Carnivorous Plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive at least some of their nutrients from trapping and killing animals or microbes, rather than through photosynthesis. Fiction is rife with examples of man-eating plants, especially RPGs, given how easily they fit into the role of Gotcha Monster.

In Dungeons & Dragons we got a lot of these in the second Monster Manual. Mostly Neutral Evil.

IRL, carnivorous plants live in nutrient- and mineral-poor environments like bogs and make up the difference with insects they catch (and the occasional rodent, for some of the larger pitcher plants). As such, adding a few carnivorous plant monsters would be a good fit to any swamp environment. The means in which they capture and digest prey are quite interesting. For more information on the subject, ZeFrank as you covered

Dungeons & Dragons

• Archer Bush: A shrub that shoots projectile thorns.

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• Assassin Vine or Choke Creeper: A predatory vine-like plant that drapes itself across tree branches, and attempts to strangle any animal that gets within range.

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• Black Willow: An evil sentient tree that can disguise itself as other trees of the willow genus. It is mobile but can only move a few inches per turn. If a person climbs one of its branches it will generate an aura that makes people around it fall asleep and then will swallow the victim whole. It may also trick a victim into climbing directly into its digestive chamber by appearing as a safe-looking hollow tree and then slamming shut on them. It also can attack by whipping with its branches.

• Bloodroot: Roots that stick out of the sides of underground passageways. When something passes by them, they grab it, inject it with a blood-thinning poison, and suck out all its liquids.

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• Bloodthorn: Yet another bloodsucking vine. This one is native to the Lower Planes.

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• Bohun Tree: The fruits of this tree resemble giant grapes, but if bruised or damaged in any way, they release a soporific vapor that has a 10% chance of paralyzing your lungs and killing you. The tree will deliberately burst its own fruit if attacked. It is also covered in thorns that can be fired off of it as projectiles. It can also send its roots up through the ground to grab you. Appeared in Dragon #89.

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• Boneleaf: An aberration that resembles a plant. It is intelligent and can use illusions to lure prey. All boneleaves in an area are actually parts of a single organism so what one learns, all boneleaves nearby also learn.

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• Crawling Ivy: Prehensile ivy that has tiny pores all over its leaves that it uses to suck out your blood.

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• Death's Head Tree: Looks like a weeping willow with animate heads of humans and demihumans as fruit. The heads softly call for help to lure prey. In combat, the heads detach from the tree and float (not magically, but via "gasses"), spit needle-like seeds, and bite. These seeds embed into victims' skin and then germinate and grow into a new tree. A seed that lands on the ground can also germinate if exposed to blood. The whole thing is immune to fire and resistant to magic.

An alternate version appears in Dragon Magazine #292, where the fruits are now skulls, and instead of floating, they are thrown by the tree like grenades, bursting on impact with seed shrapnel.

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• Doppelganger Plant: A plant from outer space that devours people and then creates vegetable clones of them to do its bidding. Basically an expy of the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, debuted in Ravenloft. 5e gave it a rename as the Bodysnatcher Plant.

• Giant Sundew: Looks nothing like a sundew. It can pull up its roots and drag itself around with its prehensile sticky tendrils.

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• Hangman Tree: A tree with noose-like vines that it uses to lift prey up into its "mouth". Can move at 2 feet per hour.

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• Ironmaw: A carnivorous tree that can disguise itself as any other type of tree. Native to the Outer Planes.

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• Kampfult: A lot like a roper, but it's disguised as a tree stump instead of a rock outcrop. Apparently its body is like a long length of rope, and it can unravel itself to act much more like an assassin vine (above).

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• Mandragora: A man-shaped man-eating plant creature that attacks by wipping or strangling victims with its two tentacle-like vines but can by stunned by daylight.

• Mantrap: Anyone exposed to its pollen must save or become mind-controlled and willingly climb into its incredibly obvious leaf traps, which then close and digest them.

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• Orcwort: A tree with a fang-filled maw, entangling roots and clubbing branches. It's not very mobile itself, so it instead hunts by producing fruit that eventually transform into goblin-looking things called "wortlings" as they ripen. Wortlings go out and beat shit to death, then drag it home and feed it to the orcwort, only to be eaten in turn when they start getting overripe and on the verge of death. Getting in close is suicidal; not only can it entangle you and swallow you whole, but its venomous digestive sap is a paralytic, so you constantly have to make DC 35 Fortitude saves

• Quickwood: Also known as the spy tree. It is an intelligent, mobile tree that resembles an oak with a human face. It can also cause faces to appear on nearby oak trees that it can see through. The tree itself is very slow but its roots can travel underground more quickly. It attacks by dragging prey towards its mouth using its roots. It has a lot of immunities including fire, lightning, poison, gasses, and mind effects. If it is attacked with any kind of magic, it can absorb energy from the spell to generate a fear effect, which cancels the spell entirely if the spellcaster fails their save. They are sometimes used to guard treasures and can produce a loud noise that can be heard a mile away as an alarm when they spot an intruder.

