Item Seed: Galvanized Bouquets.

Galvanized Bouquets – Google Docs

Galvanized Bouquets

The alchemists never really went away; they simply decided to go off by themselves for a while.  Also, it should probably be noted here that virtually nobody in the magical community with real power minded the dawn of our current rationalist-secularist era at all.  Why should they? Thanks to modern science and technology, the number of superstitious peasants desirous of burning magicians — or, worse, desirous of constantly importuning and begging busy magicians for an endless stream of tawdry love spells and petty curses — keeps ever-shrinking.  Books are cheap enough that mages no longer have to go to war with each other for the last remaining grimoire on a particular subject. There are such things as dentists. Indoor plumbing. Blessed, blessed anonymity.  Plus, magic still works! But now that mages no longer have to suck up to rich patrons to get funding, it can now get to be a bit more baroque.  

Galvanized Bouquets are a case in point.  The 18th and 19th century mania for dipping metals into various other, molten metals and then seeing what happened was just as fascinating to alchemists as it would any other researcher; only, they had access to somewhat esoteric versions of all those metals.  They also could get meaningful results from using non-metals.

To get a Galvanized Bouquet, plant or transplant whatever flowering plant that you wish to ‘Galvanize’ into a gold-platinum alloy electrified pot that’s been filled with dirt heavily saturated with one of the alchemical substances listed below.  That is largely it, in the same sense that cooking is largely a matter of throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot that’s in direct contact with something burning. Still, assuming that everything is done correctly, the alchemical horticulturalist winds up with a flowering plant with one of the following effects:

• Aluminum (Secrets): the scent of these flowers gives off a powerful “I’m not really unusual, I’m not really noteworthy, I’m not even here, really” impression on anybody smelling it. The bearer of the Bouquet is largely immune to its effects as long as he or she keeps a petal of an Aluminum flower underneath the tongue.
• Copper (Love): these flowers’ scent triggers romantic infatuation and heightened sexual desire, with the effects gradually increasing until the Bouquet is removed.  The results do not necessarily benefit the bearer of the flower, but they certainly won’t exclude him or her from any benefit.  It also affects the bearer just as strongly.
• Lead (Poison): Anyone exposed to the scent of these flowers continuously for two weeks will peacefully, painlessly, and quietly die on the fifteenth day. Alchemists cultivating Lead Bouquets are very careful about exposure to them. They are also even more careful about how these Bouquets are used.
• Silver (Protection): As a general rule, if a particular plant is renowned for being proof against a particular supernatural creature or curse, then a Silver Bouquet will be almost as good.  This makes it an excellent first-response item in situations where the exact occult danger is unknown.
• Tin (Power): the scent of these flowers convinces others that the bearer of the Bouquet is a dynamic, powerful, and remarkable individual who should be at least respected and listened to.  Ingesting a petal from a Tin Bouquet convinces whoever eats it that they themselves are that dynamic, powerful, and remarkable individual.  Needless to say, both the petal and the scent are addictive.
• Zinc (Health): Zinc Bouquets speed healing: their scent gently disinfects, their petals give a good night’s sleep, and tea made from a Zinc flower’s leaves cures most viral and bacterial infections, including the common cold. Enough acts of altruism involving Zinc Bouquets have occurred to give the rest of humanity a distorted idea of what zinc is good for, magically speaking.

About the only limitations on Galvanized Bouquets are that they’re expensive to grow, equally expensive to maintain, and don’t breed true. All of these problems might be ironed out, except that the magicians growing them don’t particularly feel the need to. After all, as it stands now the effects already generally suit the growers’ needs.