False Appearance. While the animated tree remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a dead tree.
Siege Monster. The animated tree deals double damage to objects and structures.
Multiattack. The animated tree makes three slam attacks with its big black limbs.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6 + 6) bludgeoning damage.
Bite (Costs 2 Actions). May only target creatures that are presently grappled by Grasping Root. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (1d8+6) piercing damage plus 8 (3d4) necrotic damage. The target’s hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and the tree regains hit points equal to that amount. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0. A humanoid slain in this way and then buried in the ground rises the following night as a vampire spawn under the Gulthias Tree’s control.
Description
A walled clearing stands among the briars of the Twilight Grove. The walls are about twenty feet high, which is less than half the height of the cavern’s ceiling. Several varieties of plants grow around the perimeter of the clearing, including a few suspicious-looking saplings, but their importance pales before that which stands at the courtyard’s center. Beneath the fungal light grows an evil tree. Its blackened, twisted limbs reach upward, like a skeletal hand clawing its way out of the earth.
Lair and Lair Actions
The Lair of the Animated Gulthias Tree is the Twilight Grove in the Sunless Citadel. The tree gains the following Lair Actions:
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the Animated Gulthias Tree takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the tree can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- Scattered pools of blood surge up in a grasping tide around the tree. Any creature on the ground within 25 feet of the tree must roll d100 to determine if a pool surges beneath their feet. Any roll of 87 or higher must then succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw or be pulled by the blood and slip and be knocked prone.
- A cloud of swarming bats fills a 10-foot-radius sphere centered on a point the tree chooses within 60 feet of it. The cloud spreads around corners and remains until the tree dismisses it as an action, uses this lair action again, or dies. The swarm can also be attacked as a "Swarm of Bats" which has 22 hp and an AC of 12. The cloud is lightly obscured. Any creature in the cloud when it appears must make on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 4 (2d4) piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that ends its turn in the cloud takes 4 (2d4) piercing damage.
- Magical darkness spreads from a point the tree chooses within 60 feet of it, filling a 10-foot-radius sphere until the tree dismisses it as an action, uses this lair action again, or dies. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can’t see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it. If any of the effect’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell, the spell that created the light supersedes the darkness.
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