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Adoendithas
2013-08-22, 08:00 PM
Hello everyone,

I'm running a D&D campaign in a hombrew setting which includes bits of Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk (as well as homebrew stuff, of course). While I know there's no way to make the magic system fit into real-world physics, I'm trying to keep non-magical things as "accurate" as possible.

The particular effect that I'm trying to find a real-world analogue to right now is the drow poison. It seems to be an incredibly fast-acting sedative which works within about twelve seconds of being injected into muscle tissue, with no side effects and an easy-to-find antidote.

Obviously, nothing quite like this exists in real life. The closest poison I can think of would be curare, which is a fast-acting paralytic that can be injected into muscle tissue and doesn't have too many side effects.

The big problem is that curare takes away all voluntary muscle control, including breathing. This is a bit of a problem if the drow intend to use it nonlethally.

My new idea is to give the drow two different poisons. Poison A is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, which in itself isn't a very nice thing to be injected with, but which counteracts the effects of curare. Poison B is the curare itself.

A drow who wanted to sedate an opponent would first need to shoot a bolt of poison A into an opponent's chest, then within the next ten minutes or so hit them with a bolt of poison B anywhere on their body. Once they collapse they can be hit with more of the A poison as necessary.

The nice part about these partucular poisons is that you wouldn't have to carry too many antidotes. Poison A is the antidote for Poison B, and the antidote for an overdose of Poison A would be deadly nightshade (which I'm sure the drow have other uses for).

The question is: does anyone know of a natural plant or animal that can produce edrophonium or tacrine, or a similar reversable anticholinesterase? If not, is it conceivable that one might exist? I know various plants in the nightshade family produce chemicals like this as toxins, but they have other effects which are more difficult to reverse and last for much longer (edrophonium, for example, wears off completely in 30 minutes).

Wow, that was a much longer wall of text than I intended. Sorry about that.

Brother Oni
2013-08-23, 02:35 AM
The particular effect that I'm trying to find a real-world analogue to right now is the drow poison. It seems to be an incredibly fast-acting sedative which works within about twelve seconds of being injected into muscle tissue, with no side effects and an easy-to-find antidote.

How much is one dose in grams?



Obviously, nothing quite like this exists in real life. The closest poison I can think of would be curare, which is a fast-acting paralytic that can be injected into muscle tissue and doesn't have too many side effects.


There are a number of drugs used as general anaesthetics that operate as faster or faster then curare when injected intramuscularly (some work in seconds when injected intravenously), such as ketamine.
Generally though you're looking at nerve agents (particularly inhaled) if you want a non-lethal paralytic effect in 12 seconds.



A drow who wanted to sedate an opponent would first need to shoot a bolt of poison A into an opponent's chest, then within the next ten minutes or so hit them with a bolt of poison B anywhere on their body. Once they collapse they can be hit with more of the A poison as necessary.


I'm a bit confused - first you say you'd like to stay as realistic as possible, then you talk about using a crossbow bolt as a route of administration. When did we go into Red Versus Blue medical techniques? :smalltongue:



The question is: does anyone know of a natural plant or animal that can produce edrophonium or tacrine, or a similar reversable anticholinesterase? If not, is it conceivable that one might exist? I know various plants in the nightshade family produce chemicals like this as toxins, but they have other effects which are more difficult to reverse and last for much longer (edrophonium, for example, wears off completely in 30 minutes).


Recovery from the paralytic effect is entirely dependent on the dosage administered. I can look up the pharmacokinetics if you like and make estimates based on an 'average' human, but it's going a little too far in unnecessary detail in my opinion.

If you really want a source, why not have the drow have their own equivalent of Exalted's Beast of Resplendent Liquids which produces the anti-toxin? That way the anti-toxin is firmly under drow control, not to mention the general dedicated enslavement tone fits the drow perfectly?

For bonus cruelty points, make the beast far more valuable than the humanoid slaves, so it lives in comparative comfort compared to the slaves. For a particularly nasty circular argument, make the beast an obligate carnivore, so it can only eat fresh meat (ie the slaves), so the drow need slaves to feed the beast to produce anti-toxin so that they can capture more slaves to feed the beast, etc.

Adoendithas
2013-08-23, 07:40 AM
Thanks for the quick response!


I'm a bit confused - first you say you'd like to stay as realistic as possible, then you talk about using a crossbow bolt as a route of administration. When did we go into Red Versus Blue medical techniques? :smalltongue:

I want the poison to be usable in combat, which is why I chose curare. It's been historically used to make poisoned arrows for hunting, so it's apparently effective enough if a relatively small amount is injected into the muscle.

The beast idea is cool, I think I'll go with something like that. It could make for an interesting adventure if the PCs attempted to get a supply of the antitoxin, not realizing what it was...

Ashtagon
2013-08-23, 08:19 AM
The particular effect that I'm trying to find a real-world analogue to right now is the drow poison. It seems to be an incredibly fast-acting sedative which works within about twelve seconds of being injected into muscle tissue, with no side effects and an easy-to-find antidote.

