More Plantmen Spotted!

News from the Veiled Planet!

Witnesses have described to our Venus correspondent a remarkable creature that has been lurking about our station there. The beast is humanoid, in that it appears to have two arms, and two legs, and a head of some sort, but there the resemblance to Mankind ends. For, in fact, this beast is no beast at all - nor any sort of animal!

No, good readers, your humble journalist has not taken leave of his senses. I do not claim that these tales are true, but merely report on statements made by Venusian prospectors to the chief correspondent of the Unveiled Planet, a news journal of somewhat dubious and sensationalistic character. However, all of the many reports bear out the same story: a plant which moves and stalks its prey, with tendrils of vines for limbs and a great bulbous purple flower for a head.

To date, the largest group of these plantmen (which the Unveiled Planet has labeled the Vardu, after Christophe de Vardu, a noted Swiss biologist currently studying the plant life of Venus) seen at one time is only ten, but surely more must lurk in the misty rainforests of that forbidding planet. Teeming with unknown lifeforms and barely explored at all, the jungles of Venus hold many a strange surprise for the unwary Earthman.

It is hoped that the Unveiled Planet will soon provide photostatic evidence of these strange creatures. Naturally, friends, this journal will reproduce them for your edification once they have been authenticated.

[Editor's Note: Finished the first ten Vardu sprouts today. I've also gotten a new scientist figure from Reaper (28mm), who will be Christophe de Vardu. What surprises have I in store for you all? I 'd bet you can guess.]