Drugs for D&D: Wyzyck's Weed

Tweekers and Meth-heads may be everyday occurrences in modern and near-future gaming, but have you thought of transporting these addicted human fiends into your D&D or otherwise Medieval game? This can get politically incorrect pretty quickly (like referring to drug addicts as "human fiends"), so take this with a grain of salt and use it as a piece of gaming fodder as it was intended.

The drug in question is made up. It should work in any medieval setting, but the premise is for games that have large urban city centers. Steampunk settings like Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms or D&D's Eberron would be even better. The drug serves a couple of story-telling purposes: it describes an antagonist in the wizard who created it, it describes the setting of the entire city in that it is dominated by both the addicted and the drug growing uncontrolled, and of course there's the item of the drug itself which can be used on the players themselves. Keep reading after the jump for the details.


Wyzyck's Weed

Wyzyck's Weed (otherwise known as "Dub-Dub" on the streets) was a conjuration of the petty and powerful wizard Wyzyck. Wyzyck maintains a tower just outside the city limits of Farlarn, a large popular urban center that decays a little more each day. There are many theories on why Wyzyck created the plant and gave it the properties it is now notorious for, but none could guess for sure (plot hook!). The most popular theory is that Wyzyck held a deep passion for a young woman amongst the nobility, the Lady Felicia. Felicia did not return Wyzyck's love but instead accepted the advances of her suitor, the young Lord Rictor.

When Wyzyck's advances were rebuked, he sought every possible means for revenge upon Lord Rictor. He couldn't act out-right and aggressively as his presence near the town was only barely tolerated. Instead he looked for other means. It was then that he realized Lord Rictor's greatest weakness lay within his pride over his great garden and greenhouses. You see, the nobility of Farlarn are judged by the impressiveness of their house gardens. Wyzyck, while attending a gala feast as Lord Rictor's estate smuggled the seeds of his new conjuration into Rictor's garden, planted it, and quickly whisked himself off to his tower, where he still remains to this day.

The plant grew and spread until soon it had completely taken over Rictor's garden. Its large purple leaves were at first welcomed and quickly became envied by his peers. The popularity of the plant grew just as Rictor's status exploded amongst the nobles. Every other noble in the city demanded to learn where Rictor found such an exotic plant, but he would not concede the secret - because of course he did not know. They bribed him, offered large sums of cash, offered hands in marriage to young Ladies with great big... dowries all to get just a sample of the plant for their own gardens. It wasn't until the Lady Felicia's father finally agreed to allow her to marry him that Rictor gave her father a sample. Once one sample was out, it didn't take long for Lord Valkur (Felicia's father) to make a small fortune off of selling samples out to other noble estates. You see, the weed grew like nothing else once it got to Valkur's lush gardens. And so it went that the weed quickly spread and soon dominated all the gardens of the nobles of Farlarn. This wouldn't have been a problem except for two events: a group of young, bored noble teenagers accidentally lit one of their fathers gardens on fire, experiencing a high like no other, and the plant spread beyond the sheltered walls of the noble gardens.

Word spread as quickly as the weed that it was a source of euphoric feeling, and as it grew all over the city on any bare patch of soil, it was a plentiful drug to be experimented with by all. Of course not everyone irresponsibly took a hit of the purple weed, and a good thing it was too! Those who did experienced a stupor of pure happiness, but quickly grew addicted to the stuff. The base for the plant was a simple narcotic mixture of moderately-addicting, naturally-occurring plants with one added effect thrown in for Wyzyck's final revenge.

You see, the more you smoke Wyzyck's weed the less you are able to perceive the drug with all your senses. You begin to lose the ability to smell the rich exotic fragrance of the plant or the smoke it gives when burned. You lose the ability to perceive the sight of the glimmering purple leaves. The flavor of the rich, deep purple smoke becomes such as fog on the morning after a night of rain. The weed is still as ubiquitous and prevalent through out the city as it ever way, but you lose all ability to experience it. The result is a city full of strung-out ghosts of a populace seeking help from any who will listen and have no hope of finding freedom from Wyzyck's Weed. There is no sobering out, there is no getting clean from the weed. There is no hope.

Other than what Wyzyck may be able to provide...