[Thundarr Thursday] Ancient Armory: Death Flowers

The Death Flower is a bright red tulip-like flower. Despite its name, it is not deadly. Rather, the Death Flower's pollen can place a humanoid creature into a powerful "death-like" trance. Anyone under the hypnotic spell of the Death Flower will be a mindless thrall until the pollen wears off.

Death Flowers grow in hot, sunny, humid climates. Wizards and other villains with grand plans will grow large fields of the flower in order to cultivate the pollen for their nefarious use. (And it's easy to get slaves to harvest the flower - just use the flower itself and bring victims under your thrall!)

The Death Flower's pollen acts as a powerful sedative, literally blanking the mind of anyone who is careless enough to breathe in any of it. Lackeys and minions will often arm themselves with a "pollen blower." If pollen is blown into the face of a victim, the victim must save versus poison or come under the command of the manipulator. A hypnotized victim can roll versus their WIL (halved) once an hour to try to break free of the pollen's spell. The pollen will wear off after 24 hours. However, since the slave is often put to work in the Death Flower fields where they are in constant contact with the pollen, they may never break the spell. One note - Death Flowers are highly flammable, so cultivators will try to keep all sources of flame and heat away from the fields.

Death Flowers can be used by the Mutant Lord as the hook for an adventure. ("The local populace are starting to disappear and the nearby wizard seems to be amassing an army of mindless slaves!") Or a local gang of toughs may discover the use of the pollen and will have made up some crude pollen blowers with which to enthrall some victims for their use and/or entertainment.

NOTE: This item is inspired by the episode “Harvest of Doom” from the classic Ruby Spears post-apocalyptic cartoon “Thundarr the Barbarian". Stay tuned each week for “Thundarr Thursday”!