Nostrums

Nostrums are the wonder-cures of the age: theriac, mumia, unicorn horn, potable gold. Most are fakes. A few really work for something small. And in this world, a rare few are true.

Three Kinds

Kind	What it does	Examples	How you get it
Effective	One small thing, though it's sold for a big one	Bezoar, snowdrop, viper wine	Bought, if you can find a genuine one
Fake	Nothing, whatever it's sold to do	See Fake Nostrums	Sold everywhere
Legendary	What the legends promise	Ambergris, the blood draughts, hippomanes, moly, mumia, stag's heart bone, theriac	Learned by mastery level (see Legendary Nostrums), or granted by the GM

Effective Nostrums

Bezoar

A smooth stone from the stomach of a goat or a deer.

A bezoar is administered by shaving it into a drink. Each shaving drives back poison. The same stone serves as a casting focus until its last shaving is gone.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Each shaving reduces Tainted by 1 tier. A stone holds 10 shavings	None	10 gs a stone

Type	None
Workspace	None
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Instantaneous
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	Exotic
Notes	Also a casting focus until the last shaving is gone (see Equipment, Foci)

To make (days for one dose, and the recipe's Social Class):

Bezoars are found or bought.

Snowdrop

A small white bulb that flowers in late winter.

Snowdrop is administered through ingestion. It ends one dose of a nightshade-family drug: belladonna, dwale, henbane, or mandrake.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Ends one active dose of belladonna, dwale, henbane, or mandrake	None	1 ss

Type	Primal
Workspace	Field kit
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Instantaneous
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	Common where it grows
Notes	Grown in giant's blood, it becomes moly (see Legendary Nostrums)

To make (days for one dose, and the recipe's Social Class):

Makes	No modifications
Snowdrop	1 day, Peasant

Viper Wine

Vipers steeped in wine, drunk by the glass as a tonic for skin and spirits.

Viper wine is administered through ingestion, a draught at a time. It's sold to cure leprosy and lost youth, but what it really does is end Withering.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	One draught ends one instance of Attrition (Withering)	None	1 ss a gallon, which holds 64 draughts; 2 sp a vial

Type	Primal
Workspace	Field kit
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Instantaneous
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	Uncommon
Notes	Bought by the gallon, it needs a waterskin or bottle

To make (days for one dose, and the recipe's Social Class):

About thirty vipers and eight gallons of wine, sealed in a cask for six months, make about 500 draughts. Materials cost about 57 sp: the wine at 3 sp a gallon, the vipers at about 1 sp each, and a small oak barrel.

Makes	No modifications
Viper wine	6 months, Peasant

Fake Nostrums

Fakes do nothing, whatever they are sold to do. They are common in apothecaries, markets, and the packs of traveling quacks. A crafted fake's Identification DC is its maker's Mastery DC.

Fake	Sold to
Aurum potabile (drinkable gold)	Prolong life and cure all ills
Betony	Cure forty-seven ailments and ward off elf-shot
Bloodstone powder	Stop bleeding
Castoreum	Cure dozens of ailments and rouse the lethargic
Corpse-mumia, mumiya	Heal bruises, internal bleeding, and tumors
Deer heart bone	Comfort the heart and cure fainting
Gem electuary	Strengthen the heart
Hippomanes (from an ordinary foal)	Win love
Terra sigillata	Cure poison and venom
Love philtre	Win love. Most are really cantharides, a poison
Mithridate (king's antidote)	Cure any poison
Opobalsamum	Heal wounds
Orvietan (mountebank's antidote)	Cure any poison. Street sellers "prove" it by swallowing poison first
Plague vinegar	Ward off the plague
Unicorn horn powder	Detect and cure poison
Whale ambergris	Strengthen the heart and ward off plague air

Legendary Nostrums

The common version of a legendary nostrum does nothing. The secret is one ingredient no apothecary has, and it comes from something huge and dangerous. The Nostrum category lets you recognize a true one, found as treasure, as real.

