Fantasy Drugs

Glass Grass.

This herb does not exist in nature; it is found singularly at the site of massive magical disasters, where the energies releases has "glassed" or preserved local flora in a crystalline state. Glass Grass is primarily inhaled through the nose; it generally produces effects similar to the original effects of the spell that "glassed" the grass in the first place. These effects come with a powerful sense of euphoria, and many users find themselves taking more and more Glass Grass for power trips, until they eventually OD.

Glass Grass ODs tend to be...messy.

I imagine Glass Grass ODs to be like Plasmid shit, except way worse; imagine a dude who inhaled a shitload of Fireball Glass Grass bursting into flames, running through the streets screaming because the Grass doesn't give him any kind of immunities, and just go from there.

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Life

Perhaps the most vile and disturbing drug to grace the streets, Life is nothing less than the liquefied necromantic extraction of a dying person's memories. Drinking a shot of Life literally allows the person who drinks it to live the "donor"'s Life up to a certain point, generally in an idealized and sunny manner for maximized pleasure. Life is also occasionally used by shady detectives and less-than-pleasant criminals to track murders for the purpose of solving crimes, but it is officially outlawed by the police.

Life has a number of downsides, the most commonly-known associated is the addictive property - not to the drug, but to the glossy euphoric alternate life they live. Some people grow confused, replacing their dingy, shitty lives with the lives they believe they have lived; some people merely kill themselves upon realizing they can never have that world.

Additionally, Life carries with it the disturbing rumor of a secondary side-effect - Death Syndrome, where improper vials of Life can force its users to see the last moments of their donor. Because such donations are rarely voluntary and rarely peaceful, the trauma can scar users immensely...or outright kill them.

Something I imagine very strongly is a poor man whose life has fallen into complete despair succumbing to Life's effects. He drinks the Life of someone who had a really cool life, like with a wife and kids, and goes to try and live that life.

It's intensely disturbing to me, to imagine this stranger walking up and claiming to be your (deceased) father, and getting really angry when you reject this notion. It's really creepy in a very visceral way.

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NN, or numbing needles, is a needle barb from a type of carnivorous cactus imported from a far off desert. The barbs give of a numbing and hallucinogenic effect that allows the cactus trap and devour they're prey easier. The hallucinations are usually of things you most want at the time, since the toxins react with the Id portion of your brain. This can lead to users accosting strangers or objects.

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Wizards Herb.

Description: This green plant is dried and sold in pouches, similar to tobacco. As with tobacco, it is smoked, but unlike tobacco it tends to emit tiny sparks when lit and the exhaled smoke is a pale shade of green. Once lit, it must be smoked for at least one round, and will take two rounds to take effect. Wizard's Weed helps with clarity of thought and memory, but it makes the user nauseous. One pouch of Wizard's Weed costs 10gp and contains 10 doses.
Benefit: +1d4 Int for one hour.
Cost: -1d4 Con for two hours.

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Mindsmoke.

This drug is burned in a pot and the fumes allowed to circulate the room. A sedative hallucinogenic, users generally all but pass out and drool as they become lost in their own visions. The selling point of mindsmoke is that the plumes of smoke are psychoactive and take on the forms of the visions the users are experiencing. For this reason mindsmoke is less a habitual drug and more a means of entertainment or performance art. Particularly vivid or impressive dreamers can make a living out of their smoke.

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Skip.

Skip is a legal, medical drug. It is used in the treatment of the mentally ill, particularly those with magical illnesses or hallucinatory diseases. In small quantities, the user "suffers"/benefits from their perceptions being sped up to the point where it appears as if they skip a few minutes in time. It is, in these controlled methods, essentially a sedative; one minute, the individual is suffering, the next, they're past the episode and quite calm.

The problem is, nobody knows where Skip comes from. Worse, when taken in high enough quantities (e.g. ODs), Skip inlifcts on the user a state of non-linear perceptiveness; essentially, the user ceases to see the events passing them by in the proper "order", imagining events that happened in the past to be happening in the now and vice versa.

Skip is nonmagical, and does not allow the user to time travel or see the future, though abusing it as an oracle or diviner probably produces some truly hilarious(ly horrific) moments.

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Thousandstem.

