Shimmerweed

By day shimmerweed looks like a clump of ordinary weeds, and few people notice it. At night it opens, and a closer look shows a seeding dandelion head, except that it is built from delicate crystal resembling spun glass. Each stalk stands 6 to 18 inches tall, and moonlight passing through its petals breaks into a glittering spray of color across the ground.

The plant cannot move, cannot hurt anyone, and has no wish to; it lives on moonlight, and the lightest blow shatters it. Its only defense is the light it throws. Moonlight caught in the petals becomes enchanted and so brilliant that anyone gazing on it is affected as by a confusion spell cast by a 10th-level wizard. Every plant in the patch can affect 1 Hit Die of creatures, so twelve plants can confuse up to 12 Hit Dice worth of onlookers.

The real danger is what waits nearby. Intelligent monsters and animals often den beside a patch, let it befuddle passersby, and then rush in to kill the helpless.

Shimmerweed cannot bear strong light, which is why it opens only after dark. A sudden glare, such as continual light, overwhelms its feeding and blasts it to fine dust; a patch killed this way never regrows. Plants destroyed any other way come back in about a month.

This rare and lovely flower grows in temperate lands everywhere, in clusters of 6d6. Every cluster sprouts from one seedpod, and fine tendrils join all the plants underground so they share their stored energy and feed equally.

Nothing else on the Prime Material Plane shares its crystal body or its knack for drawing nourishment from moonlight rather than through photosynthesis. When a patch reaches full growth, 36 plants each 18 inches tall, a seedpod forms at its center over about 14 days: a rainbow crystal sphere some four inches across. Fully charged, it bursts with a flash and a sharp crack, scattering shards up to 15 yards. Only 1d6 of the larger pieces can take root, growing into a mature patch in about eight months, while the parent withers within days.

Wizards use the seedpods when crafting scrying devices such as crystal balls and crystal hypnosis balls. Ground petals become ink and other components for items of light or hypnosis, like a gem of brightness.