Monday, May 28, 2012

Drinking in Denethix


 What good is carousing without Fantastic Booze? -1D4, 1D6, 1D10 or 1D20 - A dive bar is likely to have a D4 or D6 selection (roll once per patron and don't ignore repeats). Better bars will use a D8, D10 or even a D20. It's also useful as treasure, many creatures are more likely to have some hooch than a gemstone. Heck, a case of cheap beetle whiskey is worth 12GP.


# Roll a D20 to know what you're drinking or want to know what's available. All per drink prices are average and bottle prices are carry-away. Triple them and feel like a big man for bottle service.
1 Mold Ale – tastes of mold, comes in bright colors and makes colors brighter. A Gansett import and not as strong as the 'real' stuff (it might just be watered down?) – roll under CON + 3 or vomit uncontrollably, embarrassing oneself and ending the night – 2cp a pint/1sp for a 6 pint growler.
2 Fungus Beer – Not to be confused with Mold Ale, it actually tastes decent, if earthy. It's brewed just about everywhere - 5cp a pint/2sp for a 6 pint growler.
3 Ichthyomoth Pale Ale – A strong beer made from barley, malt, seaweed and the marrow of giant seabeasts. 7Cp a pint/3sp for a 6 pint growler.
4 Beetle Whiskey – A Certopsian favorite, light, bright red in color and smokey in flavor. The better brands (such as Moktar's Ruin or Zienzhart's Clarified Revivifier) leave the beetle casings as ½” layer on the bottom of the bottle to prove authenticity. 1sp a shot /1gp bottle. “Single Molts” are available, but more costly – 1gp to 150gp a bottle.
5 Grub Whiskey – Not to be confused with Beetle Whiskey, Certopsians generally hate this Livid Fen product, some of them with a violent passion. It's sweeter and peatier than beetle whiskey and tends toward orange not red. 1sp a shot /1gp bottle.
6 Purple Lightning – Supposedly brewed by a wizard somewhere off to the Northwest, this liquor is tasty, potent and stains the lips violet. It has been arriving in Denethix in increasing amounts and appears to be subsidized by its maker for unknown reasons. It's mostly safe but if more than 4 drinks of it are consumed in a night the drinker must save vs. spells or have strange visions, most often a purple robed figure, who occasionally scrutinizes or even whispers suggestions to the hallucinating drunkard 1sp shot or mixed drink/8sp a bottle.
7 Waste Gin – Searingly potent alcohol from the Worthless North, so high in alcohol content that it evaporates in the mouth. It's a much cheaper alternative to lamp or medicinal alcohol when it's pure, which is most of the time. When it's not (10% for each new bottle opened) it's save vs. poison or 1- Vomit for 1D6 days 2- Blindness 3 – Paralysis of a random limb 4- Death. It's traditional on opening a new bottle to give the first drink to a random halfling (halfling PC's should beware of going into bars where Waste Gin is served). 3 sp a shot/2 gp a bottle
8 Goblin Shots – Supposedly this potent, sickly sweet filth is purchased from goblins, while “why” is the obvious question it'll get you drunk fast, has an exotic cache and leads to pleasant dreams. Still it has side effects – roll under CON -1 or spend the next 1D4 hours giggling and planning mischief – 3sp a shot/15sp a bottle . No one knows what's in it, but it does burn well, with a green flame.
9 Bark Liquor – A popular spirit amongst woodsman and others with a need to get drunk and a high tolerance for piney smells. In fact this drink is so strongly scented that everyone in a 10' area will know you've been drinking it for the rest of the day. -1 to surprise rolls while it sweats out of your system. 3sp a drink/2gp a bottle
10 Meat Stout – A hearty beer made with fermented meats. A veritable meal in a glass. Oily fat slick on the surface and a taste like fermented meat. It is notoriously hard to distill and has a fair following amongst those with pretensions of sophisticated taste. 4sp a pint/15sp for a 6 pint growler.
11 Snake Squeezins – Very strong liquor flavored primarily by the emanations and excretions of the undead snake in the bottle. The snake can't easily get out and is usually dormant, unless the bottle is shaken (the traditional method of serving). The undead snakes always have a very bad hangover and immediately attack if the bottle is left open for more then three rounds or broken. Bottle snakes are invariably poisonous – making discarded empties especially dangerous. 1gp a mixed drink or shot/ 6gp a bottle
12 Cactus Wine - Fine vintages of fermented cactus wine are hard to find, but some truly amazing ones exists - the golden barrel cactus blends from '24, '27 and '32 spring to mind. A mildly intoxicating beverage with a bit of class. 5Sp – 5gp a glass, bottles vary wildly, average quality is 2gp.
13 Scale Brandy – Clarified Cactus Wine spirits, aged in wood earthen pits partially filled with dinosaur moltings. The best Scale Brandy tastes dry and mineral, like good clay, while the worst reeks of rotting reptile meat and tastes of mud soaked dead lizard. Traditionally a dinosaur scale placed in each bottle along with a pickled dinosaur tick. It's considered very manly to finish the bottle and eat the tick – but even pickled dinosaur parasites are a bad idea. A drinker eating the tick has a 10% chance of contracting a stomach parasite that will subtract 1 CON a day and cause terrible pain. Each day the afflicted may roll a save vs. poison to expel the parasite, but at 0 CON will die terribly if he has not. CON returns at 1 point per day after cure. 2sp - 5sp a shot/1 - 5gp per bottle.
