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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Treasure Vault / Secrets of Crafting / Nature Crafting

Gardens of Wonder

Source Treasure Vault pg. 167 1.1
A toxicologist alchemist walks through a carefully tended garden, its medicinal and poisonous plants growing and blooming in neat, colorful rows, each separated from the others and meticulously labeled. Elsewhere, a druid explores a wild grove welling with primal power, using their knowledge and intuition to choose exactly the plants they need for their latest poultice. Whether cultivated or purely natural, a garden of wonder is a location where an herbalist, poisoner, or other character interested in plant-based concoctions can gather ingredients with ease.

As the Game Master, you should handle the tending or exploration of such a garden using the downtime rules for Earn Income to represent the construction of an artificial garden or exploration of a natural garden, as well as the harvesting of ingredients to make herbal concoctions. This is the simplest method and the one that fits most easily into the existing structure of downtime. Note that while this section focuses on gardens in the traditional sense, these rules are equally applicable to a variety of different endeavors and structures (see A Garden by Any Other Name).

Another method would be to use the ritual garden of death to gather up poisonous creatures in the area and establish such a garden right away. Ritualists more interested in healing others than harming them can develop a garden of healing ritual that has the same costs and effect, but for creatures and plants that provide medicinal benefits rather than deadly toxins.

Establishing a Garden

Source Treasure Vault pg. 167 1.1
Using a ritual or spending personal downtime are two ways to establish a garden, but your group might be interested in establishing a garden, orchard, or other location that grows consumable items for them as a shared party resource within the campaign. For such a scenario, GMs should use the following guidelines, which are based on the cost differences of a magic scroll and a magic wand. A player can't establish a garden unless the GM and the group have agreed to use this variant together.

Essentially, a garden is a living item or collection of items that produce herbal alchemical items, poisons, or similar consumables at a steady rate (typically one per day) without the need for additional downtime. These consumables are only temporary, however, typically taking the form of a short-lived fruit, flower blossom, or other perishable good. As such, they expire at the end of the day; since characters with a garden can't stockpile their bounty, they're encouraged to use the consumable items each day. Even magical and other extraordinary means of preservation have no effect.

To seed the garden with enough plants or animals to produce sustainably, the PCs must pay a cost equal to the maximum cost of a permanent magic item that is 2 levels higher than the consumable's level. For example, it costs 2,000 gp to plant sufficient antidotal herbs to obtain a perishable greater antidote each day, because greater antidotes are 10th-level consumables and the maximum cost for a 12th-level permanent item is 2,000 gp. PCs with skill in herbalism or gardening can attempt to use Earn Income to help defray the setup costs of a garden, using Lore skills such as Gardening Lore as normal. If you are also using the variant for growing items from this chapter, a character could use the Grow activity to grow a garden. Additional gardens can be used to increase the number of daily consumables the PCs have access to, but the PCs should have enough space to accommodate the expanded gardens. A given group of PCs shouldn't maintain more gardens than half the number of PCs in the party, rounded down.

Using Gardens as a Reward

Source Treasure Vault pg. 168 1.1
Some players tend to wait for the perfect moment to use a consumable item, which can ironically lead to them not using any of their items unless the situation is extremely dire, since they're always anticipating that the next encounter might be a better time to drink that potion or elixir. Unfortunately, this can sometimes mean the party never has the fun of trying out a strange consumable or seeing the bit of variety it can introduce. Gardens are a great reward for groups that are hesitant to use consumables because they feel more permanent, reliable, and safe, and since gardens' rewards need to be used each day or lost altogether, players are incentivized to find creative uses for the consumables each day. Since the garden is located at a specific location, that means the group needs to be able to return to that location to retrieve the consumables. If you give the group an especially elaborate garden capable of producing multiple consumable items each day, the group can become more invested in setting up roots nearby and establishing a base of operations organically. This can be a perfect incentive to get players invested in the local area.

A Garden by Any Other Name

Source Treasure Vault pg. 168 1.1
While a garden is especially narratively attractive to characters like herbalists, druids, poisoners, leshys, and the like, these same guidelines are perfectly capable of describing locations far different than a natural location lush with plant life. Here are a few examples.

Bakeries and Kitchens

Source Treasure Vault pg. 168 1.1
A fighter sponsors a bakery with her tournament winnings, and in return, the baker agrees to bake a fresh magic pastry for her each day when she stops by on her morning run. This “garden” is likely tended by a friendly NPC who the PCs have assisted in some way. Perhaps the cost of founding the garden was an investment in the baker or chef's startup, or maybe the PCs were granted the land on which the bakery sits as a reward for services rendered to the local community. If the land and buildings are a reward for services rendered by the PCs, the reward itself might cover all or a portion of the costs of creating the garden.