This drug comes in short square blocks of sticky powder which are shaved off and consumed. The active component isn't known but is rumored to be something gruesome like beholder eye jelly, dryad skin or chimera brains.

Taking thousandstem splits up your mental processes so you have the experience of thinking as multiple minds in one body. Each mind tends to have a particular bias, whether towards an emotion such as joy, anger, sadness, etc. or rooted around a particular thought or idea (like 'the only way to complete the potion is to do this!' 'my father never loved me!') Users find it enormously more difficult to coordinate themselves and perform simple tasks.

Thousandstem is usually taken by philosophers, wizards and other contemplatives who find that the multiple-mind process helps them to consider difficult problems. It's also used dangerously as a study aid by academic students. The number of minds produced is dependent on the dose, and overdosing on thousandstem is generally not physically risky but produces an irrevocable psychic break, ruining the user's mind and destroying their individual personality. They're left with dozens, hundreds or thousands of fragmented and twisted 'selves' who cannot operate together.

There is no hard limit to what constitutes a thousandstem OD and safety is entirely dependent on how many personalities the user can control.

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Conduit.

Conduit is bad shit. Made from the blood/organs/secretions of various magical entities, usually common ones like elementals or low-tier demons, and refined into a fine magical liquid, Conduit is essentially a liquefied booster shot of pure magic. You don't drink it; you inject it right into your blood for a rush of inherent magical power. It's like being a Sorcerer, only it only lasts a little while and the spells you gain access to are thematically based on whatever the Conduit was based on.

Why is Conduit bad shit? Well, aside from instilling temporary Sorcerer powers in people who do not have them and should not have them and have no real control over them, Conduit is mutative. Taking enough of it *will* result in your body mutating features to match the raw, generally-tainted mana-stuff you're pumping into your veins. Sometimes, that's okay; if you're shooting up Angel Conduit and you grow some pretty wings, well, lucky you. You could've been the guy shooting up Kyton Conduit.

Also, if you OD on it, you probably won't survive the surge of magical powers that will literally explode out of your body in an uncontrolled fury. If you do survive...well, you probably won't be very happy.

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Twist.

A drug which induces an animal-like mentality and can induce warping physical effects. Twist originates as a drug fed to a particular berserker cult before battle.

Using twist orientates all your thought processes on a predator/prey axis, heightens your awareness and improves your ability to see at night. Users experience all physical stimuli more vividly and are constantly thinking of the possibilities of violence in any situation. Taking very high doses of twist alters your body slightly with feral aspects relating to your emotional state: someone in a fight might grow claws and fangs, someone who is terrified might feel their legs elongate and bulk out with extra muscle.

Twist is commonly taken by gladiators, thugs and low-lifes who feel it keeps them 'on edge' and more recreationally by anyone looking to physically indulge themselves.

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DTD.

DTD is an obscure drug, more a curiosity than anything in civilized society, though of course where there is depravity there will be merchants to capitalize on it. It is usually found on the edge of civilization, amongst barbarian tribes who have little in the way of laws about what is and is not dangerous for your body and far more reliance on common sense. It comes in the form of white powder, which is usually inhaled, though it can be mixed into drinks. DTD is an extreme relaxant; taking it can leave one feeling as though one has absolutely no cares in the world, grinding everything down to absolute apathy for a brief period of time.

DTD is short for "dust to dust". It is made from the bones of skeletons animated by necromancy, and carries with it some trace of the draining negative energy that once propped said skeletons up.

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Courage.

Courage is a disturbing and vile drug, much like Life, in that it is made out of a dead sentient. However, unlike Life, Courage is not a metaphorical substance crystallized with magic; Courage is the heart's blood of a dying being instilled with a fragment of their very soul via dark and horrible rituals. Courage is usually in the form of a drink, though you can smoke it if necessary.

Taking Courage grants, as one might imagine, some measure of the power and courage of the dead sentient whose soul was housed in the blood. The power is temporary at best, and like any other "power trip" drug, Courage runs the risk of addiction. However, Courage's real downside is that sometimes, that bound piece of soul can be left in the user...with dangerous, and potentially mind-and-soul-rending, consequences...

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Fireworks.

