figuring out the extent of their mimicry, how they gestate more barometzes, and how they are a threat to settlements and the natural world alike.
Physiology & Life Cycle
From a distance, a Barometz is easily confused for a long-abandoned sheep, their wool coats overgrown and covered in leaves and other plant matter. But upon closer inspection, their “wool” is actually a dense carpet of moss, wild grasses and local flowers–dense, and not easily shorn. Underneath their vegetal shaggy coats is an animal-shaped type of living tree, the rare magical material called darkwood. Rumors and hedge witches say that the sap from within the barometz has medicinal properties, which makes them valuable if discovered.
A mature barometz typically reaches 3 feet high and up to 4 feet long, weighing over 250 pounds. Where a normal sheep has eyes, a barometz has hollows in its wooden head, filled with a viscous dark red sap. Because they are actually plants, if their external plant coats are removed it is revealed they have similar sap hollows all over its body to sense changes in air currents and temperature. They almost always appear as female sheep in appearance, rarely having horns; though this seems to be a default form rather than an attempt to understand and mimic animal sexual dimorphism.
Through natural of evolution (or perhaps by the interference of fey or other magical creatures), the barometz species have the intelligence and behaviors of a wild sheep. Most of the time they display docile herd animal behaviors, even making bleating noises to maintain the illusion. Normally these creatures are content to wander deep wooded areas in herds, but if harmed these creatures are willing to charge anything that threatens them.
However, their natures as a species of sentient plant are soon made obvious. A barometz's "coat" is made of moss and other ground plants that have rooted themselves to their wooden bodies. The roots slowly grow in over the spring and summer months. Airborne seeds stick to their grooves of their bodies and take root. Plants that take root on a barometz will always flourish because the sap just below the surface is extremely nutritious for other plant life. Insects are also drawn to barometz as well. This is an interspecies partnership that develops as the barometz matures. Termites and other wood-burrowing insects are kept out by this mossy coat, as well as woodpeckers and other birds and insects. This allows allowing their supple, bark-covered bodies to become mature darkwood with few structural flaws or wounds.
The biggest explanation for their animal mimicry is that they are a carnivorous species: they use their sheep-like behaviors and forms to lure in wolves and other predators. Even their young are also living lures for predatory animals (as detailed below). The creatures appear to not discriminate between prey and predator, however; other herd animals like deer are also lured in by hunger during the autumn months. Barometz are intelligent enough to allow herbivores to mingle with their herds, allowing them to nibble at their coats to keep them shorn. But, when times are lean or an herbivore takes too much of their coat, the barometz will then gore the closest herbivore to fertilize the soil.
As a species of sentient plant, they are capable of surviving like other flora: they prefer temperate climates with access to sunlight, fresh water sources and fertile soil to survive. However, they are considered carnivorous due to their animal mimicry and insanely dangerous hooves. Only going dormant during the winter, barometzes will kill any warm-blooded animal they come across and bury their corpses in the earth. At night they slowly unravel their roots from their leg-like appendages and draw in nutrients and water from the soil as the corpses slowly fertilize it. These animal graveyards and any sources of freshwater are highly protected by barometz if times are lean.
A barometz can survive in the wild up to 2 years before their limbs begin to wither and rot--resulting in their coats slowly falling apart. The other shrub creatures in their herds appear to become agitated at the sight of these "naked" barometz. Once a dying barometz' vegetal coat is almost entirely gone, the rest of their herd collectively destroy them, trampling them with their sharp hooves and burying them with other animals.
When barometz are dissected, every other dissection reveals that within the sap-filled hollows of the plant's body they may additionally contain a fleshy mass. In appearance and consistency, this mass is made of congealed layers of their sap, made in the shape of a fetal lamb. Scholars have conducted experiments on this mass, believing it to be a barometz "seed" or "fetus". The experiments have shown that once a barometz seed has been buried in the earth, another will sprout in the following spring. The seeds are extremely delicate and their infant roots latch onto the wooden fragments of its past self to protect it from burrowing animals.
