Need Medieval level poison info...

[Mulletmanalive]

I'm sure there's someone here with knowledge of poison:

Ok, so here's the rub. I've finally found a GM in my area that's not me and things are difficult...

He's a massive recreation enthusiast and keeps springing historical stuff on us AFTER we've declared what we want to do so Hobgoblins with halberds are making two attacks against us when we approach before we can do anything, untrained soldiers are using highly efficient defensive tactics against us etc [not to mention the fact that the whole campaign world seems to be athiest despite the stupidity of a medieval world full of such people].

I've decided to fight fire with fire and use historical fact against him and go for the really low road. Using real world history.

I already know the basics of hemlock use and that green acorns are nicely poisonous when injested or used as a paste, mixed with lime and smeared on a weapon.

I need some other suitable plants that can be found in psuedo-European temperate environments to make some difficult to detect ingestion poisons [beyond Laurel and Arsenic], things that i can mix into Stink-Pots to make poison smoke and preferable something extra nasty to smear on arrows [then sealing them with a mix of salt and tree sap to make a resin casing that'll dissolve in blood].

I suspect this could turn into a "you're being a villain" discussion, but it's 1e and he's insisting that we have to strip the furnature and corpses for sale so i doubt incidental deaths is going to matter overtly.

[Johel]

Strychnine and Brucine were known but the components had to be imported from the East.

In Europe, you had :
The belladonna, the datura, the henbane.

[awa]

Its a bit older then Medieval but Scythians were reported to have used a quite deadly "poison" it involved taking human blood and waste, a dead snake and burying it in the ground together now the waste and human blood when they rot get all sorts of human specialized diseases and the rotting snake adds concentrated poison and more diseases to the mix the arrow rusts and the pockmarked surface is perfect for holding in all the microscopic goodies or you can just dip your arrows into the slurry. Also becuase the arrow head was sitting underground tetanus.

A hit from an arrow like this is going to be giving you a deadly does of disease and poison and if you were lucky the poison would kill you quickly if you were unlucky you would slow rot from the inside out a horrific death (which was the whole point of war poisons)

Just human feces on an arrow was a common "poison" back then becuase if you got it in an open wound their was very little they could do about it.

Barbed arrows are another thing to consider pepole may tell you they weren't real and pushing the arrow through isn't true and for the most part that's completely true the exception is when you add poison or filth to the arrow then the point of the barb is not to tear the flesh on the way out its for the barbs to break off inside the wound so they can keep spreading their filth.

Now one thing you need to consider before you do this is poison is ineffective in dnd and disease even more so that deadly arrow I listed in the beginning he may very well just call it filth fever and call it a day. Disease acts to slowly for it to be of much use against enemies but if you start sticking waste on your weapons for a little extra oomph expect your enemies to the same and because the enemies gone after the encounter likely before he even suffers the first effects you are the one who will suffer more in the long run

Second the dcs are going to be low all the useful poisons like wyvern poison and black louts extract are fictional the dc on all the real world poison are low.
If its a historical setting he might require knowledge checks for you to even know about poison plants and such and finding them may be pretty difficult not to mention the danger of accidental exposure.

edit oh if its first eddtion i have no idea how the difficulty and damage is going to work so ignore that

[Mulletmanalive]

As mentioned in the first post, the guy doesn't seem to care about the rules. Some of his rulings are completely illogical, such as that the Sleep spell was going to be entirely dispelled with so little as a bit of noise, waking all the victims up simultaneously.

Should point out that this is 1e, where poison really was deadly, as was disease.

I'm especially hopeful for some seriously toxic smoke.

[awa]

strong peppers in fire makes some noxious smoke

[Johel]

I'm especially hopeful for some seriously toxic smoke.

There was a trick using a candle.

Basically, you poor the wick in a poisonous solution, then seal back the wax around the wick. When the victim burns the candle to do his paperwork, the poison slowly fill the room and the lungs of the victim. It then takes a few days before the victim's health completely collapses.

The explanation comes from "Les Rois Maudits", a French historical roman, 1st Tome. The story is set around 1314 so that's medieval.
Don't remember the poison, though.

Heavy metals (not the music, the ores) were also used extensively and remain deadly

[Loren]

gas weapons didn't really get much traction until WWI and even then it wasn't as fast acting as I suspect you'd like (it also was a major hazard to everyone present, aka no good in meelee.

