Check out this Weird Dungeon Flora drawing by Evelyn Moreau!
Gabriel’s a Patreon supporter; he tells me it comes with rights for commercial use on a huge treasure trove of this kind of stuff! If you need art for your TTRPG stuff (and you’ve already used up Gabriel’s two packs) consider joining!
As for me? I’m feeling inspired! I’m sure Evelyn and others besides have already detailed all these weird little dungeon plants, but I want to play too! You folks know I love weird plants. Check out my version of these little oddities below.
1. Pudding’s Envie and Pudding Milk
A slick black heap of moss, slowly inflating and deflating like a failing heart. Coral-like fronds rise from its centre; within them, a salty-savoury milk can be found.
The milk is edible (with a DC 9 Con check), but the dungeon’s weird fauna best know this plant as a sort of organic trap. The stink of the milk attracts the dungeon’s largest monster within d4 rounds. Smaller monsters will attempt to shove PCs (and each other) into the fronds to cover them with the milk, then flee while a larger hunter comes to finish their work.
2. Dreamer’s Moss
Elves who break their race’s ancient compact with Dream and attempt to dream may face dire consequences. In the West, there are entire dungeons full of gentle rotting Elven Sleep Cultists. Breathing the spores of this flowering moss causes Disadvantage on saves against illusion and fear effects. Burning the moss stops it from releasing spores, but the strange black flames age everyone present by a number of years equal to their Intelligence and attract the dream-ghosts of the elves.
3. Doorman’s Paddle
Using force to open a door infested with Doorman’s Paddle is a bad idea. Save (dex, v breath weapons, reflex) within 30 feet if violence releases these spores; failures cause 2d6 poison damage.
Owlbears love the Doorman’s Paddle as a little snack! Throwing the fungus behind you while fleeing is a time-honoured way to evade Owlbears.
4. Torchlight Hope
Elven Biomancers developed these storage symbiotes to keep subterranean dungeon torches burning long beyond earthly reason. If exposed to a non-colonized source of light and heat (a PC torch, for instance) they’ll attempt to seed it. PCs holding torches save (dex, v breath, reflex) or take d6 damage; if they fail their saves, their torch’s remaining lifespan is tripled.
5. Cobblestone Dowry
Cobblestone Dowry only grows above monster dens. By careful mapping, parties may use the dungeon’s weird flora to predict where monsters are on the floors below. Remember: monsters aren’t always in their dens!
6. Sad Knight’s Lettuce
Only grows within metal containers. Local goblins collect the heads of knights to grow this tasty snack. A leaf (2d6 per helmet found) counts as a full meal and grants two rounds of immunity to cold damage; goblins love using this property to cross freezing waters at the edges of their caves.
Feeling inspired? Detail your own versions of these weird dungeon flora in the comments below! Or if you’re in more of a reading mood, check out some of our other system-agnostic weird fantasy stuff! Trolls! Outlaw Wizards! Adventure Hooks! If you like what you see, buy one of our modules on your way out; help us keep the lights on!