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D&D Ideas — Plants Revisited

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is plants, which we revisited for discussion in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of plants there’s no shortage of different ways your characters can interact with the plants in your games with the power contained inside magic items from the Mage Forge! We’ve got the digital versions done and production on the physical card decks begins very soon. There’s still time to preorder — but not too much! Learn more here. You can get Nerdarchy the Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

Nerdy News

Throw down, robot style for the week that was! Learn about three new ways to elf it up in D&D and check out some real world critters with draconic qualities! Plus a chat with an industry pro round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Plants are the flora part of flora and fauna, which are both key to creating a living and breathing world for your D&D games. Fantasy stories are full of unique plants heroes often need to create a remedy. In a fantasy game like D&D you can see flora and fauna begin to merge. Plants in a fantasy world can be a way to define and build your world. Plants infused with magic, for better or worse, make a great place to start seeding adventures and cultivating engaging scenarios.

Ideas for Magical Plants

• Magebane. Spells cast within 60 feet of this silver flower with a purple stem require the spellcaster to first make a successful check using their spellcasting ability. The DC for this check is 10 + the level of the spell. On a failure the spell fails and the spell slot is expended.
• Fire Fronds. Prized as a spell component for spells that create or control fire. This plant is known for its broad leafy fronds and the bright red veins running through them. When used as a material component for a spell it is consumed. Using fire fronds allows you to cast the spell as if you spent a spell slot one level higher than it would normally be.
• Black Benjamin. A black shiny plant flecked through with silver and very shiny, these plants are prized by necromancers who bring forth the undead. You can use this plant as a material component for a spell and it is consumed when you do so. Undead created using Black Benjamin are under their creator’s control for twice as long.
• Silent Silver Manes. This flower ranges in color from purple to blue with shaggy silver leaves hanging below the flower looking very much like silver mane. Silent Silver Mane absorbs sound in 15 foot radius. Spells with verbal components can’t be cast in this way and all sound is negated. Sometimes it is called Bard’s Bane.
• Vicious Vines. Some have tried to put evil or malign intent to these long, ropey, bright green vines sprouting with beautiful crimson flowers. The flowers produce a succulent sweet smell. The instant a living creature comes within reach of the vines they lash out. Constrict. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 20 ft., one creature. Hit: The target takes 11 (2d6 +4) bludgeoning damage, and it is grappled (escape DC 14). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained.

Ideas for Plant Hooks

• Midnight Lily Run. A rare disease afflicts one of the adventurers or a well-known NPC the group likes. Curing the disease requires a special herb that can only be extracted from the Midnight Lily. Midnight Lilies only bloom at midnight under the light of a full moon at the center of a swamp. This adds a time limit component to a typical fetch quest.
• Fire Frond Failure. A local mage began growing their own Fire Fronds and figured out how to speed up the process. Unfortunately an expected development of the process is the plant becomes highly volatile. Anything touching it has a 50% chance to cause the plant to combust, spreading its seeds to spread. The plant grows in about a day. The mage has been overcome by their creation and the fire frond is rapidly spreading and setting the countryside on fire. The adventurers must figure out how to counter it and stop the spread.
• Wolf’s Bane. Werewolf attacks threw the countryside into a panic and now townsfolk are in danger of changing during the next full moon. The adventurers are sent to find wolf’s bane. If they come back empty handed they’ll have to deal newly transformed werewolves.

From Ted’s Head

I recently watched the I Am Groot shorts over on Disney Plus. Groot is a very fun character and there is a decidedly low number of sentient plants in Dungeons & Dragons. I figured making a plant race would be the best way to go about adding some new life into the world, totally inspired by the content of the character Groot, and I guess Groot’s son, Groot.

Togrooted are the race of creatures with a rich history rooted along with other plants. Though there are three distinct subraces each can be as unique as you like so it is not hard for one to have a problem seeing a distinction between them. And since the togrooted usually are not bothered by such things it is usually not a problem.

As diverse as plants are across the globe, so too are the togrooted. Their diversity ties them to the other plants around them. They have a natural affinity for plants and can even loosely connect with them and get answers to simple questions. They also have the ability to extract nutrients from soil to help heal themselves and provide sustenance. They look like plants but can have as much or as little plant life as you deem necessary to fit the concept. Some have vines and flowers growing out of green skin while others look like they are nothing more than creatures made of hard bark that bends and snaps as they move.

