[Poison] Shade Smoke

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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Adriana Sparrow on March 15th, 2019, 2:00 am

Article: Shade Smoke [Poison]
Author(s): Adriana Sparrow
Other development: None
Additional Info: N/A

Article Approval: Here
Peer Review Thread: Here
Founder Review Thread: N/A

Synopsis: This is a new L1 poison in the Fungus category. Currently there are no L1 Fungi poisons, so this would help fill out the list. Since all poisons are unique to Miz and no real life poisons exist in Miz, this should help expand the very small list that already exists.

Outline: The article will have 2 sections. The first will be a wiki section that covers the poison and its ingredients in detail, along with methods of creation, dispersion and effects. The second section will be the write up of the simple blurb for the Price List following the format of the already existing poisons in the PL.


Shade Smoke
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Wiki Entry
Shade Smoke is a powdered substance created from pulverized varieties of commonly found molds. These molds are found on decaying food and other biodegradable trash, coupled with dark and moist environments. This type of mold, with no specific name other than 'mold', is extremely commonly found in every land environment and setting, though more popular in dense cities, or other large humanoid populations.

The mold, if left to its own devices, would simply break down the food or waste, aiding in the rotting process, from bread to fruit to decaying flesh. Eventually the source would be depleted and the mold would disappear. In cases where the rotting food is consumed with the presence of the mold, depending on quantity of ingestion, the consumer might feel minor nausea, though even the most severe systems of the natural poisoning is vomiting to expel the toxin.

To create Shade Smoke from the raw mold source is generally simple. Simply gathering large amounts of the mold it can then be ground, usually using a mortar and pestle, to create a very fine powder. The Poisoncrafter should take care when completing this process, as inhalation of the powder can be dangerous. This powder can be combined with food or drink to the be ingested by the target to deliver the poison, or it can be inhaled by the target, using a number of different possible delivery methods. Shade Smoke is made of fungi and so takes on the foul smell and taste of mold and will add these negative senses to the edible item of the target. Once entering the victim the effects of the poison usually take up to a bell to being. Once set the poison can cause minor to moderate effects on the victim. The effects of Shade Smoke only last around a bell, until the toxin can be passed through the stomach or bloodstream.

Shade Smoke has a sickly green to brown/black colored powder with a small, foul smell. The smell does not permeate and if one is to capture the smell it is more than likely they have already inhaled it and will soon experience the effects.

A Poisoncrafter could, theoretically form the poison in different states, such as an aromatherapy liquid oil, or numerous other possibilities. However these forms will only work through inhalation or ingestion and usually are less potent than the original powder. The only way to create a more potent Shade Smoke is to purify it.

Higher potencies of the Shade Smoke poison can be created using additional methods combined with the grinding of the mold. Poisoncrafters that also dabble in the Philtering skill can use philtering techniques that filter the mold, creating a more pure verison of Shade Smoke that has increased effects. Depending on the purity, more perfect Shade Smoke can reduce its onset time down to only thirty chimes instead of one bell as well as reduce its foul smell and taste -- though it can never be fully undetectable. The poison can increase nauseousness and induce vomiting. Slight hallucinations caused by more intense headaches are also possible, though nothing that would cause lasting damage. Purer forms of Shade Smoke also amp up the duration of the effects, causing them to last up to three hours after setting within the victim.

A common and relatively simple way to use philtering to purify the poison is to reduce it. Basically add water to the ground mold and then boil the water off until there is very little left. This will create a high potency and liquid version of Shade Smoke which can then be ingested to experience more severe effects.

Due to the commonality of the found ingredients and the simple creation system as well as the mild effects, this poison only requires Novice skill to learn and create. In addition the easy access to this type of poison and mold only makes it worth about 7gm 5sm more or less per dose.

Many other practices that work to refine and purify a substance can be practiced with this type of mold to create this type of poison. The purer the final product, the more potent and lasting the effect. An un-administered dose of Shade Smoke can retain its toxicity for up to around 8 years, known as the shelf life. However once applied, no matter the purity, the poison will degrade at a faster rate. Generally it can last up to three months after application and exposure to air. Antidotes made from Shade Smoke follow the same shelf life rules.

An antidote for Shade Smoke can be made by the creator of the poison. Those who did not create the poison can attempt to make an antidote for it, but must have a L2 in the Poison skill to succeed. Antidotes can be administered anytime after the exposure to Shade Smoke, before or after the onset of the effects. The antidote usually only takes a few chimes to set in.

