Creating a rough and ready poison from whatever herbs minerals and what have you lying around is a tricky thing. To use these rules you need to have the Expert: Poisoner skill, or possibly Student: Poisons and Drugs. No mere herbalists or healers need apply.
The standard poison (assuming the poisoner has appropriate materials) uses the middle row of the table below.
| Time | Effect | Potency | Subtlety |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days | Minor (itching, nausea) | Width | Blatant |
| Hours | Significant (diarrhea, paralysis) | 1/2 Height | Roll to detect |
| Minutes | Death | Height | Difficulty (10-Potency) Roll to detect |
Time on the chart means 5-Width of the roll in whatever unit you've chosen. (If days that means you've done nothing but work on refining the poison; if you're doing other things too, triple the time.) Potency is how many dice you roll for the poison to take its Major effect. The Roll to Detect can be Scrutinize or Expert: Posioner or Student: Herbalism (Difficulty 2) or Healing (Difficulty 4). If it's a subtle poison the difficulties are added together.
Any changes from the Standard Poison must be balanced by reciprocal changes, so if you want your poison to kill someone very subtly you have to take days to refine it and it will only have Width in potency. You can get around the balancing act by increasing the difficulty of the poison you're making.
The difficulty of making a poison relies on the plant being used. Rare plants/minerals can have exotic effects but are generally harder to work with.
When you've completed the Expert: Poisoner roll to create the poison, the Waste dice determine the number of doses you've made. If it's a high Potency poison, use the lowest Waste Die. If it's a Standard Potency then the highest. If a low potency then add together all the Waste dice.
