Medicine and Poison Ingredients and Where to Find Them

This is the promised follow up post to this one.

A Brief Ecology Lesson

The game I am currently running is set in Ánemos (the Greek word for wind, or the "animating breath", it a root for for words like animate). The world is a vast stretch of sea, scattered with many small islands. The climate is very Mediterranean, meaning that it has two seasons: wet and dry.

There are only a handful of places like this on Earth: the coast of California, South Africa, Chile, a few spots on the southern Coast of Australia, and of course most of the landmasses touching the Mediterranean Sea. All of these places are botanically unique, for example California's Floristic Provence (where I live) is considered a biodiversity hotspot. Relative to the other Floristic Provences in the United States it is small and very biodiverse, more than 50% of the plant life here is endemic (only occurring here).

This is chiefly due to:

• The Mediterranean climate
• The Sierra Nevada mountains acting as a barrier to the worst of the storms coming off of the Gulf of Mexico
• Having every Order of soil (except for Permafrost)
• A diversity of elevations and there for bands of variable moisture and rainfall

So people are always arguing about saving the rain forest because its incredible biodiversity may have some miracle medicine hiding in an saprophytic fungus in the canopy of a rare tree or something. The same goes for the biodiversity elsewhere, in fact an effective breast cancer treatment was discovered in the bark or the Pacific Yew, a small under story tree in the temperate evergreen forests of California.

So any way, the islands in my game are Mediterranean and very diverse and you can find medicine there if you know what you are looking for, and the only difference between medicine and poison is dose.

Medicine and Poisons Ingredients and Where to Find Them

This will be split up into the five rough ecosystems that can be found on and around the islands. Not every island is large or tall enough for each system, so getting an idea of the scale of the landscape is helpful when deciding what ecosystem your forager is in.

Coral Reef

Coral Reefs are found in the shallow and warm waters of oceans, built around the funny life forms coral. Tons of different fish and weird aquatic things can be found here (and they are critically endangered around the world due to ocean acidification leading to coral bleaching). It may be appropriate for the forager to have to fight a shark or something, but its up to the DM if they want to throw in some random encounters.

Something has to be poisonous down there!

2d4	Ingredient	Effect (Medicine/Poison)	Craft DC Modifier
2	Lionfish quill	Removes a level of exhaustion/ 4d4 poison damage	+3
3	Midnight Algae	Resistance to sleep effects/Blinded status effect	+2
4	Emerald Seaweed	Heals 2d4 HP/Increases save DC +1	+1
5	Anchovy Liver	Suitable medicine/poison base	+0
6	Jellyfish Slime	Reduce crafting DC by 2	-2
7	Fire Fan Coral	Resistance to fire damage/2d6 fire damage	+2
8	Eel Tongue	Heals 4d4 HP/Reduces targets AC by 2	+3

Coastal Prairie and Scrubland

These occur right next to the ocean, the soils are to rocky and it doesn't rain enough for them to really grow trees. During the dry months the plants rely on fog drip for moisture. Many small animals live under the shrubs and raptors soar the sky looking for funny looking mice and lizards, and there is an incredible diversity of forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) and shrubs.

2d4	Ingredient	Effect (Medicine/Poison)	Craft DC Modifier
2	White Sage Root	Heals 4d4 HP/Targets speed is 0 for duration	+3
3	Stone Pine Nut	8d4 temporary HP for duration/Increase save DC +3	+2
4	Wild Rose	Reduce crafting DC by 2	-2
5	Black Sage	Suitable medicine/poison base	+0
6	Dune Mouse Tail	Heals 2d4 HP/Increase save DC +1	+1
7	Red Olives	Advantage against poisons/3d4 poison damage	+2
8	Whisper Berry	Advantage against being charmed/Charmed status effect towards the first creature seen	+3

Grassland Hills and Savanna

Once you start moving into the hills on these islands trees can begin to grow as they get more moisture. Larger animals live here, in Africa this is the home of elephants and lions and zebra, in the Pleistocene in California there where giant ground sloths and mammoths and sabertooth tigers.

If you squint  you can see the sabertooth tiger

2d4	Ingredient	Effect (Medicine/Poison)	Craft DC Modifier
2	Emberbee Wax	Immune to audible effects/ All fire damage is maximized	+3
3	Grey Oak Acorn	Heals 3d4 HP/ Imparts a level of exhaustion (stacking)	+2
4	Silver Cypress Buds	Removed sickened condition/2d4 poison damage	+1
5	Feather Grass	Suitable medicine/poison base	+0
6	Singing Poplar	Reduce crafting DC by 2	-2
7	Rattlesnake Venom	Advantage against petrified condition/Double damage dice	+2
8	Bloody Mistletoe	Immune to Poisoned condition/1d6 bleeding damage per round for duration	+3

Mountain Forest

Now you are in the mountains proper, and most islands in Ánemos simply are too small to have this ecosystem. But like 10% of inhabited islands (therefore freshwater bearing and big) probably have this ecosystem.

2d4	Ingredient	Effect (Medicine/Poison)	Craft DC Modifier
2	Death Cap	Immune to Unconscious Condition/Double damage dice	+3
3	Widow’s Lace Fern	Advantage with auditory attacks for duration/Target is silenced (unable to speak)	+2
4	Robin Eggs	4d4 temporary HP for duration/ Save DC +2	+1
5	Golden Fir Bark	Suitable medicine/poison base	+0
6	Diana’s Cypress Root	Advantage on Intelligence based checks/1d6 Int damage for duration	+1
7	Gadfly Larva	Reduce crafting DC by 4	-4
8	Dragon’s Blood Tree Sap	Heals 4d4 HP and resistance to Fire damage/Causes 1d6 fire damage per round for duration	+3

High Peaks

Now only the truly large islands are big enough to have alpine peaks, but these islands also tend to be the inhabited ones with well settled low lands. Its dangerous and frustrating work foraging up here, and the altitude can be a problem.

Also most of the Mountains are probably volcanoes

2d4	Ingredient	Effect (Medicine/Poison)	Craft DC Modifier
2	Giant Puffball	Haste as the spell/Petrified status effect	+3
3	Luminous Lavender	Advantage on Strength based checks and saves/2d4 Str damage for duration	+2
4	Lover’s Orchid	Reduce crafting DC by 3	-3
5	Ghost Hemlock Cone	Suitable medicine/poison base	+0
6	Crawling Lichen	Move through difficult terrain normally/Targets speed is halved for duration	+1
7	Billy Goat Liver	Advantage on Dexterity based checks/Slow as the spell	+2
8	Snow Poppy	Heals 6d4 HP during 1 hour long deep sleep/Causes Stunned status effect	+3