World: Alfheim
Diet: Water and soil
Height: 48’4″
Lifespan: 5 years
Habitat: Plains, forests
Activity Cycle: Cathemeral
It takes an exceptionally hateful heart to spawn a hateseed. Only the very most bitter and twisted of souls, consumed with disgust for all other beings and even themselves, can be chained to the land upon their death and begin its growth. Their head forms the tail of the new creature, poking up first from the earth to make a sinister red tree. As it grows, a hateseed corrupts its surroundings. Plant life for miles around withers and dies, and dry thunderstorms roll in soon after to ignite their dried corpses into raging infernos. Thankfully, this carnage often prevents their growth from completing, as these signs lead people to find them and slay them before they get a chance to finish their growth.
If they are not stopped, the hateseed will eventually emerge to spread its terror. Without vital organs, piercing their slimy red flesh does little to stop them or even slow them down, and their sweeping tail is a terrifying weapon, but their main danger comes from the storms that follow them. Not a drop of rain falls from these clouds, always crackling with red lightning. The hateseed can target specific points with lightning strikes, but prefers to simply let the storm wreak havoc on its own.
As a creature formed of hate, a hateseed is self-destructive and cannot last long. Within a year of reaching its full size, it will explode in a great, fiery blast, becoming for a brief instant a creature of flames before finally collapsing into nothing but mindless true fire. Only if somebody finds a way to reach its soul and calm its hatred will it die peacefully, decaying into an odd tree, harmless but still tipped with a skull.
