A medicinal miscellany suggested by the Plague Doctor class, or that turned up in the research.
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| Gary Chalk/ Flight from the Dark/ 1984 |
No price tags attached, because the Plague Doctors will charge as much as they think you can afford - though not as much as for clerical healing (until they've safely toppled the temples).
Usual * for extra-optional.
Anaesthesia and Pain Relief.
These certainly put you in an Altered State.
Ether/Chloroform: roll 3d6 each round to beat unwilling patient's Constitution (or save vs. poison) to KO them for 1 hour; grapple/Strength to administer via rag or mask.
Patient cannot normally be woken by damage/pain while in effect.
Paralytic: equal to Ghoul's touch. Save vs. coma if two doses overlap.
It's optimistically described as an anaesthetic. At least the surgery can be performed undisturbed.
*If actually derived from Ghouls, recipients risk exposure to the corpse-eating sickness and/or rising as Ghouls if they die while under the effect.
Sleeping Draught: patient sleeps for 2d4 hours in 3d4 rounds; they are allowed a save each turn if resisting the effect (*slowed and immune to fear during this time).
Double dosing puts the save at disadvantage/penalty and a crit fail leaves the patient in a coma.
A triple dose is proof against nightmares, dream intrusion and spirit possession. While awake you are temporarily immune to non-lethal damage and are subject to post-hypnotic suggestion.
If you take 3 or more doses in a week, save vs. addiction. If you take 6 or more doses in a week, save vs. addiction at disadvantage/penalty.
If you take triple doses 3 or more times in a week, save vs. coma for each triple dose thereafter.
Double and triple doses are considered effective anaesthesia; a single dose is aftercare.
Soma: Commandeered from the Druids in the name of science. Makes you feel immortal.
A full dose has the following effects: halves non-lethal/subdual damage taken; -1 hp lethal damage per damage die; +4 save vs. stun, and fight on at 0 hp (to whatever is the negative hp limit used at your table), but make all Dexterity-based rolls at -4.
They will attempt to strip off their armour/clothes and drop their carried equipment if not restrained.
Lasts d3+1 hours.
If you take it 3 or more times in a week, save vs. each dose or lose 1 Constitution permanently.
You can take it twice in a day, but must save vs. hallucinations (or second sight). If you take it thrice, save vs. overdose at disadvantage/penalty (effects as for cough medicine, immoderately used, or purgative, plus Constitution loss).
A normal dose (barely a pinprick in a sugar pill) is enough to ease general aches, pains and fevers for d3+1 hours with no other mechanical effect. You couldn't fit enough pills in you to get anything resembling a full dose.
*Possibly derived from a dangerous and/or intelligent mushroom monster (e.g. Violet Fungi, Myconids).
Healing Herbs.
Whatever occurs naturally, that would be processed and prescribed by your setting's herbalists, folk healers and apothecaries, is potentially available to the Plague Doctors.
Some iterations of the Plague Doctor organisation will condemn folk remedies etc. as being superstitious nonsense, and/or perceive them and the practitioners to be a threat.
Healing Salve.
I generally think of healing salve as giving +1 to natural healing, even when active/adventuring (or doubling the effect). Even in a high(er) magic setting, it's a non-magical medical treatment.
You decide whether this stacks with or is already abstracted into the Plague Doctor's Treatment ability.
Or, if you prefer, the more potent version from 2e Sages & Specialists: 1 hp per day active/adventuring, d4 hp per day resting, d4+2 hp per day complete bed rest (*or these could be increments of efficacy, black mummia to alicorn to golden mummia).
Alicorn (Unicorn Horn): whether this actually contains any Unicorn will depend on your setting, but that's what it's branded as.
One dose is equal to a half-strength purify water spell (a 6-inch cube) and, applied to an infected wound, gives a new save vs. infection.
It's also an active ingredient of healing salve (see black mummia), though not necessarily in purity/concentration enough to purify water and fight infection in addition.
Black Mummia: extract of mummy (post-mortem process).
Touted as a general cure-all, but principally an active ingredient in healing salve.
If it has been harvested from an undead Mummy, after 1 week of use you must save vs. addiction.
Once addicted, you must save after each week of continued use or contract Mummy/Tomb Rot.
Once this kills you, you rise as one of the undead (d8; 1-5 Zombie, 6-7 Ghoul, 8 Mummy).
Golden Mummia: extract of mellified mummy (pre-, para- and post-mortem process).
Touted as a sovereign cure-all, but principally an active ingredient in healing salve.
