Illustration of a maroon orchid flower with petals that have long curly appendages on them and a center that looks like a pink monkey face. This flower belongs to the dracula orchid genus that inspired the Jumping Monkey Orchid. Original photo by Orchi – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Safety Rating: Dangerous.
Environment: Tropical forests.
Details: This magical orchid has dispensed with pollinators and instead pollinates itself. Half of its bright pink, monkey-shaped flowers leap off the plant and jump and climb their way to other Jumping Monkey Orchids in order to pollinate them. How these flowers locate other Jumping Monkey Orchids isn’t currently known.
While these miniature pink monkeys are adorable at a distance, they have sharp, poisonous thorns on their hands and feet which they use for climbing. Their poison is designed to protect them from harm and it quickly immobilizes the joints of anything they come into contact with.
Tiny Monkeys: When a character gets close to a blooming Jumping Monkey Orchid, they must roll their physical defense is rolled to protect themselves from one of the jumping monkeys. Note that any character that gets an outstanding success on their roll can protect another character from the jumping monkeys, so it is best to do all of the dice rolls together before figuring out the results.
- 0 Successes: A failure means that the jumping monkey gets their thorns into a vulnerable area and the character is poisoned. This poison affects nearby joints and for the rest of the scene the nearest joint is immobilized. The result of this is that the character takes a one die penalty to any action that is significantly harder for them to do without the use of that joint. For example, if a character has an immobilized ankle, they would take a one die penalty to running but not to throwing.
- 1 Success: A partial success means that the character wasn’t fast enough to block the jumping monkey entirely, but they were able to prevent it from getting to a vulnerable area. They haven’t been poisoned, but the jumping monkey has grabbed onto them and is climbing up. Something will need to be done soon to prevent the jumping monkey from reaching a vulnerable area and poisoning them.
- 2 Successes: A full success means that the character has successfully defended themselves and there are no jumping monkeys on them.
- 3 Successes: An outstanding success means that the character is able to defend themselves and one other character from the jumping monkeys. The protected character is treated as if their roll was a full success, regardless of what was actually rolled.
Inspiration: The idea for this flower comes from the dracula orchid genus which includes dracula simia, also called the monkey orchid, which has a pattern inside it that strongly resembles a monkey’s face. This flower was also inspired by those orchids that are shaped to look like wasps.
Jumping Monkey Orchid is part of the Crossroads Setting for the tabletop role-playing game, Magic Goes Awry. Click here to go to the list of wild and whimsical magical plants from the Land of Crossroads.