Legendary recipes come with the Nostrum category, one at each mastery level:

Mastery	Legendary recipe
Untrained	Blood draughts (warm blood; hot blood at Skilled, the hottest at Master)
Basic	Mumia
Skilled	Theriac
Expert	Choose one: ambergris, hippomanes, moly, or stag's heart bone
Master	Choose one of those not yet chosen
Grand Master	Choose one of those not yet chosen

If you take the Nostrum category at a later mastery level, you gain every legendary recipe up to your current mastery level at once. The mastery tree gives six of the seven; the GM can grant the last, or any other recipe, when it fits the campaign. The GM controls the ingredients.

Ambergris

Grey, waxy, and sweet-smelling, worth nearly its weight in gold.

Ambergris is administered through ingestion, steeped in aqua vitae as a cordial. A creature that drinks it is Fortified T3 for the encounter. The ambergris that washes ashore is a perfumer's luxury and does nothing. Only ambergris taken from a sea-dragon or leviathan carries the virtue.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Fortified T3	None	Not sold

Type	Sea
Workspace	Laboratory
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Short
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	None

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Ambergris	Expert, Master, or Grand Master, by choice	A sea-dragon or leviathan, killed or harvested	3 days	A handful of doses, set by the creature

Blood Draughts

Life is heat carried in the blood, and cold blood is dead blood.

A blood draught is administered through ingestion. Warm blood wakes the dying. Hot blood makes the dead speak, and brings back the newly dead. The hottest blood, from the greatest beasts, heals as well. The blood must be prepared right after the combat that spilled it, and it keeps only while worn warm against the skin.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Warm	A creature unconscious at 0 health regains consciousness. It stays at 0 health, so it can still take Injuries and Traumas, but it can act	None	Not sold
Hot	A creature unconscious at 0 health regains consciousness, staying at 0 health. The cold dead speak*. The still-warm dead can be revived**	None	Not sold
Hottest	Everything hot blood does, and it restores health: the alchemist's Trade mastery die + Intelligence tier die, fixed when it's made. It works on the living too, and a revived creature comes back with this health**	None	Not sold

* The dead speak for about 60 seconds, as themselves, unable to move, weak, and barely able to talk.

** Revival: an Endurance trial, adding the alchemist's mastery level as a bonus, against DC 6, +1 for each time the creature has been raised before. One attempt per death; on a failure, the dose is spent. The revived return Impaired T3 and Exhausted T3, then recover one tier each exploration round, alternating, Impaired first. This replaces the normal recovery for these conditions:

Time	Impaired	Exhausted
Revived	T3	T3
1 exploration round	T2	T3
2 exploration rounds	T2	T2
3 exploration rounds	T1	T2
4 exploration rounds	T1	T1
5 exploration rounds	—	T1
6 exploration rounds	—	—

Type	Primal
Workspace	Field kit
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Instantaneous
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	It keeps only while worn warm against the skin: chest, armpit, belly; never a boot, since feet run cold. Drawing it takes 1 AP. Creatures that can't be resurrected, by Annihilate or Lay to Rest, can't be revived this way. A living donor who gives blood advances Exhausted by one tier

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Warm blood	Untrained	Youthful blood, or most healthy people, as the GM decides	Within one exploration round after combat ends	More doses from a bigger creature
Hot blood	Skilled	A creature killed in violence, or a "hot" animal such as a violent beast, as the GM decides	Within one exploration round after combat ends	More doses from a bigger creature
Hottest blood	Master	Dragons, fire giants, and the like, as the GM decides	Within one exploration round after combat ends	More doses from a bigger creature

Hippomanes

A fleshy lump from a newborn foal, sold everywhere for love philtres.

Hippomanes is administered through ingestion. A creature that drinks it is charmed by the first creature it sees, and if the charm survives a week, it's permanent. The common kind does nothing. It must come from the foal of a Fae deer or White Stag, taken before the mother eats it, and be steeped in an Undine's tears.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Charmed toward the first creature the drinker sees, T1 to T3*	None	Not sold

* A Wisdom trial against the maker's Mastery DC. A failure gives Charmed T1, failing by 5 gives T2, and a natural minimum gives T3. Then one Wisdom trial a day for seven days: a success lowers the tier by 1, ending it at 0; a natural minimum raises it by 1; an ordinary failure changes nothing. Whatever tier remains after the week is permanent.