I believe this (http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Anaesthetic-general/pages/definition.aspx) is quite close to what you are looking for, except for being inhaled rather than being a blood agent.

Autolykos
2013-08-23, 09:05 AM
A common problem with real-world anesthetics (outside of Hollywood) is that there is a very narrow range between "feels a little woozy" and "stone dead" that you need to hit quite precisely to have the desired effect. That's almost impossible to pull off without either exactly knowing how heavy your target is or administering it very carefully and monitoring the effects. "Crossbow bolt" doesn't really spring to mind as the most reliable method to achieve this. A few years ago, the Russians tried to use gas in a hostage situation and screwed it up royally because of this problem.
IMHO, you should save yourself the headache of finding a pseudo-scientific explanation and just continue to handwave it. There is nothing in the real world that comes even close to Drow poison in reliability, safety and ease of use. Ketamine is pretty good, but you can't just inject a bunch of it into someone and expect to knock them out without lasting damage. That will only be marginally more reliable than a bottle of vodka and a baseball bat.
EDIT: If you want to get a little SciFi-y, you could probably have some kind of equilibrium reaction between the anesthetic and an inert compound that maintains the correct concentration in the target at body temperature. But there's nothing like that in the real world (at least to my knowledge).

Adoendithas
2013-08-23, 02:27 PM
A common problem with real-world anesthetics (outside of Hollywood) is that there is a very narrow range between "feels a little woozy" and "stone dead" that you need to hit quite precisely to have the desired effect. That's almost impossible to pull off without either exactly knowing how heavy your target is or administering it very carefully and monitoring the effects. "Crossbow bolt" doesn't really spring to mind as the most reliable method to achieve this. A few years ago, the Russians tried to use gas in a hostage situation and screwed it up royally because of this problem...

That's the problem I was trying to get around with the paralytics, but you're right, a crossbow bolt is probably too imprecise to have it work consistently. For now I'll continue to handwave it and use the game rules, even if they're unrealistic.

jaybird
2013-08-23, 03:50 PM
Came across this thread a little late, but now that it's here - I'm an IRL pharm chem/biochem researcher, so feel free to PM me any such questions as well as posting in this thread.

Brother Oni
2013-08-24, 05:08 AM
Came across this thread a little late, but now that it's here - I'm an IRL pharm chem/biochem researcher, so feel free to PM me any such questions as well as posting in this thread.

I knew there were a couple of us on this forum, but I didn't think they worked that far upstream. Do you do discovery phase stuff or do you work on things a bit more developed?

jaybird
2013-08-24, 09:31 PM
I knew there were a couple of us on this forum, but I didn't think they worked that far upstream. Do you do discovery phase stuff or do you work on things a bit more developed?

Hah, nothing that far up yet. Only just into MD/PhD.

JusticeZero
2013-08-24, 09:51 PM
Well, the other issue is that there are a lot of nonrealistic things bound into the physics in dnd, as well as a number of constructions of things that there are no analogues for. Souls exist, and have more than one objectively measurable, reactive physical properties corresponding to ethical constructs, for instance. It is just as reasonable to test a chemical for its good/evil balance as it is to test its pH. Very likely, souls are tied into the anatomy in some fashion that creates redundancy, and poisons have to take that anatomical change into mind.

Adoendithas
2013-08-26, 07:26 AM
Well, the other issue is that there are a lot of nonrealistic things bound into the physics in dnd, as well as a number of constructions of things that there are no analogues for. Souls exist, and have more than one objectively measurable, reactive physical properties corresponding to ethical constructs, for instance. It is just as reasonable to test a chemical for its good/evil balance as it is to test its pH. Very likely, souls are tied into the anatomy in some fashion that creates redundancy, and poisons have to take that anatomical change into mind.

That's a very good point, and it would partially explain why in 3.5 poisons were able to directly lower your intelligence or wisdom.

Brother Oni
2013-08-26, 08:09 AM
That's a very good point, and it would partially explain why in 3.5 poisons were able to directly lower your intelligence or wisdom.

Well anything affecting your judgement, memory recall or perception of the outside world would affect your Int or Wis and from a book-keeping perspective, it's easier to model this with stat reduction rather than adding penalties to skill/action checks.

On a incidental level, being reduced to INT or DEX 0 is quite accurate with the effects of imbibing too much alcohol (completely incapable of co-ordinated movement or spouting completely gibberish while in semi catatonic state). :smalltongue:

Adoendithas
2013-08-26, 09:56 PM
Well anything affecting your judgement, memory recall or perception of the outside world would affect your Int or Wis and from a book-keeping perspective, it's easier to model this with stat reduction rather than adding penalties to skill/action checks.

On a incidental level, being reduced to INT or DEX 0 is quite accurate with the effects of imbibing too much alcohol (completely incapable of co-ordinated movement or spouting completely gibberish while in semi catatonic state). :smalltongue:

I'd personally say alcohol would affect WIS as well, since it reduces your inhibitions. But it seems that it would be hard to make a poison that would reduce Intelligence while leaving Wisdom and Charisma intact without magic being used.