Here’s a really sick and twisted magical item I came up with. Mage powder.
It can be
inhaled or swallowed (if mixed with a drink). Inhaling it has double the
effects. It affects
a mage (only, others feel nothing other than a slight tingling) as follows:
Each dose adds 1d6 points to intelligence. They dissipate at 1 point per
hour. While
intelligence is raised, the mage can memorize more spells, make better
saves, etc as
though his intelligence were permenantly at that level.
Once intelligence returns to normal, it CONTINUES TO DROP until it reaches
1/2
the points below normal (I.E. if the mage rolled a 6, and had a 12 int,
it would go up to
18, then over the course of 9 hours it would drop 3 points below normal,
to 9). For
every hour after that, INT goes back up 1 point until it’s back at normal.
Also, with every dose the mage must roll a CON check with a penalty equal
to the roll
(the above mage would make a con check with a 6 point penalty). If the
mage fails,
he’s addicted to the mage powder.
Once addicted, things become much worse. Every time INT drops below normal,
it
will only rise to one point less than normal before (I.E. after 3 uses,
our 12-int mage
would have an effective int of 9). Also, with every use the mage makes
another CON
check, and every time he fails his CON goes down by one point. Also, the
addiction
makes the mage desire more powder the longer he goes without, I don’t remember
exactly what the rolls were, but after a certain period he WILL ingest
more powder if
he’s got any within reach.
Once INT ever reaches 0, the mage falls into a coma, with CON decreasing
1 point
per day until the mage dies. The mage can be woken with clerical help,
and he can
break the addiction, but it requires a lot... If he can be held without
access to mage
powder for a number of weeks equal to the difference in his CON (original
con is 10,
current con from addiction is 6, must be held for 4 weeks) he’ll break
the addiction if
he makes a system shock check. Each day he is waiting, he takes 1d12 points
of
damage from withdrawal symptoms (in other words, he better be really tough,
or in the
care of a cleric while going through withdrawal). If he fails the check,
he’s still addicted
and must wait longer, making a check each week until the addiction is broken.
CON
and INT then go back up at the rate of 1 point per day spent resting.
Of course, your mage(s) will have to find out about the addiction the hard
way... <evil
grin>. You should have seen the look of horror on my mage’s face
when his INT first
dropped below normal. Using this is pretty good just as an adventure in
itself, since by
the time your mage needs help from the rest of the party he’s probably
pretty bad off.
