It Wasn't My Idea: Magic Seeds

One great thing about having young children is being able to mine the gestalt of their imaginations for game ideas. Here is one, strange, magic item taken from the "seed" of an idea laid down by my son. More may follow...

Silas Says: "If you eat a watermelon grown from one of these magical seeds you will turn to gold."

The Seeds of Midas:

The Seeds of Midas are small, unremarkable, black seeds, like those of a watermelon plant. The seeds do not radiate magic, but any divination spell cast within 10 feet of the seeds causes them to glow with a faint golden light (each equivalent to a candle) for 1 round.

If planted and given sufficient water, each seed sprouts into a melon plant in just six hours (no sunlight needed). Each plant sprouts 1d3 fruit, which are identical to normal watermelons. Unlike the seeds, the melons radiate a strong aura of transmutation magic.

Anyone eating a melon grown from one of these seeds must make a Fortitude save or be slowly transformed into a golden statue the next time they sleep (it takes roughly 4 hours for the transformation to complete), gaining the petrified condition. The save DC depends on the amount eaten: DC 8 for a single slice, DC 10 for one-quarter of the fruit, DC 14 for half the fruit, and DC 18 for eating the entire fruit. Creatures of larger than medium size must eat a commensurately larger portion (2 whole melons for a large creature to save at DC 18). The effects of eating the fruit can be reversed by Stone to Flesh or similar spells.

In statue form, the target has an effective weight of 20 times their base weight (thus a 200 lb human would weigh 2 tons as a gold statue) and a value of 1 Guinnea (or 20gp or 20sp depending on your currency system of choice) per pound of their original weight (so a 200 lb human would be worth 210£ or 4000gp). If cut up or melted down, the bones and connective tissue of the original creature will be found inside.