Alchemy plant (CR ½)
The alchemy plant looks like any bush that has serrated green leaves that can grow anywhere (It uses its transmuting ability to thrive in nearly any environment), the only distinguishing characteristic is the lack of other vegetation in a l ft radius around it. It can change its essence into that of any inorganic matter that touches it and it can also convert one material into another (see below). Matter that was formerly alive, such as a wooden staff, cotton or wool clothing, or a corpse, also qualifies for transformation purposes. The plant is highly sought by alchemists.
The alchemy plant can sense when other live plants growing within 20' take damage. If it does sense such it then instinctively reacts to preserve itself by transforming into some nearby substance. For this reason, the alchemy plants that survive best grow beside rocks. As a herbivore is about to chomp into the succulent brown stalks, the alchemy plant turns into a plant-shaped rock and thus gets the hardness of object it touches. The plant can also transform in the split-second after a weapon makes contact and before it cuts through the plant, resulting in a solid steel plant. The attacker must make a Reflex save (DC 12) or have his weapon stuck in a newly transformed plant. The transformation lasts so long as danger still threatens.
Alchemy plants do not photosynthesize; thus, they do not require light. Alchemy plants take in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, providing an important service to spelljamming vessels.
The alchemy plant can transform substances into other substances. When two objects touch the plant, one is transformed into the other's substance. Roll randomly (an even chance) to determine the object transformed. Thus, to make,the plant create gold, touch the plant with a rock, then a piece of gold and cross your fingers! An alchemy plant can convert one pound of matter per foot of plant height, to a maximum of three pounds. An alchemy plant can only transform something else once per day. The plant must stay alive to keep its own transformation intact, though this does not apply to other transformed matter.
A command plant spell ensures precisely the transformation the caster desires. Attempts to convince the plant to effect a transformation using speak with plants seldom work. The plant cannot be bullied, as it has no concept of its own death or pain. Only a druid can hope to convince the plant to create a transformation; the druid must make a Diplomacy/Charisma check (DC 30) to succeed.
Alchemy plants cannot duplicate magical energy. Thus, for instance, a candle of invocation touched against the alchemy plant creates only a small block of wax.
Every month, the alchemy plant has a 5% chance to produce a new seed. The seed is hurled by explosive force to a new spot 10d6 yards away from the parent. (An unfortunate character who intercepts the seed in its flight takes 1 hp damage.) The seed grows from seedling to maturity in two weeks.
Alchemy plants are at the bottom of the food chain, giving nutrition to wandering herbivores. Beyond this, only sages, mages, and alchemists have any interest in the plant, since its performance is undependable. Still, the alchemy plant can be found on board human, elvish, and illithid ships, where it freshens the air and possibly provides needed substances.
Infinity Vine (CR 2)
An infinity vine is a leafless, bright green plant with an extremely rapid rate of growth. It consists of an enormous number of thin, interwoven stems, all part of the same plant. Numerous bright blue flowers appear throughout the plant, each only 1 inch across. These flowers draw nutrients and moisture for the plant directly from the air itself. The plant thrives so long as it is kept within a crystal sphere's wildspace and exposed to both breathable air and to light of any kind. An infinity vine grows very rapidly, seeming to create plant material out of thin air.
The infinity vine poses a special hazard in the wildspace of many crystal spheres. Bits of this plant are often broken off and discarded from infested ships, and these dormant bits sometimes drift into the atmosphere and gravity field of a spelljamming ship. If a bit of vine falls against an air-bearing ship or other space object (including an asteroidal body of less than 100 miles diameter), the vine begins to grow outward at the rate of one cubic foot per round. If unchecked, it eventually grows to a depth of ten feet over every surface until it completely covers the exterior of the ship or asteroid (but it does not reach into dark spaces).
The gravest danger that an infinity vine poses is that it adds to the overall tonnage of any spelljamming ship it covers, and it does so very quickly. When this plant has covered an entire ship, it will have increased the ship's tonnage to four times its original value. This has obvious and immediate effects on spelljamming procedures.
