Anti-Magic Poison?

[Kugar]

I'm running this threadline in my campaign:

Orcs mine strange metal that has antimagic properties.
It is brokered to a Yaun-ti assasin's guild to make a poison.
In addition to the normal posion effect, the person is affected by anti-magic untill the person metabolizes the venom (if you die the poison stays in the body)
Said person cannot be raised.

I ran an adventure in the Orc city/mines. And the party cut off suppies of the metal - for now. Now I have an assasin's guild with a limited supply of this poison. Besides killing off famous personas what do you think they would do with it?

I'm hoping for something so treatening that the PCs will be renowned as heroes for stopping it, maybe even as a set-up for things to come. I'm looking for EVIL and genius here.

Thanks.
Kugar

 

[ninjajester]

what about simultaneous assassinations of all the rulers in a certain area, followed by massive slaving raids in that area?

or how about targeting all the upper level clerics in the area? take out the ones who can cast resurrect and you don't need any more of the poison.

raids against various mage guilds and magical libraries/storehouses might work also. take out the magic using guards with the poison, then steal all the powerful magic items.

 

[Master of Monkeys]

Non-magic so it can't be healed?

Simple answer, really. Leach the blood out of the subject in to a jar (only enough so they live). Teleport the blood in to another jar, the non-magic part stays, somehow teleport the blood back in the subject. Rinse, repeat.

Your poison was done in the book called Comryr (I don't know how to spell that and spellcheck just exploded when I tried it).

 

[Kugar]

Thanks,
I like the
assasinate all the clerics in an area capable of resurrecting idea.

The idea is something from my college campaings - really it's one of the easiest. ways to make assainations stick at high levels besides getting into soul sucking magics . I'd be surprised if it hasn't been done in hundreds of campaigns.

Really the plot line is winding down and I'm looking to tie it up so I need a real motivater for the party. Having the leader of a PC church targeted will do well but it's ashame to just let the material die afterwards.

I was looking for some really good future hooks or deeds that will make the PCs notice the world, since they chose to flee the Orc city before destroying thier stash. Like sometime in the future have an orc be responcible for destroying an major eternal elven tree home with this poison. Something very visible instead of skulking assasinations for a change.

Kugar

 

[Warchild]

Its hard to come up with something without having some info on the setting and background info. What setting do you use, what are the basics of it??

 

[ninjajester]

perhaps a diluted form of the poison could be introduced into the water supply for a region. it wouldn't be enough to kill healthy adults, but it could cause a slight sickness and nausea, and the anti magic effects could be such that magic becomes unreliable; sometimes it works fine, sometimes it doesn't work at all, and and sometimes it works at half or even quarter strength. this could be a precursor to a mass invasion by some type of race that doesn't use magic.

what about having an alchemist get hold of the poison and alter it so that anyone who drinks it gains magic resistance or magic immunity or even an anti magic touch ability. think of a cadre of elite assassins with the ability to negate any magic effect by touching whatever physical object the effect is tied to.

the poison could also be used to systematically kill off certain species of magical creatures. this might be a stretch, but maybe certain creatures (treants, basilisks, faeries) require magic to live, and when the magic is gone, they either devolve to a less advanced state or die. if they die, this could be used to seriously disrupt the ecosystem, or introduce dangerous new predators to an area.

how would the anti magic poison affect creatures that have been petrified? maybe a very powerful adversary was petrified long ago in order to stop it's ravages. maybe it was petrified because it was impossible to kill, or because attacking it with weapons only made it stronger, or caused it to multiply. it would be very bad if this uber powerful creature who was petrified hundreds of years ago was un stoned, so to speak. maybe no one remembers the creature anymore, so no one knows how to defeat it or even what it can do.

hmm. didn't mean to ramble. just brainstorming. i think you've got an idea with tremendous potential here.

 

[Kugar]

Thanks again!!

Great stuff.

I'm running FR (only because the players wanted the power boost for a change). I just wanted to brainstorm a little.

ninjajester - cool ideas!!
I'm thinking of one or two bound / cursted beings that could be revived - the anti-petrification is a stroke of brilliance!

I could also see an acre big orchard planted on top of a general area of imprisoned bad guy being watered with a diluted version of the poison. - That should make the players scratch their heads.

I was also thinking of having the orc chieftan forsake Grummish and become a forsaker from MotW - using a weapon made with the base material down the road.

This is shaping up to be a good mini-campaign!!

 

[Warchild]

perhaps a diluted form of the poison could be introduced into the water supply for a region. it wouldn't be enough to kill healthy adults, but it could cause a slight sickness and nausea, and the anti magic effects could be such that magic becomes unreliable; sometimes it works fine, sometimes it doesn't work at all, and and sometimes it works at half or even quarter strength. this could be a precursor to a mass invasion by some type of race that doesn't use magic.

I like this water supply idea. They could also use it to try to infect an entire region (judicious use and major water supplies - rivers, etc) and wipe out an entire regions production of magic users. Imagine anyone drinking the water and becoming magic dead. That'll mess up any region's prosperity, most definitely that goes double for the FR setting.
Can you imagine this happening to Waterdeep?? Not only losing their current wizards, but also wiping ou the possiblity for future generations!! nice.

 

[Derulbaskul]

You may be interested to know that there was an adventure in one of the last 2E Dungeon magazines called the Nest of Vipers (IIRC) in which "dead magic" poison was being manufactured within a dead magic zone by a cleric of Talona.

As for its effects on faerie etc..., try the old High Level Campaigns sourcebook which had a table listing the effects on various creatures of a lower (or higher) magic level for a particular world.

Cheers
NPP