Saturday, March 30, 2019

THE DEAMON DRINK (d8 and d6 Random Beverages)

Recently I had my players in a bar, as you often have your players.
 They asked me what was on tap, or if they could see a cocktail menu.
"uhhhhhhhhh"
 Like an IDIOT, I hadn't planned farther ahead than beer or ale.
Never again.
Here's a list of booze with a little lore (and some historical rants) to go along with, but as always, take whatever you want.

"Mundane" Beverages: Only minor magical effects at best.
  1. IMB Special Reserve: The Iron, Misery, and Blood Corporation is a terrible, East Indian Tea company-esque organization run amok. This hyper-manufactured, watery beer is the only drink served in areas they control, and the only beer their employees are allowed to drink. Wise barkeeps in zones near contested corporate zones keep bottles of this stuff around, in case a party of executives decide to visit. Not only does it avoid class-action lawsuits, but you can just kinda fill it with whatever, no corporate slave would dare make a comment about it tasting different (better) to his boss.
  2. A Cut of Purity: A melted chunk of an iceberg, taken from the very, very cold north, outside Polis, home to the Temple of Law, one of the most boring and bureaucratic places on earth. It's simply the purest water on the planet, which stays permanently chill. Devils find this extremely intoxicating, but for most humanoids it has little effect other than the being the drink of choice for designated drivers or un-fun Lawful Goods.
  3. Last Empress Absinthe: Absinthe is an anise flavored liqueur that many say tastes like licorice (though personally I
    Albert Maignan, La Muse Verde
    find it a bit more complex than that) You may have heard stories of Absinthe being hallucinogenic, however if you were to try some today, you would be pretty disappointed. The old school absinthe was often made in a toilet, and had all kinds of fun ingredients, like embalming fluid. It was extras like that which was making french artists to go mad in the streets. And when the good constable demanded to know the reason behind your drunken relatively? Were you gonna say you were drinking toilet hooch? No, the green fairy made you do it. By the way, Last Empress Absinthe is a toilet hooch that is totally loaded with all types of crazy shit. Fort save or black out, and wake up in some sort of trouble of the GM's choosing.
  4. Hanlon's Mushroom Wine: Distilled from pulped mushrooms from your local cave, underdark society, or post-apocalyptic moon wasteland. Murky, awful, and viscous, but the fungi particles seem to stick to your stomach, keeping you blissfully drunk for far longer than your standard libation.
  5. Rose Brandy: in some corners of Oris, the rapid industrialization which has ruined all creativity in wheat beverages and forced people into drinking things that make them go blind/lame (see #3 or here) has not touched parts of the world. Here the craft of making alcohol is still celebrated in style. Villagers in the north, near the lands of the Burning Dove still celebrate tasting days, where they gather around their stills and taste the product gradually until its ready. (This tends to take all day, for some reason) In many ways is analogous to the craft beer/liquor movements we see popping up all over the place. 
  6. Salt of The Earth: A fermented drink made from dark bread. Worm-like grubs that produce ethanol are introduced to intensify the alcohol content. Any good brand will have a single (still living) grub left at the bottle. 
  7. Goblin Vomit: They keep 'em in the basement, feed 'em lots of sugar. The worst beverage.
  8. Och're Valley: Expensive tasting wine, though never goes for more than a few gold. Crushed cherry and chocolate-like flavors, medium body. Good starting wine.  At one point, the Cult of The Burning Dove banned all alcohol in their territories, and proceeded to burn down every vineyard. One family pleaded clemency when the inquisitors came to their chateau. Their son, they said, was a minor warrior saint. He came home from a great battle mortally wounded, and his blood soaked into the ground. Eventually, the blooded soil began to grow grape vines. The inquisitors were moved, and thus the oldest vineyard in Oris still exists today. When drunk it tends to remove inhibitions more drastically than other, in excess compared to other alcohol. Quaffed in large amounts, total ego-death, in the Jungian sense. 