An infinity vine consumes the waste gases given off by air-breathing creatures, and it gives off large quantities of oxygen. It is harmless to living beings, though it grows around and buries slow-moving or immobile beings. Victims can tear through an infinity vine (which regrows behind them as they pass) at their movement rate in feet per turn if using bare hands or sheer force. A being with claws or a short-bladed weapon (dagger or smaller) can move at double this rate, and a being with a bladed weapon at least as large as a short sword can hack through the vine at triple this rate.
An infinity vine is destroyed by any amount of direct contact with flame, and it stops growing (but stays green) if placed underwater or in total darkness. As burning is not a practical solution for clearing an infested ship, the spelljamming crew must either head for the phlogiston to scrape off every bit of dried vine, stop in a planet's shadow out of the sunlight or land on a large planet, where after a one-hour delay the infirnty vine disappears just as quickly as it grew (one cubic foot per round) until it has vanished.
Fire, acid, and electricity destroy all of the infinity vine within their areas of effect, though the vine regrows from unaffected areas. Cold-based spells cause it to stop growing for one round per hit point of damage inflicted (but only within the areas of effect). A darkness spell causes it to stop growing. Haste, slow, diminish plants, entangle, spike growth, antiplant shell, transport via plants, and enlarge/reduce spells have their normal effects, though a size-altered plant immediately either grows or shrinks at a proportionaltely altered rate to fill its original volume. Magic missile spell damage is regrown almost instantly. Plant growth spells cause it to grow at a rate of 10 cubic feet per round (though still limited to ten feet deep over the surface it is on). Command plant can cause the vine to stop growing within the areas of effect. Speak with plants could be used to help entangel/untangle someone on a friendly roll, but will not permenantly affect growth.
An infinity vine will not grow at all on planetary bodies over 100 miles in diameter, regardless of how much light or air the plant receives. When exposed to phlogiston, the plant immediately shrivels, becoming dark brown and extremely brittle. It is not dead, however, but merely dormant; if exposed to air and light in wildspace, the plant revives again, regrowing all damaged areas after a one-tum delay.
Infinity vine, can radically transform small asteroids into havens for bizarre ecological systems. The vine expands the air envelope around any object it engulfs so that the envelope is twice as thick as it formerly was. Castaways and exiles are sometimes found on such worlds, as a steady air and food supply is provided by the vine. Infinity vine is edible, though unappetizing.
The infinity vine is immune to all known plant diseases, and possesses the immunities common to all plants.
Sluk (CR 3)
Sluk is wildspace seaweed, with the same ship-miring ability as sargasso seaweed in planetary seas. An unintelligent parasite, it feeds on magical energy. It is attracted to sources of magic, and moves towards them much as a groundling sunflower turns to face the sun.
Sluk is a dark blue weed with small silver nodules in its leaves. It drifts in 50 ft long, stringy clumps called “beds,” waiting for ships to run into it. Its coloration acts as near-perfect camouflage in wildspace (DC 24 to spot). In the phogiston, the plant is easy to spot (DC 4).
If a spellcaster or anyone carrying three or more magical items falls into a sluk bed, the seaweed wraps itself around the victim. It then grapples with Strength 18 as it leeches magical energy, inflicting 1d6 damage per round to a spellcaster, or draining effects on magical items. Magical items lose one charge per round; permanent magical items lose their magic permenantly after one hour in the sluk, but recover their powers within 1d10 turns if removed before then. Relics and artifacts are not affected.
Sluk can mire spelljamming vessels. Each 50 square feet of sluk bed can stop five tons of vessel; the bed's area is 2d10 x 50 square feet.
If the vessel is moving at spelljamming speeds when it runs into a sluk bed big enough to stop it, the ship immediately decelerates to tactical speed, requiring all aboard to make a Balance check (DC 10) or lose their balance and fall. A vessel traveling at tactical speed through a sluk bed gradually slows to a halt, losing 1/4 of its original speed and maneuverability each round until it stops.
Once a vessel stops in a sluk bed, the only way to get moving again is to chop away the strands. This takes 1d6+3 rounds per 50 ft section.
Sluk is completely immune to magic, except for cold-based spells. Magical cold instantly causes the plant to shrivel up and flake off. Other spells merely nourish the sluk. If a total of 10 spell levels are cast at the sluk, it reproduces.