Antidotes of Shade Smoke can be made by introducing small amounts of the poison to an animal or other live test subject. Once the body of the subject reacts to the poison and forms antibodies to fight it, blood can be drawn that contains the antibodies. Injecting the victim of Shade Smoke with this blood antidote will introduce the antibodies to the victims bloodstream, allowing them to replicate themselves and fight off the poison.

While this form of antidotes works well with Shade Smoke, a more common and easier cure for the effects is to have the victim ingest activated charcoal which will absorb the poison in the stomach. Activated charcoal only works if Shade Smoke was introduced to the victim via ingestion and does not work for inhalation.


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Last edited by Adriana Sparrow on April 8th, 2019, 2:30 am, edited 12 times in total.
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Itt on March 16th, 2019, 3:52 am

I don't know much about mold or poison or anything, so I can't exactly touch on the specific details of the article. But from a general view, the article looks great. I only have a few notes that aren't that big of a deal, but still.

The last line on paragraph two, you use the word poison instead of mold when you have used mold to describe the poison in it's current state for the rest of the paragraph. Maybe it would help continuity if the unrefined form was consistently called mold and then the refined form be called poison?

The third paragraph, you jump between the pure and impure form when describing it's effects. Jumping back and forth is a bit clunky since you have to reiterate which form your talking about, so maybe describe what the impure forms do in it's entirety and then describe the pure forms. It'll make it easier to distinguish and read and reduce possibility for confusion.

Other than that I couldn't find anything drastically wrong. But I'm no poisoner. XD Good job, keep up the good work.
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Kynier on March 18th, 2019, 12:58 am

One issue that I see goes into the realism of what you're trying to accomplish. The second to last section, where you address attempting to make a purer poison, what you propose would actually have the exact opposite effect of what you're thinking. Adding the mold to water would distill the mold and make it less potent. Then running it through a charcoal filter would simply purify the water once more, removing all, or most, of the molds and toxins.

For what you're proposing, the most pure form of Shade Smoke would be to gather all the molds and grind them into a powder with a mortar and pestle. That's it. Adding water or other substances would dilute the toxins.

One thing you could do is generate a salve. Doing so, you would grind the mold into a powder then add it to oil and mix it. Beeswax is a good thickener if you wanted to make a salve to be absorbed through the skin. Almond oil would also be able to generate a salve but it would be thinner (like olive oil) than what Beeswax would be able to create. However, the salves would only generate the mild effects of the poison.
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Asterope on March 18th, 2019, 1:13 am

Seems like a solid write-up overall. :) Similarly to Kynier, my main concern would be with the purification method; I'm not an expert, but charcoal is known to absorb things like toxins and even medications, so I'd imagine that would make it less effective, since you can't really control what the charcoal is absorbing from the mold.

Philtering methods involving distillation or other techniques may be able to make for a purer, more concentrated form of the mold; similar to making essential oils. Using philtering to refine it may also make the poison easier to use since dumping a bunch of powdered mold into someone's drink would probably very obviously affect the taste/appearance/smell, and getting someone to inhale something can be tricky. Of course, using philtering to make a more purified form would require that skill as well as the poison skill.
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Adriana Sparrow on March 18th, 2019, 2:07 am

Itt wrote:The last line on paragraph two, you use the word poison instead of mold when you have used mold to describe the poison in it's current state for the rest of the paragraph. Maybe it would help continuity if the unrefined form was consistently called mold and then the refined form be called poison?


- I agree! The word Poison has two meanings in the article; Poison=a manufactured product and Poison=a toxic material natural or synthetic. This makes it confusing at times. I went to that spot and changed the word to 'Toxic' -- has the same meaning and is less confusing.

Itt wrote:The third paragraph, you jump between the pure and impure form when describing it's effects. Jumping back and forth is a bit clunky since you have to reiterate which form your talking about, so maybe describe what the impure forms do in it's entirety and then describe the pure forms. It'll make it easier to distinguish and read and reduce possibility for confusion.


- Good point! I went back and separated the topics. The former paragraph will talk about the basic form of the ground mold. The latter paragraph goes into detail about purer forms, from methods of creation to differences in effect.

Kynier wrote:One issue that I see goes into the realism of what you're trying to accomplish. The second to last section, where you address attempting to make a purer poison, what you propose would actually have the exact opposite effect of what you're thinking. Adding the mold to water would distill the mold and make it less potent. Then running it through a charcoal filter would simply purify the water once more, removing all, or most, of the molds and toxins.

For what you're proposing, the most pure form of Shade Smoke would be to gather all the molds and grind them into a powder with a mortar and pestle. That's it. Adding water or other substances would dilute the toxins.


- That makes total sense. I tried to do some research on this kind of purify thing, but my efforts did not pan out very well. I took those parts out completely.

