Chronolily

A chronolily is an aware, enormous flower almost 50 feet across. Its petals form a vast bowl brimming with golden nectar, with a stout stamen and pistil rising from the center, a short stalk below, and thousands of tiny green leaves fringing the rim.

The three kinds differ only in petal color. Silent images float constantly across the nectar's surface, each melting into the next, and the color tells what they show: yellow lilies reveal the future, violet ones the present, and orange ones the past. The scenes are random and seldom last more than 30 seconds.

A chronolily can use know alignment whenever it wishes, and in the presence of an evil character it turns its nectar black, denying that person any chance to call up a chosen vision. Destroying one is dangerous: at 0 hit points the flower decays in an instant into a toxic cloud 50 feet in diameter, and anyone the cloud touches, or anyone standing within 50 feet of it, suffers 3d6 damage (a save vs. poison halves this).

Chronolilies take root in any solid material, even stone, as long as some kind of light reaches them. They pollinate themselves and produce tiny black spherical seeds. On the Prime Material Plane, most are found in magical gardens kept by wizards.

Light of any kind supplies all of a chronolily's nourishment. Its honey-flavored nectar is a component of potions of clairvoyance.

A handful of masterful wizards who study plants from other planes can conjure specific scenes by plucking the leaves in an exact order, a very hard skill to learn. A cruder, less reliable method is often passed on by those who have used a chronolily before: the user dips a hand into the nectar, or otherwise touches it, and focuses on the event he hopes to see, which then appears after 10d6 rounds.

Success starts at 20%, and after modifiers can rise no higher than 90% or drop no lower than 5%. Any of these may apply: +25% for a wizard or priest; +20% if the user has already viewed this event in the same flower; +5% per point of Wisdom over 15; and -20% if the event takes place on a different plane from the user's home plane. For past or present events, add the single best of: +20% if the user took part (past events only), +10% if well informed about the event, or +5% if slightly informed.