Vine Snake
Among the endless hazards of the Sionan Swamp, you may come across a vine snake if you're particularly unlucky.
While vine snakes tend to stay close to the canopy eating bird eggs...and occasionally birds...they will come down from time to time if they don't have easy passage to the next place they want to go, or if they spot what looks to be easy prey. For the most part, unless travelers have a pixie or some equally small creature with them, they will not come down to prey on people. They will, however, come down for little pets and familiars, and they will attack if discovered or bumped into by anyone of any size.
Vine snakes, not surprisingly, look like vines. And some look like surprisingly large, thick vines. They are extremely difficult to spot and can hold perfectly still for hours if they need to. While they don't have venom or even fangs, they are particularly quick constrictors, having adapted to an environment in which slow constriction often ended with their demise. They are not the largest snakes in the jungle, but they are surely the quickest of the constrictors. Within moments, a creature as large as a cat can be completely crushed in its vine-like coil, often before it realizes what has happened.
It will take the vine snake much longer to physically consume a victim, so it will try to crush a creature to death quickly, then leave its lower half coiled on the victim as the upper half drags itself up a tree. If they are attacking something that's been separated from a group by a fairly slim space, they will immediately drag the victim to the far side of the tree so as not to be caught dragging it up to the canopy for a slow meal. This can make for situations where a small animal just seems to disappear the next time one turns around, nowhere to be found among the thousands of mangroves even if it's relatively close. But it's probably dead already anyway, so it's just as well.
Vine snakes are not true chameleons, but they have lived in the swamps for so many generations that their look is nearly identical to the most common vine, a particularly broad rubbervine. Vine snakes often have white marks in just the right places to look like a little white vine blossom. The vines themselves blossom year-round, but there are fewer blossoms in the winter, when vine snakes have to be a little more aggressive in place of relying solely on stealth.
While vine snakes tend to stay close to the canopy eating bird eggs...and occasionally birds...they will come down from time to time if they don't have easy passage to the next place they want to go, or if they spot what looks to be easy prey. For the most part, unless travelers have a pixie or some equally small creature with them, they will not come down to prey on people. They will, however, come down for little pets and familiars, and they will attack if discovered or bumped into by anyone of any size.
Vine snakes, not surprisingly, look like vines. And some look like surprisingly large, thick vines. They are extremely difficult to spot and can hold perfectly still for hours if they need to. While they don't have venom or even fangs, they are particularly quick constrictors, having adapted to an environment in which slow constriction often ended with their demise. They are not the largest snakes in the jungle, but they are surely the quickest of the constrictors. Within moments, a creature as large as a cat can be completely crushed in its vine-like coil, often before it realizes what has happened.
It will take the vine snake much longer to physically consume a victim, so it will try to crush a creature to death quickly, then leave its lower half coiled on the victim as the upper half drags itself up a tree. If they are attacking something that's been separated from a group by a fairly slim space, they will immediately drag the victim to the far side of the tree so as not to be caught dragging it up to the canopy for a slow meal. This can make for situations where a small animal just seems to disappear the next time one turns around, nowhere to be found among the thousands of mangroves even if it's relatively close. But it's probably dead already anyway, so it's just as well.
Vine snakes are not true chameleons, but they have lived in the swamps for so many generations that their look is nearly identical to the most common vine, a particularly broad rubbervine. Vine snakes often have white marks in just the right places to look like a little white vine blossom. The vines themselves blossom year-round, but there are fewer blossoms in the winter, when vine snakes have to be a little more aggressive in place of relying solely on stealth.
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