Kynier wrote:One thing you could do is generate a salve. Doing so, you would grind the mold into a powder then add it to oil and mix it. Beeswax is a good thickener if you wanted to make a salve to be absorbed through the skin. Almond oil would also be able to generate a salve but it would be thinner (like olive oil) than what Beeswax would be able to create. However, the salves would only generate the mild effects of the poison.



- I would like the Poisoncrafter to be able to create the poison in different forms, but I agree that it would be less potent. I added a paragraph that explores these options, but makes it clear the effects are lessened in severity.

Philtering methods involving distillation or other techniques may be able to make for a purer, more concentrated form of the mold; similar to making essential oils. Using philtering to refine it may also make the poison easier to use since dumping a bunch of powdered mold into someone's drink would probably very obviously affect the taste/appearance/smell, and getting someone to inhale something can be tricky. Of course, using philtering to make a more purified form would require that skill as well as the poison skill.



- Yes! I love the idea of using philtering. I was wrong about my charcoal method, so philtering could be a good replacement. For now I added in some mention of this fact, that the skills can be used together to purify the mold. However my details are slim as I don't know much about philtering. I will continue to research this subject and will write up a more detailed and in depth instruction to philter Shade Smoke. If anyone know more and would like to teach me a little, please let me know!
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Gemma Parker on March 18th, 2019, 3:42 am

So if you're ok with using philtering there are some ways to make the poison strong. One main way is by boiling the mold in water almost like a tea, then let it boil down/reduce until there's very little water left. That makes a highly concentrated liquid extract.

Aster mentioned essential oils. Here's a video about this, but basically you put water under the mold and boil the water so the steam goes through the mold and takes all its properties. Then that goes through a tube and is cooled back into a liquid and the essential oil is separated from the water, which would be the strongest form, assuming that mold has essential oils.

I don't know if mold has essential oils, but if not, though, the water would still have the poison.

What you could also do, going with Kynier's powder idea, is mix it with a strong drink. You could also add drops of essential oil to the liquid to mask the flavor.

Just a few ideas. I can think more on this and let you know if I think of any more improvements.
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Adriana Sparrow on March 19th, 2019, 12:21 am

Gemma wrote:So if you're ok with using philtering there are some ways to make the poison strong. One main way is by boiling the mold in water almost like a tea, then let it boil down/reduce until there's very little water left. That makes a highly concentrated liquid extract.


- I'm definitely going to add some philtering in to this, just need to do some more research, but I like this specific idea! I think I will add it once I do a tiny bit more research on that specifically. It also sparked an idea that perhaps drying the mold and then crushing it into a powder would make a slightly (only slightly) more pure form of it as well. Whereas I think reducing it would be moderately pure.

Gemma wrote:Aster mentioned essential oils. Here's a video about this, but basically you put water under the mold and boil the water so the steam goes through the mold and takes all its properties. Then that goes through a tube and is cooled back into a liquid and the essential oil is separated from the water, which would be the strongest form, assuming that mold has essential oils.

I don't know if mold has essential oils, but if not, though, the water would still have the poison.


- After doing a bit is research into essential oils I think I've come to the conclusion that this mold would not have essential oils. It seems most oils are made from some sort of plant, and mold is not a plant so I dont think it could work that way. I will, however, keep this in mind of other poisons I might think up, because this is a neat idea.


In other updates I realized I completely missed putting in a section on Antidotes. I placed a short paragraph about it, but will expand on the creation of the antidote along with the creation of the purer forms of the poison after I've done some more research on the subject. I will post updates when this is posted as well. I also added in a blurb about the shelf life survival rate of the poison.
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Adriana Sparrow on March 19th, 2019, 10:50 pm

Small update:

I expanded upon the philtering just a bit. Added in Gemmas recommendation of reducing the poison to create a pure liquid. I also expanded upon the antidote area. I described how to create the antidote and I also added a blurb on how activated charcoal can cure the effects along with the antidote.

That is all for now! Just one review left!
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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Finn Reefdiver on April 7th, 2019, 7:45 pm

Adriana,
I think you have this written up nicely and completely in my view. Your information is clear, concise, and on point. I'm no expert on this but if you are making this in a mortar and pestle, to grind into a powder that is dangerous, then wouldn't that be dangerous to the poison maker too? Not sure if this is accounted for in poison making skill but thought I would mention it at least.

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[Poison] Shade Smoke

Postby Adriana Sparrow on April 8th, 2019, 2:31 am

Thank you everyone so much for your contributions!

Finn I added a little warning for Poisoncrafter to not inhale their poison when making it.

There are my 5 reviews, I'll be sending this off to Founder Review now, fingers crossed!
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