Tanglevine

Tanglevines are common in hedgerows, ruined courtyards, and the shadowed perimeters of gardens where human traffic is frequent. Folklore among rural post riders holds that a single Tanglevine is enough to slow a messenger and cause a first-class letter to arrive days late. Botanists note that the plant seems to have evolved alongside human settlements, exploiting footwear as a niche for anchoring itself and dispersing seed pods hidden in tied shoelaces. The Royal Herbarium of Gossin recorded the first formal study of Tanglevines by scholar Vennor Cask, who tracked a colony that had learned to slither through a village's gutter system. Local hunters of pests form small patrols—known as the Knotwardens—to cut back swathes of Tanglevine where roads and town gates meet. A few itinerant circles of hedge-mages cultivate tanglevines for use in traps and stagecraft; the plants are prized for nonlethal immobilization and petty pranks when handled by those who understand their temperament.

A Tanglevine grows as a low mat of dark, glossy leaves (each 1–2 inches long) from which multiple wiry stems extend like the fingers of an idle hand. Each stem is thin as a pencil, banded with subtle nodes, and ends in a coiling tendril that resembles braided cord. The tendrils are smooth and slightly sticky; fine webbing of fibrous rootlets can adhere to leather and cloth. Seed pods—small, oblong capsules that look like dried peas—hide in the leaf axils. When crawling they keep most of their mass low to the ground, presenting only the slender tendrils to the legs of passersby. Scale: a Tanglevine is about knee-high to a halfling, its tendrils reaching as far as 10 feet when fully extended along a doorway or doorway frame.