This processed drug is made from the drying and grinding of the Lesithi Root, commonly found in and around the Feywild. When snorted, the user's magical energies are distorted, preventing a focus of magical energy into a coherent spell. Unlike Anti-Magic Fields which absorb and dissipate the magical energy, Fireworks cause the energy to bleed out in a harmless (though pretty) display of magical lights, colors, and sounds. In addition to these effects, users commonly report dilated pupils, sluggish movements, and being able to "feel" other sources of magical energy. This distorted magical field can spread to non-users of the drug and temporarily spread the symptoms of the drug across long distances. Fireworks is occasionally utilized as a poison for this purpose, preventing large groups of spellcasters from being useful temporarily.

One average dose lasts for an hour, with the contagion effects lasting a quarter that long.

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Demon Dust.

Demon Dust is an addictive and abundant drug, it is made out of the ground up horns of demons, it is primarily eaten however some snort it to give a stronger less lasting effect, consuming Demon Dust has been known to grant near super human strength but it almost always makes users go through temporary insanity, during these bouts of insanity users of the drug have been known to fight off 10 guards at a time trying to stop their rampage or waking up 30 miles away from the city naked and not knowing why heavy use eventually leads to corruption and overdoses lead to the user becoming possesed and going on killing sprees until he either dies of a heart attack or is killed

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Obsidian Honey.

Obsidian Honey is a drug that increases the sexual drive and attractiveness of the imbiber. It is a black syrupy substance that is a side effect from a succubus's body in the material world dying.

The drug grants an almost animalistic attraction and libido to the user, which can make any who are near them get possessed with desire. There side effects are marginal, with a low sex drive for a few weeks after the use, and there have been no cases of an OD.

Warning: It is advised to all who partake in it that they stay in civilised areas and not venture into any areas with animals. It is also advised to not take more than a teaspoonful of this product as it will start riots

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Squandered Hope.

People will sell anything, if they are desperate enough. They will sell their children; they will sell their bodies; some, in the pits of despair, will even sell their dreams.

Squandered Hope is the epitome of the exploitative market. Created by a particularly cruel enchanter who saw a great deal of promise for profit, Squandered Hope is made of the sold hopes and dreams of the lower-class. There are two "versions" of Squandered Hopes - the "low" version and the "true" version.

The "low" version of Squandered Hopes is a smokable created directly from some of the hair of the person whose dreams were sold. Smoking this generally produces a euphoric sensation, filling the user with a sense of, well, hope and joy. Withdrawal tends to leave frequent users thoroughly depressed and suicidal, and overdose is known as "The Smile", as those who die from it generally die with smiles on their faces as their pleasure centers overload and explode.

The "true" version is known only to the enchanter who first created it, and his apprentices. Proper, "true" Squandered Hope is made by instilling those hopes not in something as clumsy as hair, but in a living thing - a plant, an animal, or (in the highest class) a child. The vehicle is then nurtured in isolation, artificially enhancing the hope so that it grows as powerful as possible. Then, a cutting is made of the vehicle, and sold as a smokable. This is, of course, horrifyingly illegal; worse, the very act of extracting the cutting from the highest class tends to encourage the hope's growth.

Smoking or ingesting "true" Squandered Hope leads not to a euphoric sensation, but to the wish-fulfillment fantasy of actively experiencing the hope coming true. While this is, of course, all in the mind, the feeling grows exponentially more powerful depending on how high-class and powerful the particular Squandered Hope is.

"True" Squandered Hope rarely leads to suicide, as its users tend to feel a deep sense of satisfaction at the fulfillment of their Hope. Instead, the primary drawback is the exceptional cost; as it is extremely hard to create and is tightly controlled by its creator, it is a drug that only the wealthiest nobility has access to. This is, of course, appropriate; the dreams of the common are devoured by the elite of society.

It goes without saying that both forms are ridiculously illegal.

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Shard.

A more potent derivative of the working class drug known variously as Trudge, Gloom and Doubleshift, Shard is made by soaking the stimulant herbs in a necromantic concoction for several days prior to smoking.

While users of Trudge gain a slight dissociative buzz and a near immunity to fatigue (or at least feeling it, longterm users are notoriously sloppy workers), Shard goes further, engendering a near immunity to pain and fatigue through complete dissociation as the necromantic energy seeps into the users body. A man on Shard can quite literally work his hands to the bone without caring - or stay on his feet after leaving half his intestines in the gutter.