It is no more effective than black mummia, but significantly more expensive and renowned.
If it has been harvested from an undead Mellified Mummy (approximately, Mummy + Adherer), after 3 consecutive uses you must save vs. addiction.
Once addicted, you must save every 3 uses or contract Honey Rot (as Mummy Rot, but also produce 2 pints of Killer Bee honey per day - anyone consuming this must save vs. disease).
Once this kills you, you rise as one of the undead (d8; 1-5 Ghost, 6-7 Mellified Mummy, 8 Vampire with bee affinity/abilities).
Prophylactics.
An ounce of prevention and all that.
Graverobber's Balm: goes by a number of other names, such as Four Thieves Vinegar.
Gives advantage/bonus to saves vs. disease for d6+6 turns. Additional doses extend duration, but are not cumulative.
It gives an additional small bonus (c. 5% or +1 or equivalent) to saves vs. diseases and parasites carried/spread by the undead.
*Depending on your setting assumptions, this could be applied to Ghoul paralysis, too.
Mithridate: advantage/bonus on saves vs. disease/poison for 3+d3 hours.
If doses are overlapped, you are nauseated for that time.
If you take theriac while taking mithridate, they neutralise each other.
Remedies.
Tried and tested. No snake oil here. Some of them might put you in an Altered State.
Cordial: new save vs. non-magical conditions (excluding disease and poison); +1 save vs. non-magical cold for d4+4 turns.
Once per night, a dose of cordial allows you to ignore the effects of fatigue for d4 turns. It will also delay the effect of sleeping draught for the same amount of time. Further doses feel restorative but have no mechanical effect.
More than 3 consecutive doses in 1 hour is emetic. Pace yourself.
Cough Medicine: gratifyingly effective.
Used immoderately, for d8 hours the patient suffers weakness, has second sight and must roll for astral/ethereal/psionic random encounters. Save vs. poison or lose 1 Constitution permanently.
Probably an opiate of some kind.
Elixir: restores patient to 1 hit point if at 0 hp/Casualty State, and/or down to -10 hp if administered within 6 rounds (use your judgment).
Gives advantage/bonus vs. aging damage and on non-magical death saves for 6+d6 turns.
Emboldening Vapours (Smelling Salts): immediate recovery from unconsciousness (including sleep) and nausea, and you get a new save vs. non-magical shock, stun, fear (including any secondary effects such as paralysis or weakness), and confusion.
It will restore 1 hp to someone currently reduced to 0 hp by non-lethal and/or subdual damage.
Patient is staggered (later-edition condition if no rules) for the round in which vapours are administered.
They may also ignore any effects of fatigue for the next d3 rounds, and each dose delays sleeping draught for 1 turn.
Emetic: if taken within half the onset time of ingested poison (or within 6 rounds if not using onset time), patient gets an extra/new save (or save at advantage/bonus).
You are nauseated for 2d6 rounds (as the later-edition Poisoned condition, if you don't have rules already).
Also works on some internal parasites, and could be ruled helpful vs. certain magical potions (and other consumables).
Nepenthe: medicine for sorrow and post-surgery trauma; patient must fail their save in order to forget (the last 24 hours, or 3d8 hours if you prefer dice rolling).
Combine with hypnotic suggestion to suppress specific memories
After the 3rd effective dose, patient must save vs. addiction (or use some rules for opiates).
Panacea: effective against any non-magical negative condition.
New save if administered while suffering (oral or injection).
Save at advantage/bonus if administered in the same round as the condition is bestowed/takes effect (injection only - Plague Doctors can do this automatically as long as they are not incapacitated/restrained and are within range; other characters must roll Dexterity or Initiative to do so).
Purgative: save vs. poison; success=weakness d6 hours, failure=sickness (as Centipede, Giant).
Even if you make the save, you're narratively shitting and puking for the duration.
Works on some poisons (see emetic) and some internal parasites, but it's mainly used as part of a general treatment programme (regardless of whether it's useful).
Allows a new save vs. addiction when you first become addicted.
Theriac: gives a new poison /venom save if administered within one-third of onset time (or within 6 rounds if not using onset times).
Multiple consecutive doses can be administered.
Supplements.
Not every discovery has a clear medical use.
Ambrosia (Beauty Cream): the economic cornerstone of the pharmacopeia.
One dose gives +1 to Comeliness, and if you use it consistently for 10 days, then daily thereafter, the bonus is +2.
As nobody uses Comeliness, this is meaningless.
*Source is 2e Sages & Specialists and it's a Charisma bonus (cf. philtre).
