Throughout the multiverse there exist myriad forms of plants, fungi, and other organic life that a skilled practitioner can use to create wondrous oils, ointments, potions, unguents, and salves. Worlds on the
Material Plane are also rich in magical essence—raw magic— which can be extracted as easily as filling a waterskin by those with the right know-how.
This chapter provides everything you need to find and collect these valuable resources.
Gathering Plants
Most herbal medicines are created using fungi or plants which can be found in the wild or cultivated by growers. In addition, the magical essence used by alchemists can be harvested from the environment in areas of concentrated magic known as local maxima.
Gathering Requirements
While traveling in the wilderness, a character can forage nearby land for useful flora. The GM decides the type of terrain that best represents your current environment, choosing from: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, and underground. You can’t forage in urban environments and other areas where the availability of useful flora is limited to apothecaries, florists, and other merchants except for very specific items specified by your GM.
The Gathering Process
Once the requirements are met, you can attempt to locate and harvest useful components from the surrounding area.
Each attempt takes 1 hour, which can be performed during a short or long rest or while traveling at a normal or slow pace.
A character can make up to two attempts at gathering or crafting per day during periods of
Downtime.
At the end of the period, make an Intelligence (Nature) check DC 10.
- You make this check with advantage if you are proficient with and in possession of a Herbalism Kit
- If another creature accompanies you (help action)
- if you or a creature helping you has the Favored Terrain class feature and you are in that creature’s favored terrain, you gain a +2 bonus to the check.
- Temporary modifiers and other effects (such as Bardic Inspiration and effects that grant advantage) don’t apply to this check, unless they applied for the duration of the gathering attempt.
On a success, determine what you find by consulting the terrain tables and choose one of the following options:
- Roll on the Common Flora table to harvest one or more units of common flora. This activity has a component DC of 10/+5, which means the DC is 10 to collect the first unit, and increases by 5 for each additional unit after that. For example, if the result of your check is 17, you can roll twice on the Common Flora table, each time harvesting one unit of the common flora corresponding to the number rolled.
- Roll on the Essences table to harvest one or more units of magical essence. This activity also has a component DC of 10/+5, and follows the same rules as harvesting common flora.
- On a result of 15 or higher, you can harvest one unit of a rare flora of your choice from the terrain table for your current environment. The chosen flora must have a component DC equal to or lower than the result of your check.
- On a result of 20 or higher, you can take a –5 penalty to the result to harvest one unit of a rare flora of your choice from a different terrain table than your current environment. The chosen flora must have a component DC equal to or lower than the new result.
Spell-assisted Gathering
Magic can be used in the following ways to assist in locating and harvesting of useful flora:
- When you cast locate animals or plants and name a useful plant or essence, the next time you make an Intelligence (Nature) check to locate useful plants while in the area revealed by the spell, the component DC of the chosen plant is reduced by 5 for that check. If you name a common plant or essence, the DC for rolling on the corresponding table becomes 5/+5 for
the check, instead of 10/+5.
- You can command a sprite or pixie under your control to gather useful flora on your behalf, with an attempt taking 1 hour as normal. For this purpose, the summoned creature is considered proficient in the Nature skill. Such creatures can be summoned with a conjure woodland beings spell or similar magic.
- Whenever you harvest a component while gathering in an area of land enriched by a plant growth spell, you can collect two units of that component, instead of one.
Storing Gathered Resources
Wild flora can be stored indefinitely using special pouches that dry them out found in a
Herbalism Kit.
Magical essence must be stored in special containers found in a set of
Alchemist's supplies, where they can reside indefinitely.
Both types of component spoil after 8 hours if you lack the correct means to store them.
Arctic Terrain
Mountain Terrain
Underground Terrain
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