Shard gets its name from the distinctive obsidian bone spurs of longterm users.

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Spiderlace

Spiderlace is made from the combined venoms of several dangerous creatures (commonly scorpions, spiders, and centipedes) which is treated with herbs to destroy or alter the venomous aspects and change them into a more harmless version (think the smallpox vaccine being made from dead cowpox, etc).

When a user takes Spiderlace, the effect is as though the individual were envenomed, and the user typically goes catatonic, though not in all cases (CON-based save). After 2d6 rounds, the user then feels a rush of adrenaline as though the body were fighting the invading toxin, but since the venom has been rendered inert, instead the rush of heat and energy causes the user to become extremely alert, and unable to stop moving or taking action of any kind. Essentially, it creates a survival rush in the individual that lasts for up to 4 hours (roll 1d4), where reflexes, strength, and resilience are all increased (+2 STR, +2 DEX, +10 temporary HP for the duration), but focus and clarity suffer (-4 to INT and WIS) and the black veins that run through the area of injection (which give the drug its name) affect the ability to interact with others and are a dead giveaway of a user currently under the influence of Spiderlace (-2 CHA).

Spiderlace is popular with thrill-seekers who will perform such feats as parkour, or acrobatics, and also has uses in the arena, though its obvious nature means probably disqualification for cheating.

The dangerous creation surrounding Spiderlace means consequences for the naive user, namely death due to toxic shock from being poisoned by several compounds improperly altered (failure to create a batch of Spiderlace means one or more of the toxins used to make it are still potent and deadly. Roll 1d3, then determine what type of venom from any applicable poisonous creature with lethal venom was used to create the Spiderlace; up to three. The user then suffers damage/effects as though he or she had been affected by a dose of that venom).

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Last Chance.

Last Chance is made from four-leaf clovers, lucky rabbit's feet, lucky dice, and a little bit of a stolen magical luck. A drug that is ultimately more illicit in gambling dens than on the street, Last Chance gives the user a burst of excellent, supernatural luck - or possibly impossible confidence enabling such preternatural luck. It's impossible to tell.

Last Chance allows you to reroll a single die roll, once per week. Multiple doses will not increase this.

Last Chance is a reasonably safe drug. The only real risk is being beaten to death for using it in a gambling hall.

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Wychwood Balm.

The wychwood is a common parasitic tree, a benign invader from the ethereal plane. The leaves of a wychwood don't blow to the winds of the mortal realm but to ethereal winds. Its roots also rest in the ethereal plane and as such it cannot be completely destroyed unless dimensionally locked (this is overly expensive and most people cut back any wychwood infestation every spring instead).

It's not known if wychwood balm actually comes from the wychwood tree, and certainly eating the bark or ligaments of the (mildly poisonous) tree itself doesn't produce anything like the effects of the balm. Nonetheless, this where popular rumour says the drug originates.

Swallowing a drop of this gel circulates the balm throughout your system and partially tranposes you to the ethereal realm. Most people describe this as a pleasant, consciousness-expanding experience where your senses interpret new and unfamiliar signals.

Rubbing wychwood balm on an area of skin can directly transport the coated area to the ethereal realm for a short period of time. Thieves often use this drug to look through walls, inside safes or to make their way into heavily guarded fortresses. The affected body part still retains a connection to your real body and you still directly sense only the material plane. Using the drug in this way does put you at risk of any ethereal predators - ones you won't be able to detect until you feel them striking your tranported limb.

Measuring the dosage of wychwood balm is incredibly important. The effect of the drug directly correlates to body mass, though it only works on conscious entities, and if you spend too long in the ethereal realm the effected part will adapt and 'lock in' to the new plane, rendering it trapped in an ethereal state.

Anyone exposed to a removal of magic or dimensional lock while under the effects of wychwood balm generally dies, as small internal components of their body are permanently removed to the ethereal plane.

Waste products of the balm build up in the bodies of addicts, giving them a flickering appearance as they constantly flit in and out of the material plane in minute sections. Most long-term addicts meet sorry ends beneath the claw or fangs of some wandering ethereal beast.

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Ghostsnot

Generally dealt in by wandering soothsayers, con artists and pedlars with pretensions of mysticism, ghostsnot is a form of refined and adulterated ectoplasm that claims to put the user in contact with a beloved dead soul.

