The Apothecary · Chapter 11

Modern Pharmaceuticals

The medicine cabinet, the medic's bag, and the street corner, from 1939 on.

Medicines and antidotes are Common or Restricted: sold in a pharmacy, or with a prescription.

Street drugs are Illicit. Their prices are per dose and vary with the city and the decade.

Every entry here is a drug and follows Chapter 5. The four antidotes at the end of the chapter follow Chapter 4.

Trauma Shot

Field injector, clotting agent, the medic's pen

2 None — 2

Injected 50 Restricted Modern None

Benefit Recover 3 Wounds and end Bleeding

Overdose No check: a third or later dose before a full night's rest still works, and adds 1 Bane Die to all checks until that rest

A single-use injector of painkiller, clotting agent, and stimulant. It is the cinematic field dressing, and a Universe that wants slower healing leaves it out.

Field Painkiller

Morphine autoinjector, the lozenge, pain tablets

3 1 round 4 hours 2

Injected, Ingested 30 Restricted Modern Habit 3

Benefit Recover 3 Strain, and ignore the ongoing penalties of Critical Injuries up to Severe for the duration

Side effect Add 1 Bane Die to Perception and Readiness checks

Overdose 4 Strain each 10 minutes for 4 checks, Lethal; Naloxone ends it

The modern form of morphine: measured, clean, and issued one to a soldier. The tablets a doctor prescribes after surgery are the same entry.

Adrenaline Injector

Epinephrine pen, the heart needle

2 None 10 minutes 1

Injected 100 Common Modern None

Benefit Recover 4 Strain. A character incapacitated by Strain is no longer incapacitated. Ends an allergic collapse

Crash 2 Strain

Overdose 3 Wounds and Staggered on the next turn

A spring-loaded pen pushed against the thigh. It restarts a body that is shutting down, and for ten minutes afterwards the hands shake.

Pep Pills

Amphetamine tablets, go pills, the pilot's chocolate

2 30 minutes 8 hours 2

Ingested 10 Restricted Modern Habit 2

Benefit Ignore the penalties for missed sleep, and add 1 Boon Die to Readiness checks

Crash 3 Strain that cannot be recovered until a full night's rest, and add 1 Bane Die to all checks the next day

Overdose Disoriented for the duration, and 2 Wounds

Issued by the million to aircrew, tank crews, and sentries from 1939. Later decades make them cleaner and call them wakefulness agents.

Steadying Tablets

Beta blockers, the marksman's pill

1 30 minutes 4 hours 1

Ingested 20 Restricted Modern None

Benefit Remove 1 Bane Die caused by fear, pressure, or haste from Agility and Intellect checks that need a steady hand: a long shot, a lock, a wire, a scalpel

Side effect Add 1 Bane Die to Athletics checks

A heart medicine that stops the hands shaking. Musicians, surgeons, and snipers take it for the same reason.

Calming Tablets

Tranquillisers, the little yellow pill

2 30 minutes 4 hours 2

Ingested 10 Restricted Modern Habit 2

Benefit Recover 3 Strain, and add 1 Boon Die to checks made to resist fear

Side effect Add 1 Bane Die to Readiness checks

Overdose 3 Strain each 10 minutes for 4 checks; sleep 6 hours. With strong drink it is Lethal

Prescribed for nerves. Crushed into a drink they are a weak knockout: resist against Potency 2 or suffer 3 Strain each 10 minutes for 4 checks.

White Powder

Cocaine, blow, snow

3 1 round 1 hour 2

Inhaled 100 Illicit Modern Habit 3

Benefit Recover 2 Strain, and add 1 Boon Die to Charm and Readiness checks

Crash 3 Strain, and add 1 Bane Die to social checks for an hour

Overdose 3 Wounds and Disoriented for an hour

The expensive stimulant. Its users talk fast, feel certain, and run out of money.

