Vegimals are immune to majic or technologies not specifically affecting plants. Most vegimals have surprisingly tough fibrous hides and are not as delicate as flesh-creatures. What distinct organs they have are often buried deep within their tough, fibrous flesh, are dispersed, and can be readily regenerated; as a result, most vegimals have no vulnerable vital organs.
Ingestion, digestion, and excretion
Upon their undersurfaces or bellies, some vegimals, like many animate plants, have a mat of fine hair roots, like loosely woven felt. When the vegimal settles down in water or mud, these roots absorb water and nutrients. Where the soil is dry, scratching loosens it; the vegimal then settles down in to the loosened material, expels some water to liquefy the minerals and organic particles for ready absorption, and soaks it up.
While most simple animate plants rely completely upon such direct absorption of water and nutrients to meet their material needs, most vegimals have more sophisticated ingestion, absorption, and excretion mechanisms. The most basic is a stomach analog. Vegimals with a stomach may eat and drink in a fashion similar to flesh beasts or they may ingest (and excrete) by other uniquely vegimal means.
Intake may be through a single great mouth, used in behavior closely paralleling that of a flesh-beast, or a vegimal may have several different intake organs, with different forms suited to different purposes. An attacking maw with sharp cutters will be located in a forward position, suited to strike and rend. A soil scoop may be located ventrally. Tapping tendrils may terminate writhing vine tips. Water-absorbing root-sponges are likely to be located just above the "feet," and operate passively any time the vegimal is standing in water.
Within a stomach-analog, whether it be a single large sack or several smaller organs, solid material is briskly whisked with water and digestive acids by branch or comb-like organs, paralleling the churning action of flesh beasts' stomachs. This soon reduces the ingested material, such as flesh, soil, or compost, or, in the case of "cannibalistic" vegimals, raw vegetative material, to a pureed mash, suitable for absorption.
Non-nutritious material and other waste must be expelled. Simple animate plants typically regurgitate non-nutritive materials through the mouth-analog orifice. More sophisticated vegimals have more advanced digestive systems, usually featuring a one-way digestive track or multiple digestive and excretory systems. A few vegimals have digestive tracks terminating in an anus-analog closely paralleling the anatomy of flesh beasts. Many expel non-nutritive minerals as a fine, dry powder through pores along the flanks, where it serves a function similar to powder-down dusting of friable feathers used for preening by some birds. Sludge may be vented near the feet. Some combine waste venting with a defensive spray, whether of pellets or liquid.
Specific species of vegimals are scattered throughout the bestiary.
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