The venom of the Temusa snake is both a dangerous and wonderous thing. It will cure any ailment no matter how grave, and heal any disease no matter how persistant, even reversing the effects of aging, but at what cost?
Full Item Description
The Temusa snake is native to the Sanje Swamplands. The swamps themselves are dangerous enough, filled with diseases and dangers creatures abound.
The venom of the Temusa snake has many miraculous properties. One of these properties is it's rather ironic use as a cure-all for just about anything. Within hours of being bitten, any disease, injury, long term injury, magical disease, or even the effects of aging, will be cured. However, within minutes, not hours, it will kill the victim.
There is an herbal tea, gathered from the Kajnol mountains in the south-east region of the world, that is extremely rare, and even harder to access, because of it's natural and non-transplantable habitat on the underside of a particular cliff's edge that is notorious for its fertile, but very unstable soil. If one manages to actually harvest this plant, it must be dried in a one year process that is native to those regions. Hastening of this process is risky at best as the tea is often rendered useless, and, given the nature of it's use, is even riskier in application. In dried form, it can be stored indefinitely, but once brewed, is only good for a few days at most.
This tea will counteract the harmful effects of the venom, which, in order to work, must not travel through a medium other than blood. Any application other than a bite is often pointless. Even the Kajnol miracle tea, which has many strong curative properties by itself, is not strong enough to completely counteract the Temusa snake venom, however it does delay the effects. Once bitten, assuming that the Kajnol miracle tea was ingested immediately before or afterwards, the victim has only sixteen days before his excruciatingly painful death.
With healing potions and salves, the effects of death may be delayed, but only by a few extra days at most. Every minute is needed to make the 20 day journey southwest where the final antidote can be found. If enough horses are killed by exhaustion in order to speed up the travel, the trip can be made in only fifteen days, where the Melnor root may be ground and put into an antidote in a process that takes a minimum of six hours to prepare, and only then by a skilled medicine man. It is recommended that arrangements be made before hand. The Melnore root loses it's potency within 12 hours after being uprooted.
The Melnor root comes with a few side effects however. Specifically, a severe month long rash. Most consider it a blessing to be alive however, and after the month, are found extremely well, and many years younger.
The anti-aging effects of this process are not quite perfect. no matter how many times the process is undertaken, the anti-aging effects are always slightly less than perfect. For this reason, it cannot quite grant immortality, but for a highly expensive, lengthy, and painful process, it can increase ones life to near immortal status.
Because of the high risk involved in this process, it should be noted that most who have attempted to repeat this process to increase their life span, have instead shortened their life instead. Only the very rich and very determined should try this.
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This item was inspired by one of those little blurbs that shows up on the bottom of the page here at the Citadel. The blurb was written by 'The Jack'
A decent idea. There are potent benefits but the risk and rarity is sufficient in curbing any excess. I like it!
I'm not as fond of this one. It's penalties are very 'All or Nothing', you're either cured, or you're dead. It sounds like the plot use would be: Give the character (either a PC or Patron NPC) some disease/poison/injury/decrepitude, then make them run all over the country getting the cure.
There could be some good RP moments there: For example, they encounter someone who desperately needs their help while they are already in a race to get to the curative roots. Do they tell them to go pound sand or do they let the afflicted one die?
On the other hand, that plot could easily become a 'rail job', where their choices are nonexistent.
Could the snake be brought to the land of the root? If not, why not? Does it have odd dietary requirements?
I guess I would want some idea of where this snake came from? It's power indicates definite divine intent but why?
Actually, I don't recommend using it as a main quest. It is actually a better idea to have as a last resort for anything else. Sick child? Evil Curse? Cancer? Arthritis? Old man in a coma?
In fact, I would use it in none life-threatening situations where somebody wants to cure a long time affliction like a bad knee or a case of asthma. If the PC's manage to do everything correctly, they could get some great rewards and a powerful contact, but a mistake could mean that they have a dead noble, or worse, a dead noble's father.
No, the snake cannot be transported. I don't have any actual pre-existing reason, but suffice it to say that an elixer that can grant near immortality should be near impossible to use limmitlessly. It is a balance thing.
I guess if the players went to significant trouble to transport a large portion of the eco-system, then I might let them get away with it, but I would ensure that too many attempts at that resulted in a ruined fountain of youth.
One final note: I don't really intend for this to be a stellar piece of work. Just something to contribute that you might like to use. I have some other submissions that I am trying to do really well, and they are taking priority right now.
-Nobody
I agree with your comments about moving the snake; it's something that players are likely to try, so it had to be considered, lest the GM be painted into a corner.
Not a process that I would want to go through.I suppose one could get the snake Steve Irwin style without being bitten, get the tea, grind the root properly, and THEN get bitten by the snake, drink the tea, eat