Crystal

Methamphetamine, ice, crank

3 1 round 6 hours 1

Inhaled, Injected 40 Illicit Modern Habit 4

Benefit Ignore the penalties for missed sleep, and add 1 Boon Die to Athletics and Readiness checks

Side effect Add 1 Bane Die to Charm, Negotiation, and Leadership checks

Crash 5 Strain, and Disoriented until a full night's rest

Overdose 4 Wounds, and Disoriented for the duration

The cheap stimulant. It lasts all night and it is the fastest habit in this book.

Brown

Heroin, smack, junk

3 1 round 4 hours 1

Injected, Inhaled 20 Illicit Modern Habit 4

Benefit Recover all Strain, and ignore the ongoing penalties of all Critical Injuries for the duration

Side effect Disoriented, and cannot take a second maneuver in a turn

Overdose 4 Strain each 10 minutes for 6 checks, Lethal; Naloxone ends it

Morphine made stronger and sold by the bag. Its strength varies from one bag to the next, and that is what causes most overdoses: the GM may spend a Calamity from any check made while buying it to make the next dose count as two.

Weed

Cannabis, hashish, grass

1 1 minute 2 hours 2

Inhaled, Ingested 10 Illicit Modern Habit 1

Benefit Recover 2 Strain

Side effect Add 1 Bane Die to Readiness and Intellect checks

Illicit in most of the Modern period and Common in some places late in it. In an Old World game it is a variety of Dreamsmoke with Habit 1.

Hallucinogen

Acid, mushrooms, peyote, the sacrament

3 30 minutes 6 hours 1

Ingested 10 Illicit Modern None

Benefit None that the rules measure. A Universe may attach visions, rites, or insight to it

Side effect Disoriented. The GM describes what the user perceives, and the player decides what the character does about it

Unwilling A victim dosed without knowing resists against Potency 3 each hour: on a failure 3 Strain, and the victim treats the visions as real

Sacred plants in the Old World and blotter paper in the Modern. It is not habit-forming. Slipped into a drink it is a weapon that leaves the victim discredited instead of dead.

Dust

Angel dust, the embalmer, wet

3 1 round 1 hour 1

Inhaled 20 Illicit Modern Habit 2

Benefit Ignore Disoriented and Staggered caused by pain. Once in the duration, when the user would be incapacitated by Strain, the user stays up for 3 more rounds

Side effect Add 2 Bane Dice to Intellect, Savvy, and Charisma checks. The user cannot operate anything more complicated than a door

Crash 4 Strain, and no memory of the duration

A veterinary anaesthetic smoked on a cigarette. The user feels nothing and understands little. It is here mostly for the adversaries who take it.

Activated Charcoal

The black slurry, stomach wash

— 1 round 1 day —

Ingested 15 Common Modern None

Benefit General antidote against Ingested poisons and drug overdoses taken by mouth: add 2 Boon Dice to resist checks and to Medicine checks to treat one of them

Special No effect once the Course is half run

A black powder stirred into water. It binds what is still in the gut.

Atropine Injector

Nerve agent antidote kit, the combo pen

2 None — 3

Injected 60 Military Modern None

Benefit Specific antidote to Nerve Gas and Contact Nerve Agent

Special It ends the poison only if the victim has left the cloud or been washed. Used on someone not poisoned, it causes 2 Strain and Disoriented for an hour

Issued three to a soldier where gas is expected, to be pushed into the thigh through the uniform.

Cyanide Antidote Kit

The amber ampoule, the three-step kit

— None — —

Inhaled, Injected 150 Restricted Modern None

Benefit Specific antidote to Prussic Acid. Against a Suicide Capsule it allows the Severe Medicine check that entry requires

Kept on the wall in plating shops and laboratories. It has to be used within the Course, which is five rounds.

Naloxone

The opiate reversal, the nasal spray

— None 1 hour —

Injected, Inhaled 40 Common Modern None

Benefit Specific antidote to the overdose of Poppy Tincture, Morphine, Field Painkiller, Brown, Dreamsmoke, and Glitter, and to Knockout Gas. The patient wakes

Special It also ends the drug's Benefit. A Dependent patient goes straight into Withdrawal

It reverses an opiate overdose in seconds. Police and medics carry it late in the Modern period.