b'Hook Melon \n'b'  Medium   plant ,  neutral evil  \n'b'  Armor Class  12 (natural armor)  Hit Points  52 (7d8 + 21)  Speed  10 ft., climb 10 ft.\n'b' STATS STR: 16 (+3) DEX:  13 (+1)  CON:  16 (+3)  INT:  8 (-1)  WIS:  14 (+2)  CHA:  5 (-3)  \n'b'\n'b'\n'b'\n'b'\n'b'\n'b'\n'b'  Damage Vulnerabilities  bludgeoning, fire  Senses  blindsight 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive  Perception  12  Languages  understands Sylvan but can\xe2\x80\x99t speak  Challenge  2 (450 XP)  Proficiency Bonus  +2 \n'b' SPECIAL TRAITS \n'b'\n'b'  Hanging Fruit . The hook melon is suspended from its parent tree by a long vine. While connected to its parent tree, its speed and climb speed are 0, and it regains 10  hit points  at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point. It can detach itself from its vine as a bonus action. A hook melon also detaches if it is moved more than 10 feet from its parent tree. Once detached, it cannot reattach itself. \n'b'  Keen Smell . The melon has advantage on  Wisdom  ( Perception ) checks that rely on smell. \n'b'\n'b' ACTIONS \n'b'\n'b'  Slam .  Melee Weapon Attack : +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.  Hit : 8 (1d10 + 3) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a Small or larger creature and the melon isn\xe2\x80\x99t attached to another creature, roots trailing from the melon\xe2\x80\x99s torso attach to the target. While attached, the melon moves with the target. A creature can use an action to make a DC 15  Strength  check, ending the attachment on a success and dealing 9 (2d8) damage to the attached creature. The attachment ends without dealing damage if the melon is killed or if the melon ends it as a bonus action. \n'b'  Steal Stride . If the melon is attached to a creature, it controls the attached creature\xe2\x80\x99s nerves. The attached creature moves up to its speed under the melon\xe2\x80\x99s control. \n'b'\n'b' BONUS ACTIONS \n'b'\n'b' A hook melon can use a bonus action to control a dead or  unconscious  creature it is attached to. It can make the creature move and interact with objects but not take  actions . \n'b'\n'b' REACTIONS \n'b'\n'b'  Steer . If a creature attached to the melon tries to move or use an action, the creature must make a DC 13  Wisdom  saving throw. On a failure, the creature doesn\xe2\x80\x99t move or take an action, and the melon uses Steal Stride. \n'b'\n'b' ABOUT \n'b' Hook melons are a strange and unsettling breed of fruit that dangle from the branches of their parent tree by a vine growing from their neck. When fully ripe, they  bear  an uncanny resemblance to a headless humanoid body. While most fruit disperses a plant\xe2\x80\x99s seeds by enticing other creatures into eating them, hook melons take a different approach. When intertwined with another creature\xe2\x80\x99s nervous system, the root-like fibers that trail from their torso allow the hook melon a limited amount of control over a creature\xe2\x80\x99s movements. \n'b' They use this control to travel as far as possible from their parent tree and seek out a suitable place to sprout, often bludgeoning their unwilling host into unconsciousness or death in the process. \n'b' Hook melons possess a surprising degree of intelligence for a plant, considering the sophistication required to control another creature\xe2\x80\x99s body. Sometimes a group of hook melons (called a gallows) will cooperate to ambush larger groups of creatures, ensuring that at least one of their kind can escape while attached to a suitable host. \n'b' Occasionally, a hook melon will shun its biological drive and forgo sprouting in favor of further exploration. Such individuals have been known to disguise themselves with shapeless clothing in order to pass through inhabited areas. \n'b' Sightings of unusual  centaur -like silhouettes lumbering across forests can sometimes be attributed to these macabre fruits. \n'b' Though clearly plant-based life forms, hook melons possess eerie intellects, and their personalities are as alien to most humanoids as their invertebrate anatomy. \n'b' Most hook melons prefer to attach to deer, large birds, and other swift-moving forest creatures, but for whatever reason, some instead have a predilection for humanoid bodies. \n'b' Plant creatures share a special bond with the natural world that few other beings can completely understand or appreciate. When the bond to its realm is broken or severed, a sentient plant creature\xe2\x80\x99s rage can transform it into a terrible shadow of its former self. Benign and even friendly plants like leshies, arboreals, and dryads all run the risk of this horrible metamorphosis, though their own agony often pales in comparison to the horrors which they inflict on their victims. \n'b' Lonely, angry, and twisted, plant husks sow their monstrous madness in the fertile corpses of wanderers who dare travel through the husk\xe2\x80\x99s blighted swath of wilderness. Though in their eyes any living creature is worthy of obliteration, husks reserve their most horrendous punishments for any litterer, land settler, or lumberjack who ever dared to desecrate, dominate, or denude the forest.'