Something you might be interested in would be Greek fire. People have been using variation of flame throwers since ancient times and by the Middle Ages the Greeks had a very effective flamible liquid (the formula is unknown). A simple hand pump would be all you need to enploy your flamibles. A little google-fu should produce an acceptible liquid and pump. Then have fun the next time you face a defended barracade.

That said, Beware an arms race with your DM as all victories will be pyrrhic. Any weapon you can use, he can use five of. Instead, I humbly recommend investigating tactics and strategems. From the sounds of it, your DM will be more impressed by the clever employment of weapons than the employment of clever weapons.

[Melayl]

Sulfer compounds were typical injested poisons (hence the use of silver in utensils -- it turned black upon contact with sulfer compounds). Sulfers also work well as deadly smokes when burned.

Wolfsbane (aconite) is highly cardiotoxic (causes rapid-onset irreversible deadly heart arrhythmias) upon injestion or contact. Coat your arrows or blades with this and it won't be long before your target is dead of heart failure...

We have an entire book of Herbal products at work (I'm a nurse), including which are toxic. I'll see if I have a chance to check out more tomorrow night.

Also seconding heavy metals, although they take a LONG time to work, generally.

And seconding filth/diseases on weapons, although they also take a long time to work.

Edit-------------
A quick Google search reveals:
Stefan's Florilegium Archive on historical poisons

Antidote Anecdotes on medieval poisons and their prevention/treatment

And this thread, of course...

[Mulletmanalive]

To be honest with the arms race thing, I'm more going for this as a backup. If he told us stuff that he's going to employ on us like the frankly b*llsh*t unfair string of weapon trivia things being used against us and allowed us to reconsider our decisions, I wouldn't feel it necessary to think this way.

One of the stranger examples being that Hobgoblin infravision apparently penetrates smoke while Dwarf Infravision doesn't. So they were shooting us through thick tar smoke without issue while we were unable [read: not allowed] to fire back with any chance of hitting.

The toxic smoke is for hot-housing purposes. All the raider groups we're supposed to murder and loot [his words, not mine; i'd prefer to be fighting evil rather than bullying a town into electing us chief(No, seriously, that's the plot)] are hunkered down in expanded cave systems so i plan to block the entrances, find the vents and throw doom smoke stink-pots down them and covering the outlets with tarps and rocks.

The injested poisons are for a local crimelord because he's obviously got to go and trying to actually confront him just seems stupid...

[Oslecamo]

The injested poisons are for a local crimelord because he's obviously got to go and trying to actually confront him just seems stupid...

Offer him an arsenic filled book! Nobody washed their hands in the medieval times, so an famous trick to take down a noble would be to offer them a book with it's pages filled with arsenic dust. The poison would pass to the hands, and from there eventualy to the mouth when he was eating(or just licking his fingers to help turn the pages). Best of all, nobody would be able to link the poisoning to the book!

[Mulletmanalive]

Offer him an arsenic filled book! Nobody washed their hands in the medieval times, so an famous trick to take down a noble would be to offer them a book with it's pages filled with arsenic dust. The poison would pass to the hands, and from there eventualy to the mouth when he was eating(or just licking his fingers to help turn the pages). Best of all, nobody would be able to link the poisoning to the book!

Ah, Name of the Rose what a book. Downside is that you can link the poisoning there: the pages turn green because of the arsenic where you wet them. The only reason he got away with this so long in the book was because the book was kept hidden in the storerooms.

[Melayl]

Aqua Regia (a common hydrocloric acid compound used to dissolve gold from ore and other alchemical purposes back in the day) and Spirits of Hartshorn (an ammonia compound also common back in the day) form chlorine gas when combined. There are many other ammonia compounds available in medieval times (including fertilizers and urine).

I also edited 2 links into my previous post that detail a lot of medieval poisons.

I remember from back in my 1e-2e days an article on poisons (from Dragon mag, I believe) talking about 2- and 3-stage poisons. Basically, a person had to be exposed to all 3 components (or 2, in 2-stage) to suffer the effect of the poison. One of the examples had one stage added to the victim's food, another to his wine, and the third in the candle (burned to a gas) at his beside at night...