Using ghostsnot is messy as the dose creates an ectoplasmic reaction with the users own body and brain fluids, leaching them out of the nose, eyes, ears and mouth to form a semi-corporeal body for the spirit. This is nonfatal but described as extremely unpleasant to endure and requires several days rest to recover from.

The appeal of ghostsnot is obvious: once the spirit is summoned it can be spoken to by the user who can ask questions, pass on final messages and find closure if they seek it.

Several existing churches and scholars are highly suspicious of the authenticity of the drug and regard it as far more likely that ghostsnot simply provides a temporary host for any wandering spirit or entity in the area. They explain the intimate knowledge of the dead as simply being information stolen via the psychic connection with the user. The sellers of ghostsnot generally say these naysayers are jealous of ghostsnot intruding on their monopoly of connecting with the dead.

There are much darker rumours concerning the drug and some who claim that the introduction and selling of ghostsnot is intended for some vastly more sinister purpose. They point out certain similarities of all ghostsnot manifestations as evidence that a single entity is being called forth and manipulating the user in every instance.

Overdosing on ghostsnot produces a coma in which the user's spirit is disembodied from their mortal body. In all but the worst of cases the spirit returns after a few days but in some cases it takes much longer and for a few unfortunate users it never does. The truth is that the disembodiment is permanent in all cases and what returns to animate the body is not the soul of the user.

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Spite

Spite's a liquid drug most often sold in two paired capsules sealed with wax. One's filled with a clear fluid, the other's empty. The drug has a two-stage kick: when the user downs the clear fluid, it absorbs the hatred, anger and other negative emotions they're carrying around with them and almost immediately surges back up - to be spat into the empty capsule. This gives the user a calm, pacific pleasant-feeling high that lasts for around 12 hours. They feel slothful, benevolent, and well-disposed to just about everybody.

Once this high fades off, the popular trend is to slam back the sickly black-and-red fluid spat out previously. This gives a burning half hour high filled with jagged anger and bitter motivations of hatred. The kick's not for everyone and some people say spite is so named because the actions you take under the effect of this high are almost bound to fuck things up for you.

Many users don't take the second stage of the drug but sell it back to their dealer so they pick it up at a reduced cost. Some users don't take the first stage and only buy the collected negativity of others for a violent rush. The second stage of spite can't be bottled for much longer than a day before it'll break the container provided, fermenting in concentrated hatred. Long-term storage requires more durable vessels. If dumped it's poisonous to the locality, inducing violent behaviour and twisted growths in nearby flora and fauna.

The second stage of spite is bought en masse and used by some prominent armed forces and mercenary groups.

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Grunduk

Favored by goblinoids of all statures, this combination of naturally occurring herbs is ground fine, and either smoked or snorted, inducing mild euphoria, anxiety, or blind rage, depending on the user and the concentration of the herbs used.

Lak'tom
Developed by hobgoblins, Lak'tom is grunduk, combined with the secretions of giant cave millipedes. This paste is then spread thin, allowed to dry, and smoked. Users claim to experience" visions of the past, mingled with those of the present and future", in addition to general feelings of ease. Highly addictive, lak'tom frequently results in user-dependency, and is popular among slavers for just this reason.

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Rose.

A pleasant accident, the story goes that this drug recipe originally comes from when some potionmaker tried to make a magical disguise but with sub-par ingredients and unorthodox methods. Still rather expensive for a drug, this elixer has become something or a party drug (or in some cases, a guilty pleasure) for hedonistic nobles.

Rose is a temporary sex-change drug that has side effects similar to intoxication. Euphoria, lowered inhibitions, increased sensitivity... the intentionally imperfect nature of the brewing process makes one batch of Rose different from the next. It isn't uncommon for the user to change race or other features for the duration as well. That duration being similarly unpredictable, anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours or even days based on the amount taken and the particular details of the batch.

Its users often say that this unpredictability is what makes Rose so much "fun". You know that you are going to be the opposite sex, but not whether you will look like you did the last time you took it. How you will feel. How long you will stay that way. It is a gamble, but a safe one with no risks. Or so they say.

