Brainstorming: a drug for devils

[Douglas Muir 406]

Like most outsiders, devils are immune to poisons and thus to drugs. But what if they weren't?

Plot seed: long ago, a powerful protean with an odd sense of humor got interested in the affairs of devils. Such tedious creatures, and yet amusing in their way. And their endless fascination with mastery and control... surely there were some possibilities for entertainment here? This particular protean had a secondary interest in the plant life of the prime material plane...

Devil Mint is a small, rather ordinary looking perennial herb with waxy leaves and small violet flowers. It grows best in warm temperate or subtropical climates and doesn't need much water. It's not edible to humans, nor particularly toxic, either. Careful sniffing (DC 15 Perception) will pick up that it has a strange, fleeting odor that is literally impossible to describe in any mortal language, and a Detect Chaos spell will find that a mature plant has a faint chaotic aura. Otherwise there is absolutely nothing unusual about this plant... to humans.

To devils, though, it has an effect rather similar to that of catnip on cats. A devil that comes within 30' of the plant will smell it and will instantly be aware of it and attracted to it. (There's no Will save -- it's an attraction, not a compulsion -- but the devil will certainly be intrigued and may become distracted.) A devil that eats a single leaf of Devil Mint gains increased alertness and insight accompanied by euphoric waves of megalomaniacal confidence. Lesser devils find the stuff incredibly addictive, and even more powerful fiends have been known to fall to its effects. Unfortunately, in addition to being addictive, over time it dramatically degrades the user's competence and judgment. As a result, it's been outlawed in Hell, and there's a standing order to exterminate the entire species right down to the last seed and root. But it's a hardly little thing that has spread far across the Material Plane. And devils -- themselves the great tempters of the multiverse -- may find themselves irresistibly tempted to try just one little nibble...

Drug stats for Devil Mint:

Type ingested; Addiction major, Fortitude DC 20 Price n/a Effects 1 hour; +2 to Reflex saves, +2 alchemical bonus to Perception, immunity to all Fear effects; Damage 1 Wis drain.

Hell has gone to some trouble to eliminate knowledge of Devil Mint, so it's a DC 29 Knowledge (Nature) or (Planes) check to know about it. Diabolists and those who traffic with devils sometimes seek it out, but this is very risky. Hell's version of the War On Drugs doesn't fool around with civil liberties or warning shots. A mortal caster who thinks it's clever to grow a garden of Devil Mint in order to ease negotiations with Hell is very likely to wake up one morning as an expanding cloud of plasma, courtesy of multiple cornugon fireballs (cast from a safe distance upwind, of course).

-- Mind, devils being devils, it's not quite as simple as that. Some powerful devils quietly make sure they have access to Devil Mint! After all, you never know when you might need to weaken an enemy... or frame one.

Comments? Thoughts?

Doug M.

[Wise Old Man]

I think cinnamon is more devilish than a mint. Aside from that, I don't know what to think of this. Is this a joke?

[Douglas Muir 406]

Wise Old Man wrote:

I think cinnamon is more devilish than a mint. Aside from that, I don't know what to think of this. Is this a joke?

No, it's a plot seed. Why is some mysterious stranger offering you a no-kidding Wish in return for torching some old druid's garden? On your last adventure, you picked up a nearly worthless healing kit with some dusty old dried leaves inside; why is it (and you) suddenly the focus of some really alarming extraplanar attention? You made a deal with a devil a while back; now he's shown up again and he's behaving /really strangely/. What's that about?

There are good reasons that the game doesn't allow most poisons and drugs to work on outsiders. But sometimes an exception can take you in some interesting directions. Imagine a classic "drug deal gone bad" plot, with violent dealers, desperate junkies, crooked cops, two-faced informers, and vastly corrupt DEA agents... except that now some of the players are devils... and the PCs are caught in the middle.

So that's basically my question: does this seem interesting? Or, kinda stupid? If the former, how could it be tweaked to make it better; if the latter, is it fixable?

cheers,

Doug M.

[Wise Old Man]

The whole idea sounds kind of bizarre to me. Are you sure your players would be interested playing in a drug infested campaign?

[Douglas Muir 406]

-- The druid's garden: the druid is, all unknowing, the major supplier for a powerful devil. A local witch serves as a go-between: she claims the herbs are the only thing for her rheumatism. The old druid thinks she's deluded -- he knows for a fact that the plant has no medicinal value -- but she's a kindly old gossip who always brings along a baked dish or a really tasty pie, so he shakes his head and plays along.

The witch is in fact a malevolent souleater. She's being paid in both gold and soul gems. (Paid well -- her WBL is PC, not NPC.) The witch watches over the druid very carefully -- his product is extremely high quality (even though he thinks it's useless, he tends it with loving care) and he's making her both rich and powerful.

The witch's buyer is a powerful Belier Devil. The leech-like Belier doesn't touch the stuff himself, but he's become a powerful dealer who has several other devils in a stranglehold of addiction and blackmail. Of course, Hell being Hell, the Belier has rivals. One of those rivals has has, with great difficulty, discovered the source of the nearly legendary "blue leaf". Rather than claim it himself, he wants to destroy it; the Belier's victims will then turn on him, bringing him down. The rival could simply expose the connection to Hell's secret police... but the Belier may have informants even there. No, better to have some plucky adventurers blunder in. That's always plausible.

The devil will have some convincing cover story for the adventurers. Maybe the druid is secretly evil and is growing some awful death-spores in his garden, or some such! And there's a prophecy that says only the sacrifice of a Wish can prevent catastrophe... Of course, the druid is actually a perfectly nice old fellow, or at worst neutral, and not a real threat. The real threat is the souleating witch. She's got the garden and the druid under constant observation. As soon as the PCs make a move, they'll find themselves under vicious attack by a powerful NPC who is purely and utterly evil.

If the PCs succeed, they will in fact get a no-kidding Wish out of the deal. Of course, they'll also have made enemies of a powerful witch (assuming she survives, and she probably will) and an even more powerful Belier devil. Season to taste.

Doug M.

[Davor]

I really like it. It's fun, with lots of plot twists possible for the PCs, and it has a very old-school feel to it (extraordinary, ridiculous circumstances disguised as ordinary). I may use a variation of this hook at some point.