RPG Blog Carnival: Potions and Patent Medicine

The stoppered glass bottle is synonymous with alchemy and its base unit: the potion.  The majority of adventure games relegate it to resource refresh, restoring lost health and mana.  A universal consumable that taxes the characters economically, and only extends their survival.  That's boring.

The historical practice of alchemy, like sympathetic magic, is an untapped vein of weirdness in tabletop games.  Whether mystic protochemistry or an occult recipe for gnosis this system of protoscientific philosophy is full of possibility. I'll focus on mystical protochemistry, since pursuing the Magnum Opus is more structural than material in games.  Often consumable magic is already present, or can be added with little effort, in the form of drugs, pharmaceuticals, and quack medicine.  Magical cocktails like those served in SwitchFlipped or the sorcerous shine sold in speakeasies in A Criminal Magic are two examples of the potion as drug.

In Wicked West you are occult prospectors who exploit the Otherworlds and introduce them to the power of gun.  Your greed and opportunistic actions poison the Tree of Life, and worst of all -you aren't alone.

In the Wicked West, potions are patent medicine by another name and just a few of the varied products you can get from the Medicine Show.  Alchemical concoctions serve a variety of functions with a range of quality from Poor (-1) to Good (+3), roll when you deploy it to determine how effective the admixture goes.  Quacks don't practice the most rigorous QC on their admixtures

Epoxies - An adhesive resin composed of two separate chemicals separated in the bottle by a thin wall, you can throw the container or pour out the contents. Creates the Aspect "Glued in Place" that can be compelled once for free to prevent the target from moving.  If you succeed with style "Glued in Place" can be compelled twice.

Infusions - Various plants and animals contain chemical and sympathetic qualities that can be leeched from them via submersion in alcohol, oil, or water.  When consumed they create a minion skill in FAE at the infusion's quality, example: drinking an Average Unicorn Horn Infusion gives the character Resist Toxins +0.

Solvents - Industrial solvents and acids can be used to eat through most obstacles, rolling the concoction's quality determines the amount of time it takes to work through the process.  If you apply heat, you can also use a solvent as a gas attack.

Unguents - Greasy ointments, most are refined from animal fats and used to coat the body.  Demand for these are high, especially among prospectors heading into known Spheres with dangerous environments.  For example, an unguent made from Uktena grease allows you to breathe underwater and grants 1 point of ablative armor.

This month's RPG Blog Carnival theme is potions.

RPG Blog Carnival: The Weather Outside

As trails are blazed in the West and prospectors discover new pathways to distant Malum, the incidence of Weirdness increases.  Strange beasts stalk livestock and settlers, perpetuating a mythic existence in the mundane world.  Alien winds now blow through the doorways distorting weather patterns and giving rise to otherworldy weather paradigms, betraying the knowledge of almanacs and boosting the stock of stormseers across the frontier.

Weather as Setting
An unseasonable blizzard tore across the Panhandle until it reached a desolate roadhouse.  Trapped by snowfall and hungry winds, the PCs quickly detect a numinous prescence in the storm.  Of course there are several strangers present as well, full of sass and secrets.  The storm wants something or someone from the inhabitants, figuring that out is on the characters.
Hungry Winds - Aspects: The Winter's Fury, Oooooo! Shiny!Skills: Bite to the bone +3, Quick as a zephyr +2, Born yesterday -1 Stunts: I take what I want (+2 to strip possessions away from characters) 

The posse has chased the thief and degenerate gambler Velvet Verdoux to the dilapidated metropolis of New Orleans.  Ever since Good King Xango came across an open trail, he has made the Big Easy his home and sole holding in this world.  The U.S. Government have tried to intervene but only succeeded in killing his cheval.  Since the last assassination, he has closed all but one way in, the rest are choked with beasts and sentient thunderstorms.  Velvet found a way in, they can too.

Weather as Plot
Tycoon Jeremiah Wrong has the county under his thumb, he recently recruited a powerful fabulist into his Regulators.  The local settlers are going broke paying Jeremiah's racket, if they refuse to pay their plot will be cored out by tornadoes.  More folks are packing up and getting out while they can.  Just as they can easibly leave, they can be easily followed as well.

Fabulist stunt: I can whistle up a tornado but I get carried away, literally.