Togrooted do not create a progeny the way a normal species does. Either after death, or sometimes before, togrooted take a part of themselves and encourage it to grow into new life. The new life grows based on its parent, the soil and time of the year.

Togrooted as a D&D race

Togrooted are humanoids but have a strong look of plant life.

Size. You can be Medium or Small, your choice

Speed. You have a speed of 30 feet being quite nimble while Small or long limbs to help you move quickly as Medium.

Ability Scores. You can either add three +1s to different abilities of your choice or +2 and +1 to different abilities.

Limited Plant Speech. You know a type of plant by touching it and can communicate with it asking yes or no questions. Unless you upset the plant it generally answers.

Regrowth. If you are missing any limbs they regrow when you finish a long rest.

Nimloth

Typically the largest of the togrooted, bark-covered nimloth are more like small trees or bushes walking around.

Barked Skin. You gain a +1 bonus to AC when you’re not wearing heavy armor.

Toughen Skin. As a bonus action you can thicken the bark on your skin. You gain temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Lothen

Typically the sweetest of the togrooted they are either covered in flowers blossoming off of exposed skin or their head or shoulders are composed of one giant flower.

Blossoming Growth. You can cause normal plants within 10 feet of you to blossom and grow.

Blossoming Awareness.You have proficiency in the Nature or Persuasion skill (your choice).

Vinyes

Typically are the most common of the togrooted. Their bodies are generally composed of vines in varying shades of brown and green

Thorned Skin. When you are hit by an attack from a creature within 5 feet you can use your reaction to elongate the sharp thorns on your body and deal piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your proficiency bonus. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Whip it Good. You know and can cast the thorn whip spell, using Wisdom as your spellcasting ability.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

I’ve had a lot of success incorporating plants and plant creatures into my D&D games. I’m not sure if there’s something special I’m doing or it’s simply human nature to react this way but players are almost always either especially intrigued or acutely repulsed by my use of plants. I consider this a sign of great success in both regards.

During the live chat with Nerdarchist Ted I mentioned a very special plant featured prominently in a classic comic book tale. In Superman Annual No. 11 Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman visit Superman at his Fortress of Solitude and find the Man of Steel with a strange plant attached to his chest. To me this has all the makings of an incredible D&D adventure. This scenario seems ideal for higher level parties too.

What exactly do you get for the adventurers who have everything?

In the comics Black Mercy is an alien plant that creates a dream of a person’s perfect life by tapping into the pleasure centers of a person’s brain, while keeping the victim totally paralyzed. One of Superman’s deadliest enemies sets the Black Mercy upon the Man of Steel, who experiences a vivid reality where Krypton never blew up and he lived a life there among his own people. While Supes is occupied this way the villain proceeds to trounce the visiting heroes. Eventually Superman very painfully comes to realize none of what he’s experiencing is real, breaks free of the Black Mercy and puts a beating on the bad guy.

This all makes for very rich soil in which a D&D adventure can flourish. Here’s how I would use something like Black Mercy in D&D. For starters I’d set things up with a cliffhanger. At the end of a session the adventurers would encounter this strange, psychoactive plant. If they’re in the middle of something else like a dungeon crawl I’d simply place it before them. Perhaps it’s found among a variety of other curious kept in glass display jars. Maybe it’s part of an area otherwise overgrown with plants, or in some necrobotanist’s garden. Alternatively if the party is between adventures then the plant gets delivered right to them by a courier either mundane or magical.

When the next session begins everything is different. This is a terrific scenario to really let the player agency rip, too. The idea here is the party experiences an ideal life where key events they’ve experienced turned out in a different way. In this regard it works very well for a group that’s been playing for a long time and has lots of adventures under their belt but it can certainly work for groups who place high value on narrative elements too. Do you have a player with one of those wild backstories where they were super powerful and influential? Great! Now’s their chance to see what that life would be like.

