Tuesday, 10 March 2009

The Hallucinagenic Poppies of Runggara Ban

Throughout the Hundred Kingdoms there grow a variety of poppies, most of which are used in some way by the human population - smoked, eaten, or mashed up and drank. In the city of Runggara Ban they are dried out, then crushed and left in fermenting elephant blood for several months. The resultant paste is again dried out until it forms a kind of powder, which is then smoked using a hookah or pipe.

Both the powder, and the practice of smoking it, is known as Gulgutta. Gulgutta is a popular practice among the fakirs of Runggara Ban, though it is smoked only rarely by the general populace, for it is well known that too much can drive a person mad. However, it has powerful side effects for those who are willing to risk their sanity.

When a character smokes a Gulgutta pipe, the DM should roll a d100 and consult the following table to determine the effects on the smoker. Generally the effects last 2d6 hours.

01 - 10 - The smoker's conciousness leaves his body and he gains the ability to communicate with the Elephant God. He may ask three questions of the deity, which it is said will tell the truth five times out of ten, tell a lie four times out of ten, and refuse to answer once. Once all three questions have been asked the smoker enters a fugue state for the remaining duration.
11 - 20 - The smoker's conciousness leaves his body, and his spirit may travel through the spirit world to spy on goings-on elsewhere. Equivalent to the wizard spell clairvoyance.
21 - 90 - The smoker is affected by powerful hallucinations. Roll 1d12 and consult the following sub-table to determine the nature of the hallucination. The DM should feel free to impose penalties on 'to hit' rolls, saving throws and so forth according to the results:

1 - The smoker sees little purple men clambering over his skin like a swarm of fleas.
2 - The smoker believes a cloud of locusts is approaching.
3 - The smoker thinks something is eating him from the inside out.
4 - The smoker is blinded by swirling colours which utterly obscure his vision.
5 - The smoker believes all members of the opposite sex are irresistibly attracted to him/her.
6 - The smoker believes he or she has changed sex.
7 - The smoker feels an uncontrollable itching and can do little except scratch.
8 - The smoker suspects his comrades of being cannibals.
9 - The smoker hears incoherent moans and shrieks which he thinks are the voices of the dead.
10 - The smoker thinks his eyes are bleeding uncontrollably.
11 - The smoker sees demons cavorting in the periphery of his vision.
12 - The smoker believes he is a child again.

91 - 93 - The smoker's conciousness leaves his body and he meets an evil spirit, who will bind him with a geas spell to complete a certain task decided by the DM (such as assassinate one of the spirit's enemies or steal a magic item).
94 - 96 - The smoker enters a fugue state for 2d6 days.
97 - 98 - The DM should roll again on the hallucination sub-table; this time the hallucinations are permanent and can only be cured by a wish spell.
99 - The smoker loses all of his memories.
00 - The smoker's sanity is blasted and he acts as if under the effects of a confusion spell, permanently. He can only be cured by a wish spell.

There are rumours that some of the baser tribes from the jungles around Runggara Ban use Gulgutta on the tips of their blow pipe darts. If a character is hit by such a dart, the DM should roll on the above table; the effects are longer lasting (3d6 hours) but otherwise similar.

3 comments:

  1. A drug that has a tiny chance of making you transgender.
    I should probably be offended, but I'm really amused and filled with wonderful ideas for how to use this stuff in a future campaign.

    ReplyDelete