That is false. Some batches of Rose turn out very bad, resulting in only partial transformations, transformations that don't reverse, or transformations that break bones and tear skin rather than reshaping them painlessly. These are usually blamed on the incompetence of the brewer rather than the drug itself, as if the elixer was free of any blame.

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Sap (or Syzrop, if you want to be Thug)

Incredibly, incredibly rare. Said to come from the sap of the World-Tree itself, though how you'd get it safely back to earth is a mystery.
Taking it is sort of like hallucinating, but the things you see are real. Like, tangible. They pop into existence out of nowhere.
They weren't real a second ago, but now they are, and you feel like they always have been.
Taking it is dangerous, for several reasons.
Firstly, the things you create (because you have no control over what you hallucinate) could be very dangerous, like a dragon or a house made of swords, or any number of other fucked up things.
Secondly, it's toxic. It doesn't come from this world, and your body wasn't designed to handle it.
Thirdly, the gods don't take too kindly to people fucking around with creation. Some people say that by taking the drug you pull things out of the God's world, or steal ideas from dreams. Maybe they're right. Either way, the gods get pissed when you take it, and you'll have to deal with whatever that means.
Maybe your crops fail, or your children turn sterile. Maybe an enemy attacks your village, or a battle turns against you.
It's also addictive, and, given its scarcity, that could mean the world's worst detox.
Some say that the monsters of the World where created by drinkers of the sap, and perhaps that's true.
Taking the sap can also create beneficial things, like fine weapons, or wealth. A lot of knowledge has been gained by shamans taking the sap.

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Kettle Dust

A neutral colored powder, most often black or reddish, Kettle Dust is a mild sedative/hallucinogen that is made from the ground up remains of objects exposed to heavy magical energies. The longer an object 'soaks' the more energy is absorbed, with old pots/kettles being a common source of high grade product.

Regular users of Kettle Dust find themselves achy and sore - whatever magically infused particles their bodies aren't able to exude are generally incorporated into deposits of iron/wood that build up as the user continues to either smoke or snort more dust.

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Three Eyes

A sticky purple liquid with a metallic taste fills a small vial. When ingested, it grants the user +4 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha. The subject also gains blindsense 30'. The stats effects last for 5 minutes. A secondary effect is an aggressive euphoria. The drinker feels amazing, but his attitude towards all around him decreases by two degrees. The aggression lasts for 1 hour. Overdosing sums the first two effect's duration (3 doses gives 15 minutes strength and 3 hours aggression).

When the aggression finally wears off, the final effect occurs. The imbiber takes a -2 penalty to Con for the next 8 hours. Withdrawing from an overdose sums the Con penalty, with death occuring in some cases.

The secret ingredients of three eyes include the blood of an elf and an orc.

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"Distilled Essence"

Not a drug in the strictest, or even basic sense, this potion is gaining popularity despite pushback from many lawful churches. In reality this potion has condensed the spiritual nature of "Lesser Outsiders" and created a tonic that creates a temporary "soul" that melds with a host for a short time. This has wide ranging effects on humanoids imbibing on the substance which are highly dependent upon the creature that acts as a source.

While in theory this can be produced through channeling pure energies into a complex alchemical formula, in practice, cheap mass manufacture can only be achieved with the destruction of the "source creature". This is where churches object, as they are essentially obliterating a natural soul, and creating many corrupt doomed souls that have no actual existence in the multiverse.

Thus far, popular extracts that have been found include;
- the original formula (Angel essence, used by churches in rituals and NEVER mass produced) which leaves people in a meditative enraptured trance.
- Fire Elemental which seems to have an energizing effect on users, which are often used in late night revelry or guards looking for a pick-me-up partway through graveyard shift. This often gets mixed in with "bad batches" which were made from devil essence as opposed to Ignan.
- Earth Elemental essence has a sedative effect leaving a person sitting or lying about with no inclination to move. Thus this item is popular as a sleep aid.
- Distilled Essence made from Water or Air are not popular as Water Essence tends to be a very expensive way to get "drunk" without a hangover, and the criminal underground has yet to produce an Air Essence which doesn't lead to the imbiber hallucinating and trying to fly, leading to messy results.

There have been whispers of a necrotic essence floating around, but it is universally figured that imbibing such a thing would be singularly unpleasant.