Patient ambusher. The Gleamroot Stalker lies motionless for long stretches, its fungal fronds absorbing light and siphoning nutrients. It is territorial and increasingly aggressive when its mycelial web is disturbed. It prefers to strike from concealment and isolate opponents rather than face a coordinated group head-on.

Gleamroot Stalkers form from symbioses of predatory vines and bioluminescent fungi in damp, shaded places. Their mycelial networks tie into local root systems and sometimes into the memories of particularly old groves, storing chemical traces of prey and recent travelers. They help recycle large carcasses and can dominate small clearing ecosystems. Packs interconnect via fungal threads to coordinate ambushes.

A matted hollow network of roots and glowing mushrooms, often with small pools of brackish water. The lair's ceilings and walls are studded with fungal fronds that release faint spores when disturbed. In its lair the Stalker can extend concealed vines throughout the area to detect movement and pull traps tight.

To feed and expand its mycelial territory. It defends the webbed area fiercely and seeks to reclaim land fouled or burned by intruders.

If left undisturbed the body of a defeated Gleamroot Stalker sinks into the earth, its fungal network seeding the soil. Within a week clusters of bioluminescent mushrooms grow where the corpse fell, attracting small predators and, in damaged ecosystems, causing local water sources to smell faintly of algae. If the root knot is rapidly burned or its mycelium salted the spread can be halted, though such treatment scars the land for months.