Aphrodisiac: it contains enough emboldening vapours (stimulant), nepenthe, sleeping draught and soma to make you think that it's doing something - particularly when taken in the appropriate circumstances (at a party, in the boudoir).
Social overuse mechanics can be reskinned drunkenness rules.
*Aphrodisiac is also a commercial euphemism for abortifacients, contraceptives and bogus fertility treatments.
Emboldening Vapours (Stimulant): ignore levels of fatigue for d6 hours at a cost of temp. -1 to Wisdom, Dexterity, Charisma per dose.
You can hold off fatigue for max. 36 hours before needing to save vs. d6 temp. Strength and Constitution damage per dose.
After 3 consecutive doses, save vs. addiction per dose.
Once the effect has worn off, you immediately suffer all levels of fatigue at once and you need +50% recovery time from normal.
Cancels out sleeping draught.
Philtre: once taken, the next person to communicate with you has 2d4 temp. Charisma (to you only) for the next 4+d4 turns.
Once the effect wears off, you can roll Intelligence to realise you were influenced. Even if you don't, prior low-regard for the influencer might be intensified by the sudden contrasts in Charisma.
This is no more effective that the friends spell.
Availability and distribution is clandestine, on a par with poison (and at least twice the price).
Spagyric: one dose will increase the effectiveness of 1 attribute of another pharmaceutical by 50%.
By itself, purgative.
Weird Alchemy.
The processes of extraction and production are jealously guarded secrets.
Luminiferous Ether: two substances in a vessel that, when mixed, produce a light source as good as a jar of glow worms that fades over d4 turns.
If you pay more, you can get one guaranteed to last 3 turns.
It is not extinguished by exposure to water, nor lack of air. It is not fire, so unaffected by magic etc. working on that element.
Counterintuitively for some, it does not contain/require phlogiston.
Manna ('Drow Lembas'): alchemical food that is instantly destroyed by exposure to sunlight.
Exposed to air, but kept in darkness, properly wrapped, it will last 60 days before disintegrating. Eat it darkness or low light conditions, quickly.
Lightweight and nutritionally dense (equal to one day's ration), it is not appetising. The same property that prevents it being poisoned, putrefied or diseased (including parasites) means it cannot be seasoned.
Kept in an unopened packet it is good for a year.
Manna is not a cost effective way to feed oneself, let alone end world hunger.
*It can be fed to constructs/undead to quell their appetite for human flesh/life energy, if it seems appropriate in context.
*The process of creation exposes the Plague Doctor to mild radiation poisoning.
Miasma: the quintessence of disease.
It has the general properties of stinking cloud cast at minimum level (3rd), plus exposure to the disease it is derived from.
Neutralised by universal solvent.
Phlogiston: the quintessence of flammability.
Exposed to air, it instantly burns up as bright flame, so can be used to dazzle or ignite low flash-point material.
It is unstable and cannot be stored for any length of time or in quantity in its elemental form.
Stored in airtight darkness, it deteriorates in 30+d20 days; 2d6 days once exposed to air and light.
Universal Solvent: discovered while attempting to develop a cheap substitute for holy water, this is a broad spectrum disinfectant, cleaning solution and weedkiller.
Applied directly to a wound, it causes 1 hp lethal damage but will neutralise any disease in there. It will also neutralise parasites and poison if administered in time (if no rules for this, then no later than the end of the next round).
It inflicts d8 lethal damage to plant, filth and disease monsters.
It is a poison if drunk (min. effect purgative) but there's no way you could disguise it in food or drink (effectively putrefying it).
It can be used to purify water, but makes it poisonous.
Commentary.
Nothing here is meant to be as good as or to directly compete with magical healing. That's the point.
None of them are magical of themselves (i.e. they do not detect as such), but they probably require a magical background environment to exist.
All can be administered as pills, potions, injections, and liquid, smoke or powder pumped into various bodily openings. Some can be smoked, whether or not mixed with newly-discovered, precious, life-sustaining tobacco.
For some more pseudo-historical/thematically appropriate general medicine, plus henbane, opium, and all the other good stuff in the doctor's bag, I direct you to the Ghastly Affair Presenter's Manual.
Same overall acknowledgements for source material as for the Plague Doctor.
I always liked that the Citadel/Warhammer Plague Elemental was a sub-type of Air Elemental (and the Life and Death Elementals as sub-types of Earth) - at least until they were re-branded as daemons.
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| Tony Ackland/ L - R: Life, Death and Plague Elementals, plus Balrog (Baalrukh?) |
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