Fantasy Drugs

I’ve always loved the idea of fantasy substances, drug addicts, pharmaceuticals, strange worlds with strange magic systems, strange customs, strange reagents etc. It’s always just made sense that given a world full of magic and wonder, someone would have the bright idea to eat or smoke or otherwise take some substance into their body in the hopes that it’d have some interesting medicinal or recreational effect. After-all, humans have been doing this very thing for ages, so what would stop a Dwarf, Elf, or Frog-kin from eating the proverbial apple?

The concept of gamifying and adding effects to these fantasy analogs can be a fun exercise as well. So with that being said, here are some interesting drugs I’ve whipped up for my games I run that have become a staple across many worlds.

“The Flux”

A soft white powder that, in the right light, shines with soft blues. The powder tastes lightly of mint, with strong bitter tones. The Flux is typically imbibed by rubbing on the gums.

A drug that gives the user magical luck, but when the drug wears off, they’re hit with a massive amount of built up bad luck. The bad luck is directly correlated with how forced their good luck is.

Users of The Flux range from high tier socialites,  gamblers, business moguls and many in between. The Flux is highly addictive, and the crash is taxing on a user’s soul, twisting the fates in your favor at the correct time could yield the windfall of a lifetime, but with every high there is a low. Repeated redosing of The Flux causes users to geek out, their bodies becoming jittery and stuttery, their very being taxed by the forces of fate.

• The Flux high lasts for 1 hour, redosing The Flux allows the user to continue the high, extending for an additional hour.
• While on The Flux, whenever you make an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you may use the power of The Flux to roll an additional d20. You can use this ability after the original roll, but before the outcome is revealed. You choose which of the d20s is used for the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. Doing so generates a Flux Point
• You can also use The Flux when an attack roll is made against you. Roll a d20, and choose whether the attacker’s roll uses their d20 roll or yours.
• Flux Points are tallied, and while coming down off The Flux, the DM chooses when to use the Flux Points stored, resulting in the opposite effect, the DM chooses which die roll to use, until all Flux Points are used. (I typically try and use the flux points within a few hours of the comedown, holding onto points just doesn’t make sense)

Dwarven Moss

Dwarves’ Moss is named such because it commonly grows in warm, damp environments often found inside the caverns around dwarven mountain homes. Dwarven Moss is typically smoked in a pipe.

The player feels relaxed and introspective. Player gets one level of exhaustion for every 2 hours under the influence.

• Duration:
  •  2 hours. Can continue to take every two hours until exhaustion causes the player to fall asleep.
• Effects:
  • Easy Going: The moss makes your mind slow but steady. For the next hour, you can’t be surprised and you have advantage on Wisdom saving throws.
  • Slow Time Perception: Due to the time dilating effects of Dwarven Moss, once per short rest, you can reroll a failed Dexterity saving throw as you perceive the threat in slow motion.
• Side Effects
  • Sluggish Movements: Your speed is reduced by 5 feet while under the effects of Dwarven Moss, as your movements become slightly sluggish.

Waxy Concentrate: When the moss is concentrated into a wax and consumed, the effects are more potent. The duration of all the above effects is doubled.

Hedric’s Special Brew

This purple pink beverage tastes of an extremely strong beer, with a faint smell of mushrooms.

• 1d10 minutes of blindness.
• D10 Effects
  • 1: The creature’s immediately turns into a potted plant, with telepathy out to 100 feet.
  • 2: The creature gains the enlarge or reduce effect (50 percent chance of either) of the enlarge/reduce spell for 1 hour.
  • 3: The creature regains 5d8 + 20 hit points.
  • 4: Vocally, the creature can only cluck and croon like a chicken. The creature can also understand and speak to chickens. This curse lasts for 1 hour unless ended by a remove curse spell or similar magic.
  • 5: The creature can understand and speak all languages for 1d4 days.
  • 6: The creature gains the benefits of the telepathy spell for the next 24 hours.
  • 7: The creature gains the benefits of the speak with plants spell for 8 hours.
  • 8: The creature immediately casts the time stop spell, requiring no components. Constitution is the spellcasting ability for this spell.
  • 9: The creature immediately casts the detect thoughts spell, requiring no components. Constitution is the spellcasting ability for this spell.
  • 10: Magical mists pour out of the creature’s eyes and ears, acting as a fog cloud spell for 1 hour that is centered on the creature and moves with it.

Silverbarb

Silverbarb, allows sight into the astral plane, it is either brewed into a tea, by taking the bristling silver cactus bulbs around the size of a baseball, and submerging them sliced, in boiling water, wherein which the cactus barbs dissolve, into a shimmering silver substance (Water Weenie), or dried and eaten spines and all.

Effects

• Astral Sight: After consuming Silverbarb, your eyes glow with a faint silver light, and for the next 2d6 hours, you can see into the Astral Plane in a 60-foot radius.
• Ethereal Step: Once during the Silverbarb’s effects, you can step into the Astral Plane as a bonus action on your turn, allowing you to move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. You take 5 (1d10) force damage if you end your turn inside an object. You return to your original plane at the end of your turn.

Side effects

• Time Dilation: Time in the Astral Plane is strange and mutable. After using Silverbarb, your sense of time might be a bit skewed. For the next 24 hours, you might be early or late to events, misjudge the amount of time a task will take, or struggle with timing in general, at the DM’s discretion.
• The effects last 2d6 hours, depending on tolerance and amount taken.

Ether

Ethosite can be ground down into a shimmering powder, and mixed into water to produce a shimmering paste, called Ether; this can then be smeared into open wounds, taken orally or injected into the muscle tissue, some have even managed to tattoo Ethosite directly into their skin, forming a magic tattoo of sorts.

The common effects of Ether include dissociation, hallucinations of a past life, and increased physical acuity. These effects typically last 6 Hrs.

Prolonged exposure to Ether, through dosing can cause the body to turn to Ethosite, as the unstable nature of the material transforms the imbiber into a Hollow.

The initial effects of Ether on the body, produces glowing veins, and metal patches that slowly take over the body.

Effects

• Ether’s effects last longer depending on application.
  • Orally: 1 Hour
  • Smeared: 3 Hours
  • Injected: 8 Hours
  • Tattoo: Permanent?
• Etherial Communion: You can communicate with the spirits trapped within the Ethosite. This could give you information from the spirit’s past or insights from its perspective. You could represent this mechanically as a sort of modified version of the “Speak with Dead” spell, with DM discretion about what information can be gained.
• Knowledge from a Past Life: You temporarily remember glimpses of the past, perhaps faded memories from ages ago of a previous life. When you make an ability check that uses a skill, you can roll a d6 immediately after seeing the number on the d20 and add the number on the d6 to the check. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
• Negative Side-Effects: Consuming Ether isn’t without risk. Each time you consume it, you must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or gain one level of Forged Resilience. (The effects fade with the high, but are tallied)
• Forged Resilience: You were created to have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:
  • You are immune to poison damage, and have resistance to fire damage.
  • You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
  • You are immune to disease.
  • You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in an inactive, motionless state, during which you retain consciousness.

Hollow Transformation: After consuming Ether repeatedly (4 Levels of Forged Resilience) you transform into a Hollow. This is a gradual process, starting with glowing veins and metal patches on your skin, but eventually, your body and soul become one with the Ether. The benefits and drawbacks of this transformation could potentially cause the loss of certain aspects of your personality or memories.

Conclusion

Well that’s all I’ve got for today, maybe next time I’ll go into the various Homebrew races I’ve created for my world of Auria.