Doom-Bloom_No_Watercolor.png 2.6 MB
Doom-Bloom_No_Label.png 3.3 MB
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Doom-Bloom_HiRez-Flat.png 2.6 MB
February 26, 2021

Doom Bloom

Wondrous item, rare


This dark, velvety lotus has tiny pinpricks of starlight in its petals and releases lofting, magical pollen. Once picked, a doom bloom withers and is destroyed after 1d6 + 1 days. As an action, you can inhale the magical pollen from a picked flower and speak the name of a creature or location that's on the same plane of existence as you, duplicating the effect of the scrying spell (save DC 15).

If the target of the effect fails the saving throw, the spell succeeds and the flower explodes into a burst of pollen and is destroyed. If the target succeeds on the saving throw, you instead witness hundreds of brief, painful visions until the start of your next turn that show you untold ways that you might die. When the visions end, you take 6d6 psychic damage, but the flower isn't destroyed. Once this property of the flower has been used, it can't be used again for 24 hours.

Doom blooms typically grow on their own, but can sometimes be found near others. When the flower dies or is destroyed, a new one grows after 1d6 + 1 days in the same place in which it last grew. If the flower was successfully used to duplicate the effect of the scrying spell, the new flower grows at the location where the spell's sensor first appeared instead. If the sensor followed a creature, there is a 10 percent chance that an additional flower will grow after 1d6 + 1 days at the sensor's location at the end of each minute of the spell's duration.


Dark flowers grow in the places most unwanted,
marring landscapes, telling secrets, a mark of doom.
Best not become a planter of the flowers, child,
lest your mind become the soil from which they bloom.

Comments (3)

R
Ryebread · March 2, 2021

This is absolutely gorgeous. There aren't enough magic plant items out there.

M
Max Kaehn · February 26, 2021

I could see these playing a part in a long distance love affair, or as a framing piece for an epistolary novel. One person talks to empty air on the day they know the other will be scrying on them, then takes their turn when the flower blooms for them next week.

K
Kevin · February 26, 2021

I'm picturing a highly guarded garden full of a dozen of these in a wizard's guild