Sluk reproduces by adhering to a trapped spelljamming hull and bleeding its magical energy (The hull must be wood; metal hulls are immune to the bleeding, though they are still trapped). Subtract the trapped vessel's speed from 10; the result is the number of rounds (minimum 1) the sluk must hold the ship motionless to reproduce. Thus, a vessel with a speed of 4 lets the plant reproduce in six rounds. Sluk can only bleed motionless ships. In reproducing, the sluk doubles the size of its patch, possibly miring the ship even deeper in the bed.
Drain effects: The sluk temporarily reduces a trapped spelljammer's speed by 1 per round (minimum 1). Ignore this temporary reduction when figuring how long the sluk takes to reproduce; always use the ship's original speed instead. The ship regains 1 point of speed per hour once it escapes from the sluk. Once a ship is reduced to a speed of 1, it no longer feeds the sluk enough energy to permit reproduction. At DM's discretion, spelljamming helms may lose their power permanently after months in the sluk.
Feesu and skullbirds enjoy an occasional nibble of sluk, but not enough to make a difference.
Starfly Plant (No CR)
This colorful butterfly-shaped plant drifts slowly through wildspace, much to the delight of spelljammer crews-its fruit is delicious! Spelljammers consider the starfly plant an omen of good luck, since it not only ends hunger but also symbolizes wealth and happiness.
The gossamer wings of the starfly trap sunlight, converting it to sugary food for the seed nestled inside. Similar to a peach pit, the warty, almond-shaped seed contains foul-tasting chemicals poisonous to living things.
The starfly is actually the mobile fruit of a spacefaring plant, a tree that grows to maturity rooted in the ice and dirt of comets. Known as a mother-tree, it grows winged fruits that drift across space in search of new comets to seed.
The starfly's shape resembles elven spacecraft, leading scholars to suppose (correctly) that elves took these plants and enchanted them to grow to maturity while mobile, thus creating variants such as the gadabout and the elven armada ship. In truth, the starfly is the mainstay of spacegoing elvenkind, since its simple form is so easily changed.
Mother-tree: This plant is the mature form of the starfly. Once the fruit has landed on a comet, the seed takes root and begins to digest the cometary ice and minerals. The sapling grows winglike leaves that take in sunlight. After a time, the young tree develops a bulb that stores water. At this stage, the leaves become reflective, focusing sunlight on the bulb and heating the water within. The resulting steam jets out of the bulb nozzles, pushing comet and plant closer to the sun. Once the tree is close enough, the leaves fall away, and the second stage of life begins.
In this phase, the tree feeds on the remaining minerals of the comet. By the time they are gone, the tree is large enough to generate a gravity plane and hold an air envelope. As the tree grows, its gravity plane attracts rocks and debris into the tree's organic furnace, further aiding the tree's growth. When the tree has grown to about 1000 feet, the smelting pods wither, giving off gases that create air.
New growth begins, dense clusters of leaves that form a habitat for animals and other plants. When the tree matures, it is a fully functioning ecology. The tree's gravity may pull in other rock bodies, supporting further growth and eventually creating a liveworld.
It is rumored that elven wizards have used secret spells to mount special helms into mother-trees for use as spelljammers. The rumor says that the giant trees will succeed the armadas as the mainstays of the elven space fleet. As yet the rumor remains unproven, but rivals of the elves would pay a great deal to anyone who can confirm it.
Alchemy Plant, Infinity Vine, Sluk, Starfly Plant, SPELLJAMMER, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AD&D, the D&D logo, the AD&D logo, the d20 System logo and d20 are trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and are used with permission. All titles, and all proper nouns, including character names, locations, and named items are considered Product Identity per Section 1 of the Open Game License v1.0a and are exclusively owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
©2002 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
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Infinity Vine, © 1990 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Alchemy Plant, Sluk, Starfly Plant, © 1991 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
d20™ System, Conversion of Alchemy Plant, Infinity Vine, Sluk, Starfly Plant ©2002,
Joel Jackson
Original Source: Monstrous Compendium #7 (Infinity Vine)
Original Source: Monstrous Compendium #9 (Alchemy Plant, Sluk, Starfly Plant)