Type	Untyped
Workspace	Laboratory
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Permanent, after the week
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	Moly, which gives Warded T3, ends it. It affects any sapient creature, as the GM determines, and connected-form protection doesn't apply

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Hippomanes	Expert, Master, or Grand Master, by choice	The foal of a Fae deer or White Stag, found in time, and an Undine's tears	One full moon	One dose

GM note: "first seen" can make a player character permanently charmed by accident, horses included. Tables may want to agree in advance how they handle mind control of player characters.

Moly

A white flower with a black root, grown where a giant's blood soaked the earth.

Moly is administered through ingestion. A creature that takes it is Warded T3 for the encounter. It's snowdrop grown in earth soaked with a giant's blood. The bulb is planted in autumn and flowers by late winter, so an alchemist makes about one dose a year.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Warded T3	None	Not sold

Type	Primal
Workspace	Laboratory
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Short
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	None

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Moly	Expert, Master, or Grand Master, by choice	A snowdrop bulb, and the blood of a giant of flesh and blood, enough to soak one planting	Planted in autumn, it flowers by late winter; then 7 days to dry and prepare	One dose per bulb

Mumia

Dust of the walking dead, ground fine and worked into wine or honey.

Mumia is administered through ingestion. It heals, clears Injuries, and mends the deep hurts of the body, and the more skilled its maker, the more it does. Apothecaries sell bitumen and ground-up ordinary corpses under the same name, and neither does anything. The dust must come from a mummy that walked.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Restores health equal to the alchemist's mastery level. Clears that many Injuries. Ends Internal Injury and Bruised to the Bone	None	Not sold

Type	Profane
Workspace	Laboratory
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Instantaneous
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	None

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Mumia	Basic	A defeated mummy	7 days	A few doses, set by the creature

Stag's Heart Bone (os de corde cervi)

Cartilage near an old deer's heart that turns to bone, grated into cordials.

Stag's heart bone is administered through ingestion, grated into a cordial. A creature that drinks it is Inspired T3 for the encounter. Ordinary deer heart bone is sold to comfort the heart and cure fainting, and does nothing. It must come from an old white hart, the White Stag, and the hunt is the hard part.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
Single strength	Inspired T3	None	Not sold

Type	None
Workspace	Laboratory
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Short
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	None

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Stag's heart bone	Expert, Master, or Grand Master, by choice	The White Stag	1 day	Set by the creature

Theriac

The physician's great antidote, sixty ingredients and a serpent's flesh, sealed in a jar to age.

Theriac is administered through ingestion. It ends poisoning, and the older it is, the longer it protects the drinker afterward. Ordinary theriac is made with vipers and works only as opium. The true one replaces the vipers with the flesh of a great serpent, such as a basilisk, and must age a year and a day at least. Orvietan, unicorn horn powder and terra sigillata are sold in the same trade, and do nothing.

Strength	Effect	Side effect	Price
A year and a day	Ends all Tainted, at any tier	None	Not sold
Five years	Ends all Tainted, at any tier. Immune to Tainted for the encounter	None	Not sold
About a decade	Ends all Tainted, at any tier. Immune to Tainted for a day	None	Not sold
About fifty years	Ends all Tainted, at any tier. Immune to Tainted for a year	None	Not sold
A century	Ends all Tainted, at any tier. Immune to Tainted permanently*	None	Not sold

* Century-old theriac is a GM's gift, such as an heirloom jar from a noble house.

Type	None
Workspace	Laboratory
Delivery	Ingested
Use	Any time
Duration	Instantaneous; its immunity lasts as its age gives
Crash	None
Properties	None
Modifications	None
Rarity	The GM controls the source
Notes	Ordinary theriac, made with vipers, works as opium

To make:

Makes	Learned at	Source	Time	Yield
Theriac	Skilled	A legendary serpent, such as a basilisk	Aged a year and a day at least; older is stronger	Set by the creature