14 Untergraad – A liquor made popular by students and modeled after the medical/scientific alcohol commonly pilfered from laboratories. It's often flavored with herbs and it's alcohol content is both very high and incredibly constant. Drinks are usually poured to weight of imbiber. A skilled bartender can push a Untergraad drinker to the very edge of riotously drunk with a measured dose. Roll under you WIS (luck here) on a D20. A failed roll means the bartender judged your weight wrong – treat as a failed carousing roll. 1gp a drink/5gp a bottle
15 Necromantic Arrak – A magical spirit that looks like earth oil and radiates slight cold. Supposedly useful for speaking to the dead (though how to convince the dead to drink is unanswered), this drink has an evil reputation. It's source is unknown, but the best known brands are “Pharaoh’s Hand” and “Obituary Charcoal Filtered”. Getting drunk on Arrak will sometimes (save v. poison) result in seeing ghosts, real or imagined and they will be everywhere. 2gp a mixed drink/ 8gp a small bottle.
16 VSLOPP – The source of the name is unknown, and this fine liquor is sometimes called “Fresh Brandy” and it's made from berries,grapes or hearts of palm and then aged in ancient wooden casks deep in the city underfoot city for 5 – 500 years. Brandy from a well known cask or location can fetch much higher prices than the ones listed, so brandy stockpilers/distillers have been known to go to unsavory lengths to get the best spots and casks. 3 - 50 gp a partially full tumbler or 20 – 400 gp a bottle.
17 Dwarven Gaming Drink – Also known a Gambles, Dwarven drinking is apparently highly ritualistic in the home warrens, but the only drink dwarves export is this concoction (also known to dwarves as child's' gin) while they presumably keep the better/harder stuff at home. Gambles is a barley-wine brewed from phosphorescent lichens. After drinking a bottle (it is sold as imported in sealed stone bottles) the mouth, eyes, ears and nostrils of the drinker will glow for 2 -8 hours. The light from a yawning Gambles drinker will illuminate a 10' square and makes reading easy. The drinker will also likely (check vs. CON +1) be rather drunk, prone to singing and stumbles. 4GP a bottle (never more never less – it's very well regulated).
18 Colossomead – Mead from the honey of giant bees, thick and bubbly, but it tastes lovely and energizes rather than stupefies (that's slogan on the best known brand “Queen's Cup” anyway). It's a favorite of society ladies young and old. The first drink of the evening will cure 1-2 HP (In addition to any normal drinking effect). The Mead is very expensive due to high mortality amongst beekeeping slaves – 10 GP gets a dainty goblet full and a reputation for unmanliness. 100Gp for a thick decorative bottle (rare outside high class drinking establishments).
19 Grande Mdm. Deezalax's Moon Elixir - Comes in a novelty crystal bottle in the shape of a well rounded elf maiden, a gilt label featuring a stern looking elven grandmother, various wax seals with fake (ask an elf) signets and elvish stamped on them, and incomprehensibly phrased copy seemingly extolling the Elixir's properties: life prolonging, libido enhancing and maybe skin graying. It's clear this stuff is being heavily marketed, but unclear as to who it's being marketed towards. It's a light yellowish green and tastes like bitter fruit. Elves think it's a revolting bad joke. Has absolutely no special effects, but don't ruin the mystique – please appear to pour over this table and ask a drinker to roll multiple saves/ability rolls every time the Elixir is sipped.
8 GP for a measured shot (also found mixed in pretentious cocktails) from the small crystal cup attached to the bottle with a silver chain/ 150 GP a ridiculous bottle.
20 Wizard's Gold No. 7 – This stuff might not even get one drunk, it's thick and gold and supposedly distilled from magic. A tall flute of it will allow a magic user to immediately recall a random spell they have previously memorized (anything in the practitioner's spell-book, at random). However, the drinker must roll under INT -5 or the arcane deja vu will wipe out anything and everything else the mage has memorized. If more than two drinks of Wizard's Gold are consumed without at least 5hrs of rest the resulting hangover will prevent any casting for 24hours after the last drink. - 150 gp a flute/900gp a bottle and very rare. Non-magicians who drink this stuff just taste frozen fire and get the hiccups (30%).

My PC's are lushes, maybe my players are lushes, maybe it all goes together.  This table is a preview of sorts, as the party is currently delving into an abandoned brewery inhabited by cannibal halflings, a grunkie baiting pit, an elven drug lord and some very desperate poor people.

3 comments:

  1. In my campaign set in ASE favorite drink of PC's has been hallucinogenic cactus booze with giant poisonous centipede drowned in a bottle two to three feet in diameter.

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  2. Jonas, wish I'd thought of that! Sounds like a pretty upscale tipple though. My players have been moving in slightly better society since they looted a rocketman's tomb, so maybe they will run into this mucho-mescal/water of life some time soon. Glad you like the blog - yours makes me wish I could read Finnish.

    I will heed your warning and make sure the someone else weaponizes green slime first.

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  3. My players rose to ranks of nouveau riche by dealing cursed weaponry looted out of Boormanesque random encounter in wilderness. Money is spent like there would not be tomorrow, which fits well in their adventurer lifestyle.

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