Blood of Kali

[Edan]

I don't usually home brew, but I recently rewatched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and I wanted to make the "Blood of Kali" into a poison for use, I thought I would give it a shot.

(For the fluff go watch the movie, it is good.)

I figured since in the movie the poison appears to be a drug that attacks the nervous system and thus the mind of the victim I figured wisdom damage would be appropriate. However, they used to poison to control, not kill so I tried not not use a lot of wis damage. The wisdom damage offers a bonus for the special side effect, since Indy appears to be dominated, I figured the spell would be perfect to add in, and the lower wisdom means lower save.



{table=head] The Blood of Kali | Initial Damage | Secondary Damage
Ingestion, DC 24 | 2d4 Wis | 1d4 Wis
Special: After the Primary and Secondary damage, the victim must make a Will Saving Throw DC 22 or be Dominated as the spell: Dominate Person. [/table]

I can not figure out who would be in control of the victim. Would it be the one who administers the poison, the manufacturer, a predetermined master or something else. Also in the movie, Indy is shown to have convulsions and pain before the domination kicks in, should I change the secondary damage to a different attribute, or leave it as is. No idea on price for a single dose, I was leaning towards roughly 3,000gp, but I don't know how to price poisons.

Feedback is appreciated, thank you.

[Debihuman]

In the movie, the Thuggee leader Mola Ram used the Blood of Kali as drug which puts its victim into "the black sleep of Kali Ma."

You could treat this is a dominate person spell (DC 17) Will save. An enslaved creature obeys the leader's commands until freed by remove curseand can attempt a new Will save every 24 hours to break free. The control is also broken if the leader dies or travels more than a mile from its slave. The save DC is charisma based.

Note: The above text is paraphrased from the Aboleth's Enslave ability in the SRD and I think it works just fine as a potion.

Debby

[Darkkwalker]

Should also have a clause about being burned. because Indy gets burnt and snaps out of it.

[Eighth_Seraph]

That's a good point, but I think it would work just fine with any type of damage. Maybe if the poison's victim may make another save if he takes 3 or more points of damage in a single attack?

Also, perhaps the victim would be dominated by Kali itself, thus taking his place in and following the orders of the priestly heirarchy.

[Debihuman]

A poison that has the spell-like ability to cause dominate person in addition to causing that much Wis damage would carry a hefty price.

If this were a potion it would cost: spell level × caster level × 50 gp
[dominate person is a 4th level bard spell, the caster has to be a minimum of 11th level x 50 = 2,200 gp]

The poison is only slightly less effective than insanity mist which costs 1,500, so it's actually pretty cheap at 3,000 gp.

Also, is the ability loss should be temporary and last until the effects of the domination wear off.

Debby