Houston has not lacked for rain this past week, torrents falling and resevoirs filling up.  This month's RPG Blog Carnival Weather theme came from Mortaine's Blog.  Check out other contributors here:

Wicked West: Walking Branches

Life is a journey and death is the experiential gate to other places, or nowhere. In the Wicked West most psychopomps won't claim to know what lies on the other side of the Veil.  The closest they can get is prospecting and scouting the Deadworlds, the Tree of Life's lower branches.  The Deadworlds' opposite number is the Younglands, ever fruitful and green.  Through the Traversal ritual, a psychopomp is able to align a physical trail with a metaphysical Branch.  The psychopomp needs to take part in the ritual itself but does not need to be the primary willworker.

Traversal is a Magic ritual that that requires four elements:

Location - the middle of nowhere, places unmapped, BFE, any place where the path's destination is out of sight. +1 if there's a numinous association with the destination.

Sigils - trail signs and/or a medicine wheel realign the path's destination to the appropriate Malum.

Mantra - a chant, a drumbeat, a song in a sacred tongue to imitate the drone of Life omnipresent among the Branches.  +1 if it's sympathetic to the Malum.

Guide - if you're a gambler you can consume psychoactive drugs like peyote. But it's safer to use a psychopomp.

Success transitions the scene to the Otherworld.  Success with style creates an aspect that covers your entry, ex: "Without a Peep" or "Shock & Awe"
Failure means you run afoul of some sort of Guardian creature or otherworldly predator - Cerberus, Humbaba, Tzitzimitl, The Horned Serpent, Cihuateteo, Heimdallr, Ratatosk, Dybbuk, Lords of the Night, Thunderbird, The Feathered Serpent, Raven, Rainbow Serpent, etc.

 Two notable psychopomps:

 

Adelita Perronegro - Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, the sounds of gunfire & smell of smoke has been her constant companions. Since the Texian Revolution, the Valley has been a region in revolt against Anglo occupation. Adelita was taught how to shoot and fight by her three older brothers. Her mother disapproved of her tomboy tendencies, attempting to induct her into the Dream Society.

The grasping darkness and stillness of the kiva she found stifling, but she bore it for her mother's sake. On the full moon of her first Lunar cycle that was no longer enough. Blood running down her leg. Pain wracking her body. A glowing severed head in place of the moon. A hairless black dog lapping at her runoff. Grinning wide the canine explained her family's role as custodians of the White Caves, & Adelita's place as his wife. Always a fighter, Adelita fled the Valley and worked her way up to the Colorado Territory. She has found plenty of work for herself as a psychopomp, humming the medicine chants of her mother & guiding occult prospectors to unplundered Otherplaces.

Hillbilly Jim - Hailing from the backwoods township of Mud Lick, Kentucky, this genial old fellow is a sin eater of infamy back East. Out in the West his addiction to guilt is harder to feed, too much competition. Unable to grift off grieving families, Jim has to rely on other means. Armed with his fiddle, "Whip-or-will" - whose strings vibrate under no power when death draws near.  He consoles the dying & peels the iniquity from their soul as they cross over.  Leaving them raw and vulnerable for disembodied predators scuttling in the Veil. 

Since the 13th Union was shattered, Hillbilly Jim has discovered a hidden talent for psychopompery and his deepest fear. His fear of the Unknown among the Apples and desire for survival is only overwhelmed by his greed and lust for gambling. He charges more for guidance across the Branches than other psychopomps, but will contest any with his fiddle to lower the price. 

This month's RPG Blog Carnival theme is Portals & Gates, the seed article is found here

RPG Blog Carnival - Curses and the Magic skill in the Wicked West

As I'm sure you know, this month's RPG Blog Carnival is focused on curses, cursed items and campaign stories which feature cursed PCs. Historically curses are any expressed wish that adversity strike someone else, directed through foot tracks, the evil eye, book curses or any other method. Any sort of magical working that seeks to affect a person requires sympathy, you can read up on that here.  A great example of sympathy and cursing at work is the story "La Vuelta de Culebra" translated to English in this book.  Curses and cursed objects have a long history in RPGs, whether the bag of devouring or the King in Yellow, but beyond the bestow curse spell anything resembling the traditional form is quite rare. Especially considering how common curses are in real world cultures and stories.  

Below is a Fate Core Magic skill that bears a close, traditional resemblance and will be used in the Wicked West.  It is very similar to one of the magic subsystems in the Fate Toolkit with some stunts from the Secrets of Cats and other places.

Magic
Attack: There is no Attack with Magic.
Defense: There is no Defense with Magic
Create an Advantage:  Magic can be used to create thematically "Cursed" or Blessed" Aspects on characters and objects you have a sympathetic link with.
Overcome an Obstacle: Magic can be used to remove the above mentioned Aspects with a ritual.

