Spice alchemy: Mundane answer to magickal dominance

[MeTekillot]

Implement a system of alchemy based around spice and blood that lets mundanes create tonics/potions that mimic some magickal effects but causes debuffs alongside these effects. Have people consider it not part of magick and instead treat it as another use of spice.

All tonics would be visible in assess or looked at.

Examples:
One pinch melem tuek, one pinch aggross, two mekillot steaks, shard of tortoiseshell. Strength and endurance boosted by the equivalent of five pinches. Significant penalty to agility. Suffer occasional damage when fighting, subduing, or lifting things past 'manageable' encumbrance.
Her musculature bulges and ripples in a grotesque, unnatural manner.

One pinch methelinoc, one pinch qel, kalich meat, verrin feather. Wisdom boost equivalent to three pinches. Random chance to see perfectly in storms and darkness. Random chance to be temporarily blinded.
His pupiles are obscenely huge and the whites of his eyes are tinged with blue veins.

One pinch krelez, one pinch krentakh, jozhal meat, turaal corpse. Agility boost equivalent to five pinches. Never fail climb rolls and double movement speed. Penalty to endurance. Occasionally drop items in hands or inventory due to jitters.
Their joints bend past what is natural and they shiver continuously.

Make these Kurac only craftables.

[Gentleboy]

This sounds absolutely bonkers and something that will be outlawed pronto.

[MeTekillot]

Being legal in Tuluk would be a poignant reminder of the hypocrisy and ignorance inherent in the setting. It's basically magickal alchemy without the magick, twisting the body to unnatural potence, but still legal because it's not magick.

It'd be illegal in Allanak because spice.

[MeTekillot]

One pinch aggross, one pinch tho, scrab meat, shard of tortoiseshell. Take half damage from all sources. Movement speed halved. Upon expiration, receive total damage as stun damage. If stun is zeroed, carry the rest to hp.
Black whorls with colorful speckles course over all of her visible skin.

One pinch kemen, one pinch methelinoc, one pinch qel, silt lurker meat, scrab eyeball. Magick from any source  has a random chance to totally fail on you. Any successful spell has its effectiveness halved. Constantly suffer damage to hp and stun. Double all stamina costs. You are easier to hit with melee and ranged weapons.
A multicolored, bioluminescent glow is visible in his sweat.

[Veselka]

I find the idea interesting, but it should also have extreme downsides (Increased chance of addiction, increased come down, side-effects, etc).

I liked your other ideas regarding spice too -- That Tuluk leans into it while Allanak leans away from it, and by embracing spice you become dependent on it, but it provides long term benefits.

[Tranquil]

I like the idea of spice mixing for unique effects, and spice being a good deterrent against magick in ways more creative then stat boosts.

[Jihelu]

I just want more alchemy in general

[Lotion]

I like the idea of spice mixing for unique effects, and spice being a good deterrent against magick in ways more creative then stat boosts.

finally a day where i can roleplay my character who likes qel without people metagaming and assuming i'm a secret magicker

[MeTekillot]

Grebber's decoction. Triples your chance of forage and skinning success. Temporarily allows foraging food by any class. Unable to see farther than one room during the day. Functionally blind at night unless using a light source, regardless of ambient light. 66% penalty to ranged weapons use.
Her pupils are pinpricks and cyan tears dribble from her eyes.

Grappler's tonic. Cannot be disarmed. Double success of subdue rolls. Cannot remove anything wielded or held. Can only contain two items in inventory. Cannot use ranged weapons.
A pungent ichor seeps from their hands and arms.

Warrior's tonic. Recover health and stamina during combat. Recover stamina while standing. Double stamina regeneration. Health regeneration is limited to 70% outside of combat. You cannot sleep.
Their face is frozen in a stoic rictus and is bedecked in swaths of blue-tinged capillaries.

[Lotion]

You already regenerate health while in combat.

[mansa]

You already regenerate health while in combat.

You don't regenerate health while in combat.

(Unless you're sitting)

[Lotion]

mis

[Jihelu]

I think about it sometimes but I can't verbalize how much I'd enjoy more 'mundane dominance' (As it were) or at least expansion of what you can do without magic.

I was disappointed with what I was able to do with medicine, unable to expand the existing medical knowledge or push it further, and technology is...at a stand still.

It would be neat if there was more to mashing herbs together other than just cures, if there were other diseases worth a damn and the cure was more than 'Warm, spicy, whatever' (I don't have my cure doc on me so I have no idea if any of those three is even close to a cure).

I think expanding 'alchemy' farther than spice would be amazing.

I wanted to make a spice based liquid pain reliever that you injected into yourself via scorpion stinger once, for the extraordinarily wealthy or capable, that would use a recipe that was like...

Stinger syringe item + reagent 1 + reagent 2 + reagent 3 + reagent 4, requires frying pan + fire
Then the idea was to take that syringe item, unloaded, and you could use it for a variety of different medicines/concoctions. Some ranging from helpful to perhaps even harmful, or perhaps even a 'humane' way to die (Or execute someone)

Tl;DR I'm salty staff wouldn't let me make a syringe one time.

[Barsook]

I love these suggestions in this thread because I do enjoy that mundane dominance and I could see this as a plot hook for the North as a way for a possibly coded clan to get started for 'gick hunters. And more Kuraci products.

[sleepyhead]

Wouldn't gicks be able to use this just as easily? I figured this would have been addressed, so I'm sorry if I missed this being solved upthread. And if it didn't work on magickers, wouldn't people just use it as a test?

