Dungeon Mastery: Locoweed from the Dread Isle

LOCOWEED

Cost: 1gp per ounce of fresh picked purple leaf (provides two hours of boosted morale through leaf consumption), 10gp per ounce of Poison extract (providing one ounce of extract per destroyed plant rootstock that causes a stupor).

Native Location (Thanegioth Archipelago), Isle of Dread (Long Lake Marsh).

Locoweed, the young purple leaves picked fresh and chewed, will for two hours after consumption greatly increase the Morale of the imbider though it increases agressiveness as a side effect. The plant itself is far more diverse than the consumption of fresh leaves for a morale boost. Dried leaves may be burned in a brazier and the smoke inhaled giving Druids the ability to meditate for spells as though they had yet to do so. The root may be crushed fresh to extract a juice which serves as a poison causing the victim to fall into a stupor and become easily suggestible and manipulated. The root may be soaked in flowing stream water so the poisons are neutralized that the root may be reduced to a paste which will heal when applied to a wound.

NPCs and living monsters consuming the fresh picked leaves gain a +6 Morale Boost for two hours though they become Agressive in Reaction Rolls.

Any Druid inhaling the smoke from burning dried leaves will gain the ability to recover all forgotten spells that day. It is worthless for anyone else to do so.

Anyone drinking an ounce of the extract, even mixed in some other food or drink must save vs poison at -1 or fall into a stupor and become suggestible as though the victim had failed against a charm person spell. The effects of the root extract last twenty four hours. Further application of the extract before the root wears off will cause the victim to experience a toxic build up experienced as a bitter taste. The victim is from this point onward dying. The only cure is a polymorph spell the victim turned into a dinosaur altering their blood in doing so.

Correctly processing the root by soaking it in a flowing stream for twenty four hours ensures that when the root is then reduced to a paste and applied to a wound, the paste heals the victim of 1d6 hitpoints damage as a potion of healing. The paste of a root soaked for less than twenty four hours in a flowing stream will poison the recipient of the paste. No saving throw versus poison.

Druids indulging in the repeated burning and inhaling of the smoke of the leaf within twenty four hours open their minds to the natural world to which they connect. Their minds may regress permanantly to an earlier evolutionary form.

D6        Regression

1-3        No effect this time

4-5        Neanderthal*

6           Dinosaur**

* A Neanderthal can still be a druid, although they will experience some loss of primary abilities in accordance with neanderthals.

** Reduced to little more than a very smart predator, the Druid will attack even friends.