The Apothecary ยท Chapter 1
Introduction
In most games poison is a few extra points of damage with a green label. This book treats it as a clock.
A poison is a clock, and somebody can stop it.
A poisoned character is not dead and is not fine. The character has a number of checks left, and everyone at the table knows roughly how many. That is a scene: find out what it was, find the antidote, get to the surgeon, or get the name out of the poisoner before the Course runs out.
What You Should Expect
No single-roll deaths. The deadliest entry in this book takes five rounds and can be stopped in any of them. A poison marked Lethal kills only the way the core rules kill: through Wounds, then Critical Injuries.
One stat line for everything. A viper's venom, a bottle of laudanum, a tranquilizer dart, and a cloud of chlorine are all read the same way. Chapter 2 explains the line. Chapter 3 runs it.
A job for the healer. Chapter 4 gives a character with Medicine five different things to do about a poisoning, and most of them work.
Drugs that cost something. Every drug has a Benefit and a bill: a Side effect while it works, a Crash when it stops, an Overdose past its Limit. Chapter 5 adds an optional rule for habit.
Gas as terrain. A cloud is a place on the map. Chapter 13 covers what is in it, how long it stays, and what a wet cloth, a gas mask, and a sealed suit each do about it.
Poisoning as a mystery. Every poison says how hard it is to notice and how hard it is to find afterwards. A GM can build a case on the Subtle rating alone.
Four Periods
| Period | Years | What is on the shelf |
|---|---|---|
| Old World | Before 1800, and most fantasy worlds | Plants, venoms, minerals, the poppy, and alchemy |
| Industrial | 1800 to 1938 | Refined poisons, chloroform, morphine, patent medicine, war gas |
| Modern | 1939 to today | Tradecraft toxins, pharmaceuticals, street drugs, nerve agents |
| Stellar | Space opera | Stims, biotech, needler loads, tailored toxins |
Every entry prints the first period in which it is found. Prices are by period too: each period uses the money of its own armory, as Chapter 2 explains, so a price in one period cannot be compared with a price in another. Later periods keep everything earlier: hemlock still grows in ditches beside a starport.
Using This Book in Your Universe
The names are generic. A Universe renames freely. "Blade Venom" is whatever the assassins' guild of that world sells.
A Universe's own rules come first. Where a Universe prints its own poison, drug, or potion, use its numbers. This book fills the gaps and gives a common format for the rest.
The armories plug in. A blowgun from The Ranged Armory, the Dart Projector and Tranquilizer Gun from The Modern Armory, the Stinkpot from The Black Powder Armory, and the Needler from The Stellar Armory all deliver doses from this book. Chapter 14 lists them.
What You Need
The Exodus NDS core rules.