[Barsook]

Ummmm......

...

Good point.

Maybe have negative side effects on 'gicks?

[Jihelu]

Spice does come from the silt and the silt does fuck with magic so it makes sense in my brain for spice to fuck with magic

[Barsook]

Valid point, that, but does it codely? If not, it needs to be in game.

[triste]

Some spice does affect your finger wiggling abilities FOIC

[Lotion]

Spice does come from the silt and the silt does fuck with magic so it makes sense in my brain for spice to fuck with magic

spice comes from more than just the silt, there just happens to be spice in silt

[MeTekillot]

I specifically said that they be only craftable by Kurac to serve as the bottleneck to prevent them from falling into the hands of magickers easily.

[sleepyhead]

I specifically said that they be only craftable by Kurac to serve as the bottleneck to prevent them from falling into the hands of magickers easily.

I did see that. I guess I just don't think that'd be enough of a preventative measure against magickers getting their wiggly little fingers on this stuff. I love the ideas though.

[MeTekillot]

the idea was not created with the intention that magickers are completely unable to use it. I'm still of the opinion that magic should be a wonky, ridiculous, overpowered force to interact with. I just think adding another Avenue for mundanes to empower themselves that isn't just some stat boosts and isn't also just magick would add a lot to the interactions among themselves and with magickers.

[Brokkr]

You already regenerate health while in combat.

You don't regenerate health while in combat.

(Unless you're sitting)

The days of intentionally missing a bash so you could regen your health are long gone.

You only regen health in combat when you have just killed something, something else is still attacking you, but you have not had an offensive round of combat directed at them yet.

[Jihelu]

You already regenerate health while in combat.

You don't regenerate health while in combat.

(Unless you're sitting)

The days of intentionally missing a bash so you could regen your health are long gone.

You only regen health in combat when you have just killed something, something else is still attacking you, but you have not had an offensive round of combat directed at them yet.

Brokrr I don't know if you know this but...we aren't missing bash so we can regen health.

[Lotion]

I'm missing a bash so that I can increase my bash skill.

I swear I've regenned in a 1v1 scenario recently. I'll keep my eyes peeled and try to recreate similar situations and make a bug report request about it.

Back on topic, I don't think spice potion will solve the perceived problem here. When someone apps a sorc or psi they are expected to do that shit very soon, I think a similar attitude should be applied to aspect mages.

[Brokkr]

You already regenerate health while in combat.

You don't regenerate health while in combat.

(Unless you're sitting)

The days of intentionally missing a bash so you could regen your health are long gone.

You only regen health in combat when you have just killed something, something else is still attacking you, but you have not had an offensive round of combat directed at them yet.

Brokrr I don't know if you know this but...we aren't missing bash so we can regen health.

Jihelu I don't know if you know this but...until about 20 years ago, if you missed a bash you would regen health while sitting, leading to amusing situations like sitting for half the fight during sparring.

[Riev]

You already regenerate health while in combat.

You don't regenerate health while in combat.

(Unless you're sitting)

The days of intentionally missing a bash so you could regen your health are long gone.

You only regen health in combat when you have just killed something, something else is still attacking you, but you have not had an offensive round of combat directed at them yet.

Brokrr I don't know if you know this but...we aren't missing bash so we can regen health.

Jihelu I don't know if you know this but...until about 20 years ago, if you missed a bash you would regen health while sitting, leading to amusing situations like sitting for half the fight during sparring.

I don't know if you know this, but I would do it because I'd get hit more and hit things less. Also, barrier would stay up so people would leave me alone.

Did not know I could have been regenning health that whole time. But I haven't even been here 20 years, so I missed that boat. #bringBackSunbackTails

On topic: I don't know if mundane-only potions is really the way to go about it. I was always fine with mundanes being able to drop a full-guild magicker specifically because they had superior mundane skills. They just had to catch the magicker unawares or without protections up.

The only way to make mundanes answer to magickal dominance is to either limit the amount of magicker PCs in some way (no thank you) or showcase more 'mundane' plots that don't require someone who can throw fireballs and create villages out of the sand.

[MeTekillot]

I'm not suggesting mundane-only potions.

[Lotion]

the idea was not created with the intention that magickers are completely unable to use it.

[MeTekillot]

Are you agreeing with me?

[Lotion]

I'm not suggesting mundane-only potions.

the idea was not created with the intention that magickers are completely unable to use it.

These statements are contradictory.

[sleepyhead]

I'm not suggesting mundane-only potions.

the idea was not created with the intention that magickers are completely unable to use it.

These statements are contradictory.

I think your eyes may be skipping over the 'not' in the second one, Lotion

[MeTekillot]

[Lotion]

that not did not exist until now, i call witchcraft

[MeTekillot]

Wayward poultice. Cannot Way. Cannot be contacted on the Way. Cannot cast magick spells. Cannot improve skills. As well, you will occasionally fail to speak or understand all languages, known or otherwise.
The veins at their temples are a solid black and their gaze seems a touch vacant.

[Jihelu]

I would probably advocate for/design two different ones. One being anti-psionic, and making your brain weak, and another being anti-magic (Maybe weakening your strength or something else in the process)

[Fredd]

I like the idea of spice mixing for unique effects, and spice being a good deterrent against magick in ways more creative then stat boosts.

finally a day where i can roleplay my character who likes qel without people metagaming and assuming i'm a secret magicker

That's funny, cause most Qel users are crafters. LOL