Brain Flowers

Therefore, I was watching Farscape and saw the bit where the flowers make the Scarrian smarter and thus more dangerous. I was thinking that something similar in a game setting could be interesting for goblins, ogres, orcs and so forth.

So how about the, the brain flower. If the bloom is eaten it will increase the intelligence of a goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, orc, troll and kobald by one point. The effects last a week. Multiple blooms may be eaten in a week to increase intelligence to a maximum of an increase of 6 points. This does not have any other effect on these races and is not known to have any effect on any other races.

So some goblins could start eating 6 blooms a week, have an intelligence of 15 and be deadlier.

What do you think?

My PCs would start playing Goblin Wizards and would all take Leadership (to own a plantation).

Where's the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, evil, NPC-only downside?

-- N

Could be fun.Troll raids from the swamp have gotten more organized, and rumors of a Troll casting fireball could get a few people nervous.

Would the plant be natural or experimental?

What if it was developed by Mind Flayers as a "spice" to give to the herd just before eaten. A group of slaves escape and bring some of the plant with them to wherever you want in the campaign world.
To orc-blooded and Goblinoids it boosts the int, to anyone else it is a deadly poision, or one that does permanent Int Drain.

Possibilities are endless.

They're probably physiologically addictive, and certainly psychologically habituating - no one will want to experience the encroaching dimness of incipient stupidity that they know will happen if they stop taking the drug. Lord help you when the crop fails.

In the TV show Farscape the flowers are mostly just a plot device giving both motive and liability to the Scarrans, who are among the lengthy list of bad guys.

Incidentally, in the original make-up the Scarrans looked very much like hair-less, albino versions of the ogre from the Monster Manual. Later make-up has gone the way of Star Trek in depicting them – namely just odd-colored latex lumps over the actors face.

Another character – a half-Scarran who whose depiction in the show made me reset my standards for villainy – said the Scarrans were dumber than dogs without the flower.

If I remember it correctly, the flowers in the show were just a chrysanthemum. The Scarrans treated the flower like manna from heaven while the show’s protagonist commented they are common on Earth.

My thoughts are just that – the “brain flowers” are just any number of verities of the common chrysanthemum. The aforementioned goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, orc, troll and kobald gain a temporary benefit to intelligence.

To any other race, the flowers offer nothing, but they might be mildly poisonous – i.e. a failed constitution roll (DC 12) for the character vomits and loses 1d3 temporary constitution points due to weakness and 1d3 temporary charisma points until they brush their teeth and clean themselves up.

The races who do benefit only discover the benefit by accident. And then the “good” races have to figure out what is going on and try to cope with the terrible peril poised by the Brain Flower!

I mean, how do you handle the situation when you enemies are gaining a special advantages from one of the more common flowers around?

You get up in the morning, are having you cup of Fantasy World Joe and you hear the neighbor woman – who does a lot of gardening. You rush over and find a pair of goblins standing in the ruins of her chrysanthemum garden, emergently debating Fermat Theorem.

Imagine the player characters having to deal with Obould’s Many Arrows latest plot, which centers around raiding the 12th Annual Woman's Chrysanthemum Show in Silverymoon this weekend.

The fact that chrysanthemum’s are ubiquitous makes the threat all the more pervasive.