Barometz young are a very strange sight. A small stalk of immature darkwood sprouts from the ground where it was planted. An outburst of red-tipped, fern-like leaves surrounds this stalk. And at the top of this stalk, held aloft by the middle of their underbelly, is a barometz lamb: a wooden creature resembling a newborn baby sheep. These young are extremely rigid in their limbs, but will bleat and look about as any newborn lamb will. During the day, the lamb wanders around the glade, tethered by this umbilical stalk. When threatened, the stalk becomes rigid and holds the lamb aloft in an almost comical, rigid state. In this stage of development, additionally, the barometz's fern-like leaves emit a fragrance like a young barnyard animal's scent.
The lamb wanders about bleating and grazing all day--or, rather, tearing out competing plants with their false mouths. The lambs even play-fight among each other, so long their tether is long enough. If separated from its tether, an immature lamb will slowly leak sap from its umbilical spot and become nothing but a hollow figure made of darkwood.
At night, the umbilical stalk retracts down into the ground, pulling in the lamb like a leash. The fern-like leaves curl up and swaddle the barometz lamb through the night, sheltering it from inclement weather or cold temperatures. Barometz lambs are both the future of these creatures' flocks, but are also their greatest lure. The scent and mimicked behavior of these barometz lambs draws in hungry predators. Despite the lamb's seemingly separate behavior to the inanimate plant its linked to, they are a whole vegetal intellect using mimicry to lure in prey.
A barometz lamb will remain in this state from spring until early autumn, when their stalk will separate from the lamb's stomach. The lamb by this point will have its first coat and be considered mature, though its size will be much smaller than older barometz.
Typically, a barometz lamb is planted in a sunny spot, bleating constantly and appearing like an easy meal for a wolf, young dragon or other predatory animal. Nearby, silently blending into the surrounding foliage, mature barometz will lie in wait for predators to approach a lamb. Once the predator is close enough to take a very confused bite of bark, the mature barometz strike. They rush forward, usually charging headfirst at the unsuspecting predator, delivering a dizzying headbutt with their thick wooden skulls. The barometz will surround a weakened predator, or the weakest among a pack, and trample the animal to death. The slain creature's blood will water the roots of the lamb's plant, its remains will be added to fertilize the soil for the herd.
These plant creatures are nomadic as the seasons progress. In the cycle of a year, starting in mid-autumn, a herd will travel to find a new "glade". Once first frost hits, several barometzes begin to die and their bodies are used to seed and fertilize this glade by their kind. Through the winter, these plants curl up and hibernate until early spring. By spring time, a crop of barometz lambs will begin to emerge.
Through late spring and summer, the herd will circle their spot. While appearing to graze, the creatures actually draw in nutrients from the local soil outside their chosen glade. This slowly weakens the plants of the area, in almost a perfect ring around their glade. Insects and herbivores are therefore drawn in to their glade, especially as they begin to fertilize it. This attracts predators eventually, and the barometz lie in wait for their lamb-stalks to lure them in.
By the time autumn has begun, the glade is extremely fertile and populated by barometz and other wildlife. Then the latest crop of lambs will separate from their stalks and join the herd. The herd then moves on to begin this cycle again.
Herds will march day and night to locate a new glade for the coming year, once the migration has begun. They are tireless migrators, due to their plant natures, and barometzes will trample anything in their way. The creatures collectively seem to sense the direction they must all travel. They have been known to stampede through villages and fields in the autumn season, wrecking harvests and local buildings and fences.
If a barometz
They can be engaged with using Wild Empathy and Handle Animal checks like sheep, but can only be magically communicated with using the speak with plants spell. Druids have attempted to domesticate barometz and use them as mounts or pack animals, but they live only two years, their stubborn natures are hard to tame and they are carnivorous parasites towards other animals.
