Speaking of Reidoth, you know who would gift you a Staff of Flowers? Reidoth would gift you a Staff of Flowers. That’s who.

Okay. But WTF am I going to do with a Staff of Flowers?

Oh, sweet summer child. Let us count the uses for a Staff of Flowers. I’ve thought of a few.

First and foremost: a Staff of Flowers is a magic weapon. As such, it bypasses magical protections for monsters resistant or immune to attacks made by non-magical weapons. Where wererats, Mormesk the Wraith, or Gorthok the Thunder Boar might shrug off attacks from non-magical weapons, each would sit up and take notice when struck by an item like a Staff of Flowers – because it would sting more than any nonmagical weapon in a combat encounter.

If you go rooting through the Forgotten Realms wiki, you’ll also find there are opportunities to decorate your game with flowers in ways that may not occur to you.

Belladonna. A flower that helps ward against the effects of lycanthropy. Perhaps a successful DC 13 Intelligence (Nature) check recalls that the flower even has its own rhyme, which is summarily ignored as some old wives tale:

“If you fear the changer moon
If befall’d by curse or doom
If you’re in the lycan’s power
Seek the belladonna flower.“

Belladonna can also be brewed into a potent form of poison. Regardless of how you use Belladonna in your game, a Staff of Flowers has the potential to provide a practical use for a herbalism kit or poisoner’s kit sitting on someone’s character sheet.

Bowen’s Flower. When ground up and mixed into a drink, Bowen’s Flower is a mild sedative. Unless you’re a bugbear.

When ground up and mixed in a drink, the Bowen’s flower acted as a mild sedative. While it wasn’t useful as a sleeping agent in most cases, it was particularly effective against bugbears, rendering them unconscious within minutes.

There are at least 14 bugbears in Lost Mine of Phandelver. Just sayin’.

Dathil. A flower that helps to neutralize poison. This flower has some utility in both Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak, since each adventure contains giant spiders. If the poison from a giant spider’s attack reduces the target to 0 hit points, the target is stable but poisoned for 1 hour, and paralyzed while poisoned in this way.

If you want to make the crunchy herbalist at your table feel like a badass, allow them to recall the use for this flower, then allow for Staff of Flowers to produce enough Dathil to be sufficient for an antidote that allows the poisoned target to make a single additional saving throw vs. the poison once they have been stabilized. This strays outside of RAW, but you know, rule of cool and all that stuff.

If the players lack the imagination to have fun with the Staff of Flowers, give it to an NPC and have them use it in ways that demonstrates its utility. They’ll catch on at some point that common magic weapons, despite their lack of hit and damage bonus, are still fun and useful in a game.

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