Stunts
Astral Projection: Once in a trance, you may spend one Fate Point to send your consciousness and those in physical contact with you into the Astral Plane, leaving your husks behind until you return.
Pin Cushion: Once you have a bit their hair and an effigy, you can Attack someone with Magic. The doll is destroyed once you inflict a consequence but you can minimize the damage to stress.  No limits on range.
Dowsing: You can undertake a mental challenge to seek someone out, difficulty will depend on how well you know them and if you have sympathetic link. 
Warding: You can Create an Advantage on a zone that can also be used to Defend against outside attacks and efforts to enter the zone.
Claw, Mane, Wing and Tooth: After consuming a noxious concoction of animal humors you may Create an Advantage of shapeshifting, you can invoke this aspect for bonuses to do animal things.

Special: The Right Tools for the Job
When using the Magic skill to undertake any action there are two things to consider: sympathetic link and the equipment in use.  You can still undertake a working without either, but your chances of success decrease accordingly.  Without a link or the correct tools, the opposition receives a +1 to the roll for each missing element.  Certain Stunts already specify the correct tools and the need for a link, depending on how well your character knows the target you may not need to forge a link with a particular individual.

Wicked West - Populations, Religions, and Intrigue

The Wicked West is sparsely populated, but on the rise

• As more resources are discovered, more settlers are drawn out West to swell the townships.  And larger populations are more demanding when it comes to law and order.
• The populace may find the local sheriff to be in someone's pocket, in that instance they might be best off turning to the Pinkertons: a private security firm that sticks to the letter of their contracts.  The Pinkertons apply a combination of new scientific methods with the old techniques of the Third Degree.
• The First Nations are a rich composite of different cultures and societies, raging from nomads across the Great Plains to pueblo dwellers in the Southwest and the the great lodges of the Pacific Northwest.  All can agree that the encroaching wave of settlement is something to watch and prepare for. 
• While the primary thrust of settlement is coming from the East to the West there is a trickle of folks coming from California eastward  constructing the railroads.  Most have already undergone a long journey from their homeland in China.

The Wicked West is fertile ground for human belief, and its practices

• Every settler out West believes in the Messiah, but he's not necessarily the son of Yahweh.  The wide open wilderness and savagery rekindles dormant beliefs.  One town, Enoch's Hammer, is home to a church with a Christ figure nailed to a hammer and another sacrifices travelers to a Great Beast that crawled in.
• Just as strange churches are occupying public life, constant exposure to numina has influenced private life as well.  The practice of seances has become increasingly popular among the more well-to-do citizens.  Through a medium a group can either invite things from Outside in, or project themselves Outward and visit Malum psychically.  Projecting mediums describe the World's super structure as treelike.
• Sundering the Union of 13 has reinvigorated the possibility of magical practice in the untamed West and the First Nations benefit as well.  Their shamans and warriors draw upon ancient pacts and the land rises to their call.  The Malum corresponding to their Otherspaces are closer and the chances of coming across thunderbirds, puckwudgies, and baykoks are high
• A group of Anglos are on pilgrimage across the frontier led by a prophet.  With his magical seer stone he translates a golden book and claims that Paradise is further West.

 The Wicked West is home to intrigue and skullduggery

• Just as every tycoon keeps a cadre of Regulators in his pay to protect certain interests, Patent doctors do as well.  Many medicine shows cultivate the air of the carnival to obscure a core of murderous steel.  They have to always stay on the lookout for those who would steal their secret elixirs.
• Secret societies that claim to know the True Way to Heaven crop up in the larger towns, some claim that the Cruach Mining Company hides something similar in Management's ranks.  The sun is shining....
• The U.S. Government has started to send out Masonic surveyors to re-establish the cornerstones and recreate the Founding Fathers' greatwork.  They also have orders to whip up posses and kill Confederate Filibusters wherever they find them.
• Settlers in Texas report seeing large, stepped triangular structures floating high in the sky.  The Mexican government has nothing to say on the matter.

The Wicked West - Malum - the Apples of Creation

Classically known as the Otherworld and once peeled away from the West, the Malum are the disjointed houses of enduring spirit.  They are cities of the dead, tangible myths, the fruitful lands, insane ramblings enfleshed, and the high holy places.  Numina stem from connections, no matter how tenuous, to these places and those connected to the Wicked West have been largely unmolested by the drone of the mundane.  The Malums' unexploited nature is the primary draw for the adepts, occultists, diabolists, mediums, sibyls, and warlocks swarming westward in a mystical gold rush.