| Barometz | |
|---|---|
| Size/Type: | Medium Plant |
| Hit Dice: | 4d8+8 (26 hp) |
| Initiative: | +0 |
| Speed: | 30 feet, climb 10 feet |
| Armor Class: | 15 (+5 natural) |
| Touch / FF AC: | 10 / 15 |
| BAB/Grapple: | +3 / +4 |
| Melee Attack: | Hoof +5 melee |
| Full-Attack: | 2 Hooves +5 melee |
| Damage: | Hoof (1d8+1) |
| Space/Reach: | 5 feet / 5 feet |
| Special Abilities: | Darkwood body |
| Special Qualities: | Plant traits, low-light vision, scent, vuln to fire, stability |
| Saves: | Fort +5, Ref +1, Will +2 |
| Abilities: | Str 12, Dex 11, Con 13, Int 1, Wis 12, Cha 4 |
| Skills: | Climb +3, Disguise -3 (+7 act as sheep), Hide +0 (addtl +8 in wooded areas), Listen +6, Spot +6 |
| Feats: | Alertness, Run |
| Environment: | Any forests or hills |
| Organization: | Solitary, pair, flock (3 - 10 with 2d2 noncombatant lambs), or herd (10 - 15 with 3d4 noncombatant lanbs) |
| Challenge Rating: | 3 |
| Treasure: | Standard (see Harvesting Barometz) |
| Alignment: | Always neutral |
| Advancement: | 5 - 8 HD (Medium) |
| Level Adjustment: | None |
Combat
Barometz usually travel in flocks or herds, using their great numbers to surround and distract their enemies. If separated from a flock, the plant will flee any dangerous predator and attempt to lead them back to their central glade for that year.
Normally a barometz is slow to anger, but if harmed or threatened by known predators like wolves they will charge their enemies. Their hooves are actually dangerously hard, made from magical darkwood and potentially capable of shattering bone and other wood.
Darkwood Body (Ex): A barometz’s body is composed almost entirely of living darkwood. Its natural weapon attacks are treated as having a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and are considered magical for Damage Reduction purposes.
Stability (Ex): These plants can extend roots from their hooves at a moment’s notice. They often butt horns against each other and climb rocky hills in their forest homes; so they are exceptionally stable on their feet. A barometz receives a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, swimming or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).
Skills: Barometz have a +8 racial bonus to all Hide checks while within wooded areas like forests. They also have a +10 racial bonus to Disguise checks to appear and act like normal sheep, fooling predator animals into hunting them.
Harvesting Barometz
A barometz’s body, when sheared of its grassy coat, is entirely made of darkwood--a magical wood material that is prized by druids for its durability. Darkwood is a valuable material that can replace the metal of any metal-headed weapon, allowing druids to manufacture weapons and armor effective against iron and steel. However, the wood and sap of a barometz is very flammable; if reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by a fire effect a single barometz will yield half the normal amount of darkwood and no barometz sap.
Barometz plants are capable of producing a thick ruby-colored sap that instantly clots wounds in their bark and bodies. The sap is incredibly flammable and can be used as a spicy-smelling lantern oil. However, its greater value comes from its alchemical properties: a flask of barometz sap can stabilize all sorts of concoctions and make crafting easier. A single flask of the sap can provide a +2 circumstance bonus to a weeklong Craft (alchemy) skill check. A single full flask of barometz sap goes for 20 gp each.
A mature barometz, once slain, can provide 3d6 pounds of darkwood and 2d4 flasks of their alchemic sap. One in five barometzes will have a 'seed" in its hollow body, which requires a DC 15 Profession (herbalism) check to harvest without it breaking.
Training a Barometz
Domesticated barometz are hard to manage at the best of times, they are very independent and do not like being handled. Tamed barometz plants are very rare, only possible by druids over multiple generations of a single flock. However, they do make for good pack animals and a domesticated specimen will allow itself to be tapped for sap once a week.
A mature, trained specimen costs 5,000 gp at market. A young barometz (those capable of being separated from its umbilical stalk) are worth 2,000 gp each and requires six weeks of training, at a Handle Animal check DC of 25.
A barometz requires training before it can bear a Small size (or smaller) rider in combat or be trained to be tapped for its sap. Riding a barometz requires an exotic saddle. A barometz can fight while carrying a rider, but the rider cannot also attack unless they succeed on a Ride check or has the Mounted Combat feat.
A trained barometz will allow itself to be tapped for 1d2 flasks of sap once per week, any additional tapping in a single week will kill the creature. Safely tapping the creature for sap requires a DC 12 Handle Animal or Profession (herbalism) check.
