Dangerous Concoctions

"Elixir of Antaeus. Gives the imbiber boundless stamina. I've seen a few clever folks use it on their coursers to travel vast distances, but be warned, if your mount gets spooked and tosses you, you'll never catch up to it--and mounts using this potion tend to be unusually antsy." -- Dr. TailorDangerous Concoctions is all about elixirs, potions, tinctures, and the mad science behind creating them.
== Taking Your Medicine ==
Type 	Time to Take Effect
Injection	1d seconds (4s)
Drinkable	1dx5 seconds (18s)
Pills 	1d minutes (3.5m, or 210s)
Cinematically, just assume these work instantaneously!
=== Side Effects ===
For a given potion, roll Health to avoid nasty side effects. Magic resistance helps with this, as foes Fit/Very Fit for physically-boosting potions. Their inverse versions (susceptibility, unfit) work against you!
Roll 	Effect 	Fanon Simplified
Critical Success (or success by 10+)	No side effects! 	No side effects!
Success 	You have side effects for (10-margin of success)% of the potion's duration. 	Side effects for half the duration.
Failure 	Use (Margin of failure) x 20% for the duration of side effects. 	Side effects for the entire duration.
Critical Failure 	As for failure, but you only experience side effects, offering no positive effects. You must make a second HT roll--on a second crit fail, the side effects are permanent!Fanon: This rule may be a bit too punishing and discourage experimentation.	Only side effects!
== Example Drugs / The Pharmacopia ==
Spider-Man: You can rewrite DNA on the fly, and you're using it to turn people into dinosaurs? But with tech like that, you could cure cancer!Sauron: But I don't want to cure cancer! I want to turn people into dinosaurs! -- Spider-Man and the X-Men #2
Drug 	Duration 	Cost	Effect 	Side Effect 	Description
Anatavistol	HTx30 minutes	2.1 	Raises IQ (but not Will or Per) by 4 and removes Bestial. 	Bad Temper (6), Jealousy, Uncontrollable Appetite (Murder) (6) 	Effectively uplifts a creature temporarily, but the rewiring creates some strange compulsions and issues.
Bonanox 	8 hours 	0.01	Deep Sleeper (doesn't counter Insomnia or Light Sleeper, oddly enough)	Pyromania (15), Sleepwalker (15) 	Helps with sleep, but creates a strange compulsion to burn things. Technically harmless if the patient is in a locked room with no ready sources of firestarting. For a fire mage however, this is never safe!
Ediscor 	HT/2 days 	0.1 	Eidetic Memory 	False memories, Paranoia. 	Enhances the mind's ability to recall, but some extrapolations can be incorrect, sometimes terribly so. Subtle, false details can cause the imbiber to believe there is a great force acting against them.
Ossumax 	1 hour 	0.5 	Lifting Strength 5 	Hunchback, No Physical Attack (arms). Can cause a Fright Check to onlookers if transformed in front of them!	Strengthens and restructures the bones and muscles in the arms and back. Having a temporary hunchback and "wiggly arms" is a struggle for adventurers, but can be invaluable to a longshoreman or quarry-worker.
Provisum 	2d hours (7h)	0.1 	Telescopic Vision 2 	Epilepsy 	The enhancement and vividness of light helps one see immense distances, but creates a strobing effect that can cause debilitating seizures during stressful situations. Can be mitigated with Stop Spasm, if available.
Raptusalus 	1dxHT minutes	1.76	Regeneration (Fast)
(that's 1 HP / minute) 	Impulsiveness (--), Lecherousness (--)No self-control roll for either--always read the label! 	Puts the body's endocrine system into hyperdrive, repairing tissues rapidly. Unfortunately, this also messes with the body's natural hormones, rendering the patient very distractible--keep under observation, and don't let them anywhere near con artists!
Vextundulox	1d+1 hours 	2 	Quick Gadgeteer! 	Callous, Compulsive Upgrading (--), Delusion ("I'm just refining the original design!"), Megalomania. 	A radical potion that opens the mind to the possibilities of engineering, chemistry, and physics. The side effects of this level of hyperfocus are subtle and insidious, like a psychological addiction. Science becomes mad science as the imbiber becomes more and more interested in what they can do rather than what they should.
== References ==
*Pyramid 3/46: Weird Science
Category:Pyramid Vol 3 Articles
Category:Jason "PK" Levine
Category:Superscience