The key thing here is providing players an opportunity to explore an alternate reality, one where the perils they overcame and setbacks they suffered never came to pass. A Dungeon Master can guide the players through this by asking questions like, “What would your character do if they hadn’t become an adventurer?” Of course getting more specific with details for the campaign makes this even more immersive. Did a beloved NPC die along the way? In this scenario they’re alive and perfectly fine. Anything the characters lost — physically, emotionally, spiritually or whatever — has no place in this reality.

What is the point of this exercise, and where’s the tension? Players are going to know something is up. It’s not unlikely they’ll make a connection between the previous session’s cliffhanger and their current circumstances, but what are they going to do about it? There’s a lot of ways this can go but here’s some ideas:

• Treat the scenario like a skill challenge since everyone in the party is sharing this experience. They’ve got to succeed on a variety of saving throws or skill checks to break free from the Black Mercy’s hallucination. This takes place on a sliding scale and becomes progressively difficult as the plant seeks to exert it’s control. You might consider only allowing these attempts at key moments like when a character strongly rejects their perceived reality. When these moments take place the world they’re inhabiting in their minds becomes more aggressive too. Think of the movie Inception, where the dream world grows more hostile as the lucid dreamers make their presence more intrusive.
• Play around with this alternate reality. Let the characters enjoy what they may view as something of a breather. The scenario is meant to present an idyllic world and if your campaign features lots of frequent danger and darkness this could be a really nice change of pace for the players. While you’re inviting them to use their agency to help make their ideal world closer to what they feel it would be, stay mindful of times when even here things don’t necessarily always work out the best. For example in the comicbook story Superman’s father Jor-El, whose prediction of Krypton’s doom was unfulfilled, has become discredited and embittered while his mother Lara dies from the “Eating Sickness.” Are there times in the party’s history you’re revisiting where you can insert these dark deviations? These situations may arise more frequently as the characters make progress overcoming the Black Mercy. This can illustrate how insidious the plant’s effects can be, as darkness begins to seep into this ideal world as a direct result of the adventurers’ efforts to escape.
• Try using some cinematic techniques. While the adventuring party is trapped in this shared hallucination you can shift focus to the real world around them. Here the party is completely paralyzed, unable to perceive or interact with anything around them. Where they in a dungeon? Perhaps deadly monsters approach the area where their inert bodies lay helpless. Did the Black Mercy wrap it’s vines around them in a more safe location like a favorite inn or their own keep? Take a play from Mongul’s playbook in the comics and use the opportunity for a hated villain to take advantage. If everyone is really into this situation and having a great time you might let it play out for a while and have the players take control of NPCs or other creatures who fight to protect their bodies from this powerful enemy.
• If the idea of an entire session or multiple sessions dealing with the Black Mercy seems like too much, you could always truncate things. Perhaps the party finds a Black Mercy growing in the Garden of Statuary. Rather than pull the whole party into a hallucination for an extended time this one might just incapacitate a single character for a little while. Now the party is down a member and they’ve got to deal with this dangerous plant plus whatever other challenges await them in the rest of the adventure. This probably works best when a player isn’t present though, but if they’re a good sport you might do a bit of switching back and forth to keep everyone involved.

Not too shabby for a plant, right? I don’t know if it’s just me but I find plants incredibly useful in D&D games in so many ways. In a recent post I wrote about playing a zombie apocalypse campaign in D&D and how plants might feature very prominently in such a game. I also love how plants can help make your world more unique and engaging the way Nerdarchist Dave describes in his editorial this week. Our own Treasures of the Tundra module includes ten different poisons, which I’ve incorporated into my own game as extracts from rare plants found only in arctic areas.

One last thing about the Black Mercy idea is it crosses paths with one of my very favorite concepts to play with — dreams, alternate realities and mindscapes. I love this stuff and it’s so useful and effective in D&D. We’ve got a ton of stuff about dreams for D&D here at Nerdarchy the Website if you search around. Dream monsters, magic items, entire adventures and a lot more. One of the most popular villains in the Nerdarchyverse is Jarease, the Lord of Dead Dreams who harvests dreams and nightmares to distill into powerful alchemical potions. Poke around and you’ll find plenty of ideas for using dreams in your D&D games. They’ll make excellent fertilizer for your own Black Mercy encounter!

*Featured image — Audrey 2, the quintessential killer plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

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