Magical Beverages: These are pretty rare, only one per bar, or alternatively, as treasure. 
Picasso, Table in A Cafe
  1. The Firebreath Challenge: A supremely spicy beverage, which burns the throat somethin' fierce. There is no flavor here, only pain. Anyone who wishes to pay 10gp to try the drink are told they only win if they can down the beverage without a cold glass of milk as a chaser. If they agree, tell them they take 1d4 burning damage, and that the pain feels like it's about to get worse. Ask them if they'd like to give in and drink the milk. They will likely refuse. Then deal them 1d6 damage, inform them, again, that the pain is only getting worse, and if they'd like to drink the milk. Continue this, going up the standard dice, d8, d12, telling them again and again that they feel as if they are RISKING DEATH. Go up to 1d20, 2d20, and 1d100 and higher. If they stay in until their hit points are gone, inform them that the world goes black as they lose consciousness. Of course, the damage is not actually lethal, but they shouldn't know that until after they drop. The contest is one of bravery, the drink knocks everybody out if they don't drink the milk. Victory gives the winner a fire-breath usable 1/day, dealing a 1d6 per their level.  The culinary magic only works within the surprise of the first drinker.  Or something. We can't have the whole party buffing themselves if only one of them isn't a wuss.
  2. Downwards Dark Azure: A blue beverage that tastes of seltzer and math class.  The next game of chess you play, you will always play the (statistically) most perfect move. During it's effect,  you are also extremely allergic to a specific blend of copper and pure silver, which is what most chess-playing wizards make their pieces out of since the invention of the drink.
  3.  Life of The Party: A contract in beverage form. The clay bottle should be buried when not in use, preferably in a urn filled with holy-water blessed dirt. (This also keeps the drink nice and cool). Under no circumstances should you allow the drink to breath. Pour it into a cup, quickly, and note how the amber liquid makes small etchings onto the glass. This is a contract, and finishing the beverage acts as signing it. You have now allowed a devil to possess you for a full 24 hours. Why? Because this type of devil is, as the name would suggest, really fun to be around. Excellent at dancing, skilled at every manner of party games, knowledgeable in every form of revelry from high class soiree to crusty blood orgy. While possessed you are guaranteed to entertain, but make sure you have friends watching your body, as the devil WILL try to get you into as much trouble as possible. 
  4. The Shot: Take a bar straw and poke it through a napkin so it's going through the top and the bottom. Then, take the heavy, almost pudding like liquor and roll it around the inside of a glass, coating it. Pour excess into shot glass. Light the coated glass on fire, (it burns fast) and then slam it down onto the shot glass, trapping the burning alcohol. Then use your straw/napkin combo to inhale the fumes. You get very inebriated and also wind up with a small Ethanol Elemental, summoned during the process. Ethanol Elementals can act as either Water or Air Elementals, as Ethanol is a volatile compound. They have the same stats as standard elementals of their type, but are always flammable and are good at getting people shitfaced. 
  5. The Miracle: Very expensive, only a bottle is made a year, in a hidden monastery by very drunk and happy monks. A clear fluid that comes in tiny dropper bottles, for even a small amount of this holy water can turn an entire lake's worth of water into a sweet, but otherwise excellent wine. 
  6. Not Love: Black, bitter, uncomfortably cold, dessert liquor. Normally this is a mundane, and bad liquor, however if the drinker harbors dark and toxic feelings of unrequited love, something else happens: The imbiber will vomit forth a long, inky,  mess, which forms on the ground as a two-dimensional serpent.This thing will hound the drinker's object of twisted love. The thing is a stalker, it will never harm the one it follows, but instead kill anything it comes into contact with. It slides along walls and floors, sneaks up your leg, and bleeds through your veins like a acid-tattoo. To stat: Find the mental ability score (INT, WIS or CHA) with the highest difference between  the drinker and the person they love, and that number is Not Love's Hit Die and Attack Bonus. Additionally, the higher this number, the more intelligent Not Love is, a 1 or a 2 means it will attack recklessly, but any more and it is more tactical. With 5+ the object of Not Love's stalking may never know it exists, even as people around them disappear. 
The Name of this Thing is ____

HD: (See above) Attack: Bite (See above)

AC: Leather (High DEX)

Movement: 2D Slithering, 40'

On a successful attack, Not Love attaches to the skin of it's target like a tattoo, and begins to poison it.  1 CON/turn in damage. Also, each turn it is attached, target must make a will save or blurt out heinous and cruel lies about the drinker of Not Love's obsession. Not Love can be attacked while attached to someone, but damage is halved between Not Love and the person wearing it.

I Don't Want To Hurt You: The blood of Not Love's stalking target acts as if it was acid, and if it was on a person at the time, that person would not split the damage with Not Love. 

2D: Can only move through connected flat surfaces, like walls and floors. Can only attack creatures who are touching a flat surface shared with Not Love. This means levitation is a good counter, and if you could somehow trap Not Love on a floating platform or wall, it's fucked. 

After drinking Not Love, the drinker will feel better, almost forgetting their twisted obsession. Almost. The feelings will return within a few hours, much worse. So they will likely drink Not Love again, and again, and again.