HMS Apollyon - Drugs emerge from actual play...

Ghost Salt - HMS Apollyon

Cowboy beset by ghosts - Z. Binks

Last night's session aboard the HMS Apollyon was primarily an epic battle between the part, a NPC party (who were decimated) and a roving force of "war dead" zombies.  I never threw the wraiths in because the zombie war-machine managed to scare people enough and the 20ish 3HD zombies were hard enough to kill.

Unrefined Ghost Salt
hallucinogenic/necromantic
Dose: 3/gram
Value: 50GP/gram
Onset: 1-6 rounds (1-6 minutes)
Duration: 2D12 turns (20min - 4hrs)

Appearance: Grey granular flakes of salt like crystals.  For all intents Ghost Salt is sea salt, only infused with supernatural power.  It can be ground finely into a greyish powder (sometimes to cut it with regular salt).  It's only distinctive feature is the that rather than the briny smell of sea salt ghost salt has the faint scent of decay beneath sharp smell of sea ice.


Effects:  Ghost Salt, when it enters the blood stream increases the user's sensibility to necromantic energies, though not in a predictable manner. On powerful 'trip' allows the user to see reflections of all who have died nearby, usually as vague misty shapes or even more recognizable shades.  These shades and ghost emanations completely immaterial, not dangerous, and totally beyond any kind of interaction (even protection spells and turning have no effect) with the material world.  In places of mass death or long habitation they can be very numerous however and quite distracting. Additionally while under Ghost Salt's effect the user can see non-corporeal undead, even if they are invisible.

Mechanical Effect: Upon ingestion the character rolls a save vs. poison.  On a success they feel mild euphoria and nothing much happens, while on a failure the character becomes woozy (-1 to all rolls) but can see spectral emanations and the invisible undead.  On a critical failure (a 1) the user dies of an overdose and raises as a War Wraith (5HD wraith) the next day.

Sources:  War Wraiths (recent wraiths of those who have died by violence - primarily refugees and soldiers from the great retreat) and possible other incorporeal undead leave behind trails of ghost salt which can be collected. Chambers where they congregate may be encrusted with the stuff, and if the spectral residents can be avoided are quite valuable.  Ghost Salt use is a crime aboard the Apollyon as it is "consorting with the abdead" and punishable by a a long hard labor sentence in the canning factories.  Sale of Ghost Salt for illicit purposes is punishable by eviction into the hull or into the sea. 

 Legitimate Uses: Ghost salt can be refined, losing it's intoxicating properties but becoming a useful ward against the undead.