Tied to the frontier by Branches, arcane trails that allows passage back and forth.  Though many are visible to the naked eye, it is through magic that one is able to perceive where the trail leads off.  Physical travel across Branches and Malum can be hazardous and it often pays to contract a guide, or psychopomp,to lead you through.  Traditionally they would only accept two copper coins, but the price of passage has gone up and now gold bars are required to enlist these particular services.
With such a high price is it any wonder why so many prospecting malleficarum opt to take a chance with their travel?

The Wicked West - the Elite, the Occult, and the Wondrous

Here's more about the Wicked West.

The Wicked West is lawless, the elite only recognize silver or lead.

• Each town is beholden to itself first and foremost.  Several have an elected Mayor, but true local power is held by the Sheriff.

• The Mayors are often figureheads, elected by local business men and regional tycoons.

• Sheriffs are often among the best gunfighters in the territory, many seeking recruitment into the Regulators or the Gunbrothers.
• Tycoons are magnates of regional business, from them all opportunities flow.  Each one collects a cadre of the best local killers, referred to as Regulators, to protect their interests and harass their rivals.

The Wicked West is eldritch, the occult flock to the frontier.

• Magical practice is distrusted as a rule, but the isolated settlements can't turn their nose up at a little witchcraft if they wish to survive for long.  With almanacs becoming less than consistent as the rainfall does not appear where and when it should, many farming communities surreptitiously attract water witches from Back East for help.

• The Cruach Mining Company is openly hiring adepts and promoting them to foremen in their operations above and under earth.  They pay quite well, but the mortality rate is proving high.

• Stagecoaches are the primary form of mail delivery and luxury travel between towns.  For protection they have contracted the Gunbrothers, a cabal of shootists whose guns promise Oblivion.

• Any given medicine show or frontier circus will contain some morsels of true magic, wrapped up in layers of showmanship and patter.  Patent medicine is a much dicier proposition.

 The Wicked West is wondrous, the strange is behind every mesa

• Numinous encounters are becoming increasingly common: strange lights, dream visitations, ectoplasmic extrusions, table rappings, and strange beasts whose track and spoor have not been witnessed in Aeons.
•  Throughout the Wicked West there are areas known as Branches where taking a particular path will whisk you off to some Otherspace.  Known as Malum in occult circles, these places range from the mythical to the truly alien.  Entry may be simple, but egress could prove difficult.
• Fabulists are folk born on the frontier that possess superhuman capabilities, the very stuff of tall tales.  While they may possess exaggerated physical properties, their emotions and appetites are similarly  magnified.

The Wicked West - A World of Adventure for Fate Core

The Wicked West is the Old West of our past, and stretches from the Mississippi River to the Golden Territory of California. When Lewis and Clark crossed the continental interior, the truly wondrous, strange and terrifying spaces were pressed out through sympathetic cartography and mystic surveying.  But nothing ever truly disappears, memories of these spaces still persist in myth and story and the works of man are transitory.  The mass kin slaying of the Brothers' War has blotted out the explorers' magical workings with blood.

As countless souls surge across the frontier in search of Manifest Destiny they rub shoulders with those occluded spaces.  Some find themselves wandering through the Fruitful Land laid out by John Chapman, and other stranger, more dangerous places.  There are many enterprising occultists who have taken to plumbing these depths via astral projection, which is safer than physical travel.  They taken to calling these spaces "malums" or "apples."

The largest settlements follow the railroad, taking advantage of convenient transport and telegraph contact Back East.  Those towns not on the rail are fiercely independent and take a dim view to outsiders meddling in their affairs.  Typically mining towns, they only last as long as the lode does.  Those with operational mines are often ran by the Cruach Mining Company and bear a dangerous reputation.

When it comes to vices, there are few banned outright by the what little government exists.  Oftentimes the harsh landscape and reality of survival prevent most indulgences from taking root.  Alcohol, gambling, and hired flesh are all available in abundance, but in the more established, moribund townships you can find distractions more pleasurable and decadent.

Of course the frontier is not truly uninhabited, just largely untouched by the white man.  As the westward push continues, settlers are brought into conflict with the First Nations. Contact that rarely ends well for both sides and results in bloodshed.  Though many treaties are formed the settlers rarely honor their word, behavior rooted in arrogance, prejudice, and opportunism. The next violation may be the straw that breaks the buffalo's back, escalating what were prairie skirmishes into a full fledged war.

Next Post: The Elite, the Occult, and the Wondrous