10 Toxins

An attempt at interesting Poison tools for PCs. No saves for the victims for these effects.  But to make them less potion-like and more poison-like:

Dosage
Player administering the toxin has to guess the victim's current hit point total -3.
If the guess is actually HP-6 or lower, the toxin has no effect.
If the guess is exact, -1, or -2 above the actual HP total, the toxin is too strong and victim must save or die.

1. Amber or White honey.  Immiscible, heavy liquid that will sink beneath other liquids in a container.  Erases memory of the hour prior to drinking.

2. Devil's Breath.  Fine powder.  When inhaled by victim they become completely susceptible to suggestions for 1 hour. (see folkloric view of scopolamine).

3. Hush.  An intravenous toxin.  Causes loss of speech in victim for 1 hour.

4. Skulk, sometimes also known as Hush.  Coin-sized tablet will effervesce to produce 10 cubic feet of odorless, colorless gas.  Inhalation causes deafness for 1 hour.

5. The Drunkard in the Morning.  Small crystals that resemble salt.  Ingestion will do nothing until a loud noise-- like a gong or weapons clashing in combat- triggers the toxin, then the victim will sleep for 1 hour.

6. Still or Bone Butter.  Thick, bitter paste.  When ingested, the victim will for all intents and purposes be dead.  In 1 hour they will revive.

7. The Bickering Couple or Dark Twins.  Two clear contact toxins brushed onto objects.  Touching only one of the pair does nothing, touching both results in aggravated paranoia for 1 hour.

8. Seep or Red Aunt.  Usually placed on a blade, it will prevent wounds from fully closing.  A wound will seep blood for a week.  Causes no additional harm to the victim but makes secret attackers easier to track or identify later.

9. Iocaine.  As normal poison, but a person that manages to ingest the proper dosage for 5 sessions of play will become permanently immune to it.

10. St Petruccio's Spit.  Usually placed on a blade, it prevents a victim from dying from a mortal wound delivered by that blade.  They will remain lucid and a feel no pain for 1 hour, then expire normally.

Toy Poisons

I wrote a while back that for poisons to interest me they would need to be cool tools for players rather than just doing varying amounts of damage or having varying chances of lethality.  The Dee flick's use of a triggered poison got me interested in actually trying to come up with some.

So, what would make poisons interesting to you as a player?


Here are some initial ideas from me:

• sneaky administering-- so gases, contact poisons that can be slathered on chairs, and liquids of various densities
• precise control-- some interesting triggers, like light, heat, loud noises, as well as antidotes for most everything
• variety of effects-- make someone mute, blind, appear dead-- so, yeah, more toxins than poisons

I'm realizing now that there seem to be two main ways they might come into play 1) secretly to help you in heists or negotiating with factions, and 2) as straight up combat enhancers on blades and arrows.

Anyway, back to you.  You're in my game wandering around the bazaar, what kind of toxin do you want available?

Small but Vicious Rules

If you haven't seen it yet, go check out Chris at Vaults of Nagoh's Small But Vicious Dog. It's a mashup of BX and Warhammer fantasy.  I know nothing about Warhammer fantasy but there are several really interesting subsystems you need to see here.  A social status system that affects combat, saves versus poison that have varying degrees of debilitation, and probably the most elegantly simple rules for addiction I've ever seen.

I'm leaving on a trip in a few hours but this has got me excited about tweaking this to come up with poisons, drugs and diseases for my own campaign.  I think I'll be able to fit each on a single page or less.  And that, my friends, is right down my alley.

p.s.: I think folks could learn a lot from the voice of his rules, too, not treating them as if they exist in a vacuum or as if an abstracted corporate voice is necessarily the easiest to understand.