Aaron's Rod	Adder's Tongue	Birthwort	Comfrey	Garlic
Henbane	Herb True-Love	Juniper Berry	Marsh-Mallow	St. John's Wort
Sphagnum Moss	-	-	-	-
Best of Dragon Vol. IV	-	Dragon 82	-	Dragon

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is
in tended for use as a supplement for the
AD&D game system. It is NOT intended
as a guide to woodland plants for players to
find and eat themselves! Eating strange
plants is a very risky thing to do and is best
left to experts; it should also be remembered
that even experts can make dangerous or
fatal mistakes.)

Delrael the fighter stumbled weakly
through the dense forest, crawling and
staggering through thickets which clawed at
his wounds. Blood flowed from uncounted
cuts into his mangled armor. Tattered scraps
of bandages lay over some of his most serious
injuries, no longer giving any benefit.
Some of his wounds had stopped bleeding of
their own accord, but were now becoming
infected.
The forest grew darker, and by the
pounding in Delrael?s head and the buzzing
in his ears, he knew that the darkness he
sensed had nothing to do with the coming of
nightfall. ?I am done,? he moaned softly
through cracked lips.
Then he saw a light ahead, swimming in
his unsteady vision, and as he stumbled
closer he could make out the dim outline of
a rickety hut. Delrael tried to cry out for
help, but could not force any audible
sounds from his throat. He collapsed with a
crash into the thick underbrush near the
hut. . . .
. . . And then he awoke to the acrid
smell of strong vinegar, discovering at the
same time that he had enough strength to
grimace and turn his head.
?Hah! The vinegar always wakes ?em
up!?
Delrael?s gaze fell on what at first
appeared to be a mushroom with eyes.
Then, as his vision cleared, he saw it was
the face of a withered old woman bending
over him. She tossed a dampened rag off to
one side and addressed him.
?Now then, what?s happened to you??
Delrael swallowed several times before he
managed to speak. ?My friends . . . all
slaughtered by orcs. I escaped . . . hurt
bad . . .?
?Well, didn?t you bother to care for your
wounds? How did you expect to get
healed??
?No cleric . . . killed . . .?
?Bah! Who needs a cleric? That?s no way
to heal wounds. You won?t always have one
by your side ? as you now know.?
?I tried to make bandages, from some
clothing . . .?
?Humph! You call those bandages? I
thought they were a new style of body deco-

ration ? and they may as well be, for all
the good they?re doing! Did you soak those
rags in wine to clean them before you

slapped them on yourself? Did you even

clean your wounds? No! You should have

used mud for a bandage -- it would have
been cleaner than those filthy strips of cloth
Now your wounds are infected, on top of all
the blood you lost."

?Please help me . . . get me to a cleric
. . . ? Delrael gasped.

?I?ll get you into my house ? that?s the
best thing anyone could do for you now.
Well, come on! You don?t expect these old
bones to carry you, do you? Maybe some

more vinegar in the face will get you
going!?

Delrael groaned and began to move
toward the old woman?s hut. He made it
almost to the doorway before fainting. . . .

. . . And awoke again, this time surprised
to find himself stretched out on a
wooden cot. The old woman had peeled off
his armor, cleaned his wounds, and applied
some sort of salve to them. Strange smells
assaulted his nostrils as he turned his eyes
toward the smoky fireplace, where a pot of
clear brown liquid was bubbling and
steaming. Bunches of dried herbs dangled
around the mantle.

?It?s about time you woke up! Bloodrust
and battlerot! You?d think all you have to
do is go to sleep, and everything will be fine
when you decide to open your eyes. Here,
drink this.? The old woman shoved a cup of
the brown liquid at him.
Delrael frowned and instinctively started
to turn away from the foul-smelling stuff,
which only made her more determined.
?Drink! It?s a decoction of adder?s tongue
?to help you heal quicker, get you out of
my house.?

While he drank, the old woman continued
her scolding. ?While you were thrashing
about in the forest, you must have
crawled over every sort of herb you could
have used to help yourself. When you staggered
toward my door, you ended up falling
right on my best patch of comfrey. Anyone
who travels in the forest should know that
healing plants are all around ? but you
have to know them and know how to use

them. And in my experience, human
fighters have never been too bright.?
Delrael held his tongue and kept sipping
the herbal brew. The more the woman
talked, the less gruff her tone of voice
became.

?Well, one thing?s for sure. Before you?re
well enough to leave here, you?re going to
learn how to help yourself when you?re
wounded in a forest. And you better go out

and teach some others, too ? I?ve got
enough to do without every beat-up warrior
staggering up to my door to have his hurts
tended to. And you don?t have to worry ?
what I will teach you is not magic, and not
the work of the gods. It?s just ordinary
common sense, as anybody?s grandmother
can tell you. It?s about time common sense
became a little more common in these parts!
Go to sleep now, so your brain won?t be
addled when we start our work.?
Over the next few days Delrael learned
quickly as he got stronger; he wanted to
leave the old woman?s house almost as
much as it seemed she wanted to get rid of
him. Now it was examination time, and she
held up leaves for him to identify
?Woundwort,? he said.
?And this one??
?Marsh-mallow. Comfrey. Herb truelove.
? Delrael rattled off the names as
quickly as she thrust the plants into his
view.
?Ah,? she said, ?there is room in that
thick skull of yours for a few brains after all.
Now that you know how to tell what the
important herbs are, this is how to gather
them. For leaves, you must pick only the
freshest and greenest ones, and cast away
those that have begun to wilt; if you mix
them in, they will weaken the healing power
of the fresh ones. Pick the leaves carefully to
keep from bruising them ? save the heavyhanded
maneuvers for when you?re swinging
that mighty sword of yours.
?Pick leaves from plants that have not yet
gone to seed, or even begun to flower, if
possible. If you want to keep them with you
for when you aren?t in a forest ? I know
you fighter types like to creep about in
dungeons and caves and the like ? then
you must dry the leaves in the sunlight, not
in the shade. When they are dried, do not
let them get wet again, and keep them out
of the sunlight after that. Now, did you
understand all that, so I don?t have to
repeat myself any more??
Delrael nodded.
?Now, sometimes you will want to use
the flowers of a plant. Gather them in their
prime, and during full sunlight, for then
they?ll be all the way opened and not
tainted with dew. Dry these, too, in the
sun, and they will hold their healing power
as long as they keep their smell and color.
?And last of all, you will want to use
roots. Clean them before you use them ? I
know that?s only common sense, which is
why I feel you need to be told. Don?t use
rotten or worm-eaten ones, either, and
gather them during a dry spell if possible.

Dry out the soft roots in the sun, and the
hard ones anywhere. Can you remember all
of that??
Delrael nodded again, anxiously this time
because he felt the lessons were coming to
an end.
?Fine. Now you only have one little task
left ? to memorize the ways that all these
herbs and plants can be used. If we?re both
lucky, you?ll be ready to leave here in just a
couple weeks more.?
Delrael groaned. . . .

* * *

The twelve plants described in the following
text are the most common and the most
potent of all the herbs the old woman taught
Delrael about during his convalescence in
her hut.

Locating: If characters are actively searching
for healing herbs, the DM should assign a
50% chance of locating any given plant (roll
once per hour of searching for each character
involved), provided the search is being
conducted in the proper terrain for the plant
being sought.

Identifying: Even if this "chance to locate" roll is
successful, there is a possibility that an
improperly identified plant has been found
instead. The chance of proper identification
of a certain plant is 80% for a character
who has been specially instructed about the
appearance of that plant, and only 20% for
a character who has not had such instruction.
This identification roll is not necessary
for garlic and juniper, both of which are so
abundant (in the proper terrain) and so
distinctive that they cannot be misidentified.
At the DM's option, the identification
roll may be waived for druids, bards,
and rangers, who would always recognize
these plants without fail, thanks to their
training in their professions and/or their
adventuring experience.

If a character fails to properly identify an
herb, he has found something similar in
appearance but which may have vastly
different properties (as in the case of herb
true-love). However, most ?herb-imitators?
are harmless, and recipients of ?healing?
will not usually be harmed if a character
administers the wrong plant ? but, obviously,
neither will the injured or wounded
person receive any of the sought-after healing
properties. Members of some races will
react differently to certain herbs; the DM,
and any characters with extensive training
in healing, should note the precautions
mentioned in some of the particular plant
descriptions.
 

* * *
Despite her words to the contrary, the old
woman seemed rather downcast when
Delrael made ready to leave her hut.
"Now, my young fighter," she said, "you
know how to care for yourself without the
aid of a cleric." She wagged a finger at him.
"Just think of those who struggle to survive
in worlds where no magic exists."
"I have heard stories of such worlds,"
Delrael answered, "but I always thought
them to be no more than fantasies."
The old woman began puttering with her
herbs, looking away so he did not see the
sadness in her eyes. "Ah, but one man's
fantasy is another man's reality. Don't
doubt it."

Delrael thought about that as he went off
into the forest.
 

While reading Kevin Anderson?s article
"Wounds and Weeds" in issue #82, I couldn?t
help but think about combining the healing
effects of several of the different plants.

Though the variation of climate and terrain in
which the plants are found prevents characters
from acquiring and using all of the plants at once,
many of these plants could be sought out and the
effects combined by the smart player character(s).

Here are some of the guidelines I follow in our
campaign when allowing the characters to com-
bine the effects of some of these plants.

First of all, plants like the Comfrey, where hit
points ?were never lost? because of the applica-
tion of the plant, could be combined with the
other plants like the Marsh-mallow or Aaron?s
Rod, where hit points are either gained perma-
nently or fade within a short while, with hardly
any chance of adverse conditions developing.

The system works like this: When combining
two plants with almost the same method of heal-
ing, there is a 5% chance of an adverse result ?
paralysis for 1-2 rounds. When combining two
plants with different healing properties, the
chance of an adverse result is 10%, and that
result is mild poisoning (save at +2 or lose 1-4 hit
points). If three or more plants are combined, th
chance of an adverse result increases by 5% for
each additional plant. (It is suggested that the
DM not allow more than six plants to be used
together.)

If there are no adverse results found when
combining certain plants, then those plants may
be combined at any time thereafter with no
chance of ill effects ? but the opposite is also
true: If an adverse result is found, then that
combination of plants will produce an adverse
result every time thereafter.

If healing plants are combined with a healing
potion, I feel that the effects of both substances
could be combined with no ill effect, though some
DMs may decide differently.

Russell Thorp
Tuleta, Tex.
(Dragon #86)