Taint Seed

The Taint Seed is a hostile creature added by Thaumcraft 6. It is an immobile mob that spawns in tainted areas and spreads Taint further.

Spawning
Unlike Giant Taint Seeds, which spawn as a random effect of Flux Rifts, regular Taint Seeds spawn occasionally during taint spread on Tainted Soil or Tainted Rock, in the area between 25 and 32 blocks of horizontal distance from the nearest Taint Seed of any type, if the location's chunk contains at least 5 Flux, which will be consumed.

Drops
Taint Seeds drop when killed:
 * 8 experience, if killed by a player
 * 1 - 2

Behavior
Taint Seeds are immobile and cannot be pushed. They target nearby players, and will deal melee damage to them and knock them back if they come too close. Their main role is spreading Fibrous Taint to blocks in a 9×9×5 area, allowing further Taint spread in a 32 block horizontal radius around itself, and keeping tainted blocks from dissolving or turning back into their base form.

If a mob comes into an 8 block radius around the Seed, it will apply Taint Poison for 5 seconds to the mob.

If the Seed can see its target, the target is in a 16 block radius around it, and it is standing on a tainted block, it will summon short-lived Taintacles to attack the target.

If there is no Flux in the chunk where the Seed lives in, it will take 0.5 starvation damage to emit 0.1 Flux into the aura.