• Razorvine: The most common weed in Sigil and the Outer Planes. Its vines are so sharp that anyone who falls into a patch is likely to bleed to death. While dangerous, it is not normally carnivorous, but exposure to certain spells can awaken a dim intelligence in it, after which it will begin absorbing any blood spilled on it. They can even communicate by writing words with the blood, and can be trained to answer questions about what they have seen in exchange for more blood.

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• Reaper Blossom: From Nentir Vale, per Dungeon Magazine #195 alongside the Hangman Tree and that Vampire Rose again.

• Shambling Mound: One of the most iconic of the carnivorous plants. A predatory beast made out of vines that strangely gets stronger when hit with lightning.

• Singing Tree: This arboreal siren's song compels animals to rest under its shade. It then detaches leaves that land on the prey, suck 1 HP of blood per leaf, then rise back up and reconnect to the tree.

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• Tendriculos: A huge predatory plant that tries to swallow creatures whole. They can rapidly regenerate from injuries and have paralyzing juices in their stomachs.

• Thornslinger: Can shoot out a near infinite supply of thorns. Its whole body is super sticky, trapping anyone who touches it. The thornslingers in the Ravenloft adventure When Black Roses Bloom are retconned to be much more like Vampires Roses, turning from white to black by feeding on blood.

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• Tri-Flower Frond: A plant with three differently colored flowers that each do something different. The orange flower extends 3-foot tendrils, anyone hit must save or fall comatose. The yellow flower then immmediately bends over the sleeping victim and showers them with acidic enzymes that cause 2d4 damage per round. This acid can only be removed by submerging the victim in water. The red flower extends its own tendrils into the victims body, sucking up their blood for 1d6 hp per round, and then, after they have been dissolved by the acid, sucking up their gooey remains.

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• Twilight Bloom: A sweet-smelling plant with purple flowers that drips a poison that can kill instantly people that walk under it.

• Udoroot: A plant that looks like a circle of six sunflower-like plants, but they are all a single plant with most of its mass below the ground. It kills prey using psionic attacks and uses them as fertilizer. It is rendered powerless if all of the flowers are destroyed or cut off, but they will eventually grow back if the root system remains intact.

• Vampire Cactus: Resembles an agave plant with a yellow bloom spike upon which a single red flower grows. Each leaf ends in a large needle that shoots out at prey, remaining attached by a hollow, rubbery thread. Once a needle is embedded in the victim, the plant drains 1d3 HP of blood per round. Needles can be reeled in and fired again.

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• Vampire Moss: Moss that remotely steals 1 HP per round from any creature that gets within 10 feet.

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• Vampire Rose or Bloodrose (or, er, Jupiter Blood Sucker): White roses that turn red after soaking up a creature's blood. They remain motionless until an animal wanders into the center of their patch, then tear it open with their thorny tendrils.

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• Yellow Musk Creeper: A pretty creeping vine with beautiful yellow flowers. It lures victims in with its sweet scent, and then plants seeds in their heads, which consume the host's brain and then hijack the body as a zombie they pilot to find a new place to grow.

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Warhammer 40,000

Carnivorous plants are an obscure but canonical part of the 41st millennium, largely associated with Catachan and similar variants of Death World.

• Brain Leaf: A parasitic carnivore that hijacks the bodies of victims, turning them into zombies it uses to carry and ultimately nourish its loffspring.
• Spiker: Another carnivorous parasite, the Spiker launches projectile thorns laden with a genetic retrovirus that turns whatever living creatures they stick into new Spikers. No, we ain't kidding.
• Venus Mantrap: Your basic giant, semi-mobile Venus Flytrap type killer plant. Catachan is known to host a local variant that can walk.
• Strangleplant/Stranglevine: A killer vine that grabs things and crushes them to death, or at least restrains them until they die of thirst.
• Miral Catcher: A ground-hugging carnivorous plant that uses multiple maws with prehensile tongues to drag victims in to their doom.
• Spitting Cactus: Another thorn-firing cactus. Unlike the Spiker, this one just wants to kill and eat you.
• Sucker Tree: A tree with a fluid-sucking cap atop a bendy stalk; it bends over and latches onto a victim to suck out all their fluids, then snaps back into position, throwing the dessicated corpse away from its base and minimizing the risk of identification.