A 4th level druid can take a barometz as an alternate animal companion, reducing their effective druid level by -3 for the benefits of the Animal Companion table. Only a Small sized creature can ride a barometz.
A domesticated barometz, as a plant creature, requires only sunlight, fresh water and soil to survive. However, their lifespans are limited to only two to three years. If they allowed to embed their roots in blood-soaked earth or soil fertilized with animal carcasses once a month, this method extends their natural lifespan by an additional month.
Barometz Carrying Capacity
A light load for a barometz is up to 200 pounds; a medium load, 201-500 pounds; and a heavy load, 501-800 pounds.
Barometz Kings
As civilization has encroached on the forests and wild places of the earth, barometzes have found themselves with obstacles to their cycle. Druidic enclaves will manipulate them with magic to avoid the best spots for glades, as well as harvest them for darkwood. Arcanists and alchemy specialists will pay adventurers for their sap, due to its rare medicinal properties. Townships will have scouts locate their glades by the withering of local plant life; and they will send people with axes and fire to scourge them before they stampede through their fields and properties.
In response to these threats to their survival, one in every ten barometz flocks each year will grow a unique lamb among them. This lamb will gestate with a massive set of horns and grow to an incredible size comparatively: a Barometz "King" in its immature state. Its stalk will be long and flexible, allowing it to wander its glade and attack other lambs of its crop. The mature flock does nothing to stop this, as the destroyed young barometz only contribute to the fertilization of the glade. Their bodies and ferns rot, attracting flies and carrion-eaters, as well as starving predators.
By the time autumn comes around, the King barometz will have grown to twice the size of all others, and its horns will be dangerously sharp spirals on its head. Barometz kings stand up to eight feet tall and six feet long, weighing in at over 700 pounds. Their coats are more shaggy in appearance than woolen, as the creature rolls around flattening the vegetation planted in its exterior. Their bodies are twice as thick as a normal barometz's, and the darkwood properties are amplified by this increase in size. Once a barometz king has reached maturity, it leads the flock in a decidedly aggressive way in its migration.
Migrations with a king are always stampedes, with the creature actively throwing itself at more impressive structures to carve a path through. Weapons and ammunition shatter on hitting the creature, and stone and wood crumble beneath its hooves. Often, a barometz migration with a king at its lead will completely decimate a small village and claim it as its new glade, especially if it is beside a river or has an underground well. The corpses of all those trampled will give birth to a large bloom of more barometz in the following year, if they are not actively destroyed. Their territory is usually twice as large surrounding their central glade with a king in charge. Kings do not hibernate during the winter, patrolling the edges of their territory and burying anything it can in the hard frozen soil.
A barometz king will devour or destroy many newborn barometzes during its first spring. Scholars suggest that it is threatened by the though of another king gestating and competing with it. As summer progresses, a king's body will begin to break down. Their limbs slowly break, unable to support its weight. Their horns experience a rush of unchecked growth; they literally dig in and grow into the creature's own head, making it slowly go blind but more aggressive to other creatures. Its shaggy coat rots away, activating the aggressive instincts of its flock against it until it is too weak to prevent its destruction by them.
Flocks once led by a barometz king will not bury it in the soil. They move on as normal, as if it never existed. Upon examining its shattered remains, the barometz king appears to have very little sap and no seeds inside. It is hypothesized that these creatures slowly fall to pieces because their sap production stops sometime mid-summer.
| Barometz King | |
|---|---|
| Size/Type: | Large Plant |
| Hit Dice: | 10d8+30 (75hp) |
| Initiative: | +0 |
| Speed: | 30 feet, climb 10 feet |
| Armor Class: | 16 (-1 size, +7 natural) |
| Touch / FF AC: | 9 / 16 |
| BAB/Grapple: | +7 / +15 |
| Melee Attack: | Hoof +12 melee, or Gore +12 melee |
| Full-Attack: | 2 Hooves +12 melee, or Gore +12 melee |
| Damage: | Hoof (1d8+5), Gore (2d6+7) |
| Space/Reach: | 10 feet / 5 feet (10 feet with gore) |
| Special Abilities: | Break Weapon, darkwood body, powerful charge |
| Special Qualities: | Plant traits, low-light vision, scent, vuln to fire, stability |
| Saves: | Fort +10, Ref +3, Will +6 |
| Abilities: | Str 20, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6 |
| Skills: | Climb +8, Disguise -2 (+8 act as sheep), Hide +0 (addtl +8 in wooded areas), Listen +6, Spot +6 |
| Feats: | Alertness, Iron Will, Power Attack, Run |
| Environment: | Any Forests |
| Organization: | Solitary or stampede (self plus 6 - 15 barometz and 2d6 noncombatant lambs) |
| Challenge Rating: | 7 |
| Treasure: | Double Standard (see Harvesting Barometz) |
| Alignment: | Always neutral |
| Advancement: | 11 - 15 HD (Large) |
| Level Adjustment: | None |
Barometz Kings tower above their flocks, their horns stained red with their sap and victim's blood. These enormous sheep-like simulacrum of wood with living coats of plants stand at least 8 feet tall and weigh over 600 pounds.
Combat
These plant monsters brashly enter battle with their powerful charge attack first. They rely on their tough wooden hides to protect them from all physical weapons, but will panic at the sight of fire and stomp out the source. They do not communicate at all with their herds, the lesser barometz simply follow in their wake.
Barometz kings are made entirely of darkwood, equal in worth to double their effective challenge rating's normal treasure amount.
Break Weapon (Su): A barometz king’s darkwood body is incredibly damaging if struck at the wrong angle. Whenever a creature critically fails to attack a barometz king with a melee weapon, the weapon must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 12) or break and become useless, dealing no damage to the plant creature. As usual, a magic weapon uses either the wielder's save bonus or its own save bonus, whichever is better.
Ranged weapon ammunition also has a chance of shattering on impact with a critical failure, but the launching weapon has no risk of breaking.
Darkwood Body (Ex): A barometz’s body is composed almost entirely of living darkwood. Its natural weapon attacks are treated as having a +1 enhancement bonus to attack rolls and are considered magical for Damage Reduction purposes.
Powerful Charge (Ex): An angered Barometz King typically begins a battle by charging at an opponent, lowering its head to bring its mighty horns into play. In addition to the normal benefits and hazards of a charge, this allows the beast to make a single gore attack that deals 4d6+14 points of damage on successful strike (double their normal gore damage).
Stability (Ex): These plants can extend roots from their hooves at a moment’s notice. They often butt horns against each other and climb rocky hills in their forest homes; so they are exceptionally stable on their feet. A barometz receives a +4 bonus on ability checks made to resist being bull rushed or tripped when standing on the ground (but not when climbing, swimming or otherwise not standing firmly on the ground).
Skills: Barometz have a +8 racial bonus to all Hide checks while within wooded areas like forests. They also have a +10 racial bonus to Disguise checks to appear and act like normal sheep, fooling predator animals into hunting them.
Author's Note:
The history of the barometz or vegetable lamb is very niche in terms of folklore. They are a relic of the bygone era of exoticizing central Asia by European traders and colonizers. It is hard to justify their existence as lambs-on-plants alone, so they have mostly been relegated to lures and single-use encounters for tabletop roleplaying.
5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, I have learned, eventually developed into its own single shaggy sheep-plant with tasty meat with the Barometz name. But their interpretation is too simple for my taste. It doesn't inspire a unique threat or challenge to overcome (or harvest).
Delicious in Dungeon, the amazing manga by Ryoko Kui, also includes a barometz. Their interpretation is a lure used by creatures in a dungeon environment. Dungeon ecology doesn't need to justify environmental factors for why it mimics sheep; and their interpretation keeps them as lures, useful to other monsters to lure in prey.
So I did what I always do. I took a hard look at why the creatures would utilize their animal mimicry in a widespread fantasy world and ecology, and decided on making them invaluable resources for rare materials despite the risk. I am exceedingly proud I bridged the origins of these creatures with the modern monster idea, and developed them into a full species with vegetal, carnivorous desires.
I hope to inspire other game masters to take a look at the simple monsters they love with this kind of retelling. Maybe there are ways to include the environment your games take place in to amplify the weight of including them?
In any case, thanks for reading! Happy hunting, my friends!
-- Aboleth Eye
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