Thursday 12 March 2009

Never Turn Your Back on a Drug


Poppies are smoked, drunk, chewed, snorted and otherwise imbibed throughout the Hundred Kingdoms, and each city has its own signature variety. Here is a means of randomly generating a poppy breed through determining the colour, type, means of injestion, effects, addictiveness, and cost. 

Colour

Roll a d8 to determine the poppy's colour: 

1 - Blue
2 - Red
3 - Purple
4 - Yellow
5 - Brown
6 - Green
7 - Black
8 - White

Type

Roll a d4 to determine the type of drug which the poppy can be used to produce:

1 - The poppy is a Depressant, i.e. one which diminishes sensation.
2 - The poppy is a Stimulant, i.e. one which increases alertness or awareness.
3 - The poppy is a Hallucinagen, i.e. one which causes hallucinations.
4 - The poppy is a Nootropic, i.e. one which enhances the functioning of the brain.

Means of Ingestion

Roll a d6 to determine the primary means of ingestion:

1 - The poppy is crushed and then made into tea.
2 - The poppy is crushed and then smoked in a pipe.
3 - The poppy is crumbled, wrapped in paper, and smoked like a cigarette.
4 - The poppy is crushed and snorted.
5 - The poppy is crushed, mixed with the blood of an animal, made into tablets, and swallowed.
6 - The poppy is crushed, mixed with the blood of an animal, then taken into the bloodsteam by smearing it on the sting of a Giant Bee and jabbing the sting into a vein.

Effect

Roll a d4 to determine the specific effects:

For Depressants:

1 - The poppy deadens fear. The character gains immunity to all forms of fear, spook and similar for 1d12 hours.
2 - The poppy deadens pain. The character may keep fighting even when reduced to 0 hit points or lower, to a maximum of -9, whereupon he or she dies instantly. The effects last for 1d12 hours.
3 - The poppy deadens the mind, and prevents the effects of illusions and other mind-affecting magic for 1d12 hours.
4 -  The poppy lowers the blood flow and slows the spread of poison. Equivalent to a slow poison spell. Lasts for 1d12 hours.

For Stimulants:

1 - The poppy prevents sleep. The character can stay awake for one night and the next day without suffering ill-effects, but must save vs. poison the following night or collapse from exhaustion for 12 hours.
2 - The poppy stimulates the senses. The character can hear noise and detect traps as per the relevant thief skills at 40% for d12 hours. Thieves gain a +20% bonus to those skills for the same period.
3 - The poppy boosts energy. The character gains +1 to hit rolls and +1 to damage rolls for d6 hours.
4 - The poppy boosts the body's natural healing. Hit points are gained at twice the normal rate for the following 2 days.

For Hallucinagens:

Roll on the hallucinagen subtable found here; effects last for 1d12 hours.

For Nootropics:

1 - The poppy boosts memory. One additional Level 1 spell may be memorised by spellcasters for one day. 
2 - The poppy boosts human perception. The character has a 25% of automatically knowing alignment of everybody he meets for d6 hours.
3 - The poppy boosts judgement. The character has a 25% of automatically detecting lies for d6 hours.
4 - The poppy improves concentration. Missile attacks and spells requiring a 'to hit' roll are at +1 to hit for the next d12 hours.

Addictiveness

Addictiveness is a function of potency. Roll a d20 to determine potency. There is a flat 20% of addiction on first taking a dose of a poppy, + potency score. (Thus, there is a 34% chance of becoming addicted to a poppy with a potency of 14.) On a successful save vs. poison, this is halved. The second time a dose of the poppy is taken 10% is added to the chance of addiction, and for every additional dose thereafter. 

An addicted character must have a dose of the poppy every day from that point on, or suffer -2 to all stats that day, and -2 cumulatively for each day thereafter. If any stat reaches 0, the character dies. After 2d6 days, if the character is still alive, the addiction breaks.

Cost

Cost per dosage is generally 1 silver piece per point of potency.

Disclaimer: Don't do drugs, kids. They'll rob you of your ambition. 

5 comments:

  1. Noism, I was wondering if I could talk to you on email regarding this table, planetalgolATgmailDOTcom

    The Yoon-Suin stuff is great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Howdy. Found this post whilst researching drug effects in dnd. Plan to make good use of it for my campaign (with a few alterations). If you'd like I can toss you a finished copy of the relevant table(s) I'm using it with. Good work in any event. :)!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello, Anyonymous. Would love to see a copy, if you see this comment. I didn't, until today... The notification got buried somewhere.

      Delete
  3. Noisms, using this in my Zharillia campaign, on the first level of Thrumizud, the campaign's main dungeon; it's perfect.

    Changed the poppies to mushrooms - ants underground don't plant flowers very well... :D

    I'm almost done with the writeup, can you shoot me your email so I can get it to you? I'm releasing it as a free (as in speech and as in beer) supplement that people can use, but I don't want to release until you've vetted your work that appears in it.

    roger.burgess.iii at gmale dawt calm.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent, thanks. I've sent you an email.

      Delete