When using Earn Income to help defray the costs of creating this kind of garden, Accounting Lore, Baking Lore, and Society are all appropriate skills.

Haunted Churches and Sites of Power

Source Treasure Vault pg. 168 1.1
A cleric creates a living scroll factory from parchment scraps won from contract devils and mummy wrappings, producing eerie-looking (and presumably evil) scrolls each midnight that explode into black flame the following midnight. Any of a variety of undead or extraplanar creatures might serve as the central seed for a “religious garden” that supplies the character with scrolls, catalysts, or other thematically appropriate consumables. This type of garden is most likely to be appropriate at higher levels, where a PC has the power to compel service from the undead or extraplanar entity who powers the garden. However, a PC who dedicates themself to the service of such a creature might be able to create and benefit from this type of garden as part of their tenure.

When using Earn Income to help defray the costs of creating this kind of garden, Architecture Lore or a lore skill related to a type of creature tied to the site (such as Devil Lore or Mummy Lore) are appropriate skills.

Ooze Farms

Source Treasure Vault pg. 168 1.1
An alchemist from the ooze-loving city of Oenopion establishes a laboratory of strange oozes, generating a beaker-full of odd, mutagenic gloop each day that can be used in the creation of almost any alchemical consumable of an appropriate level. Ooze gardens are most appropriate for generating alchemical consumables, particularly bombs and elixirs, though they might also be used to generate alchemical foods. This garden requires a full alchemist's lab in addition to the other requirements mentioned previously, though the alchemist can still make use of that lab when generating alchemical items that aren't part of the daily consumables produced by the garden.

When using Earn Income to help defray the costs of creating this kind of garden, both Crafting and Ooze Lore are appropriate skills.

Rock Gardens and Stalagmite Caverns

Source Treasure Vault pg. 168 1.1
A deep gnome druid carefully tends a cavern where the slow drip of limestone grows a forest unlike anything born from soil and sunlight. Gardens of stone and gems are actually more common beneath the surface than gardens containing flowers and herbs, and they can be an excellent source of consumables like talismans, mineral-based alchemical items, and other consumables crafted from gems and stones. Such subterranean gardens are most common among drow and svirfneblin, though any ancestry or species that makes its home in the Darklands might have the necessary skills to manage a garden of stone and gems. These types of gardens are particularly good for creating consumables like gadgets or talismans but require a repair kit in addition to the normal creation costs for establishing a garden.

When using Earn Income to help defray the costs of creating this kind of garden, Crafting, Engineering Lore, and Mining Lore are appropriate skills.

Wildlife Preserves

Source Treasure Vault pg. 169 1.1
A grizzled big-game hunter has grown attached to the animals she once poached and has retired to create a walled green space with carefully tended grasslands, ponds, and other habitats. Animals roam free, safe from the outside world. A wildlife preserve could operate as a zoo, an animal safe haven, or a private hunting ground for a noble, but at their core they all need to maintain a stable population of wildlife. The animals in one might produce resources like milk and eggs, and can be hunted or slaughtered for meat, pelts, feathers, and components for items like alchemical foods and bottled monstrosities.

When using Earn Income to help defray the costs of creating this kind of garden, Hunting Lore, Fishing Lore, or a lore skill related to creatures on the preserve (such as Canine Lore or Dinosaur Lore) are appropriate skills.

Additional Materials

Source Treasure Vault pg. 169 1.1
While many materials are covered by the Core Rulebook, some relatively mundane crafting materials not fully described there can be appropriate for use in weapons and armor produced from gardens or similar nature-oriented sources. Materials made from alchemically nurtured oozes (as described in Ooze Farms on the previous page) can be as strong as iron or might emulate more fragile materials like bone and stone. Bone and stone aren't precious materials, and as such don't impact the number or type of runes that can be placed on a weapon or suit of armor crafted from them.

Variant Materials

Many weapons traditionally made from wood or metal might be made from alternative materials instead, covering the gamut from stone and ice to more esoteric materials like refined essence of ooze. For most campaigns, metal weapons can be treated as interchangeable with weapons made from these alternative materials without requiring significant changes or adjustments. Armors should generally not be crafted from materials other than those they are presented as being made from, since accessibility to stone and wooden armors directly affects the balance and progression of various classes. Rather than allowing a character to craft a suit of full plate from a non-metallic material, direct the character towards the non-metallic armors presented here.

GMs looking to add a greater sense of differentiation between weapons and armor made from nonstandard materials can find the statistics for differing materials here, particularly the statistics for bone and stone equipment. Generally, this shouldn’t significantly change the price of the crafted item (particularly for magic weapons) as long as you are sticking to basic materials. While a stone sword might be slightly more fragile than an iron sword, it’s also less prone to damage from effects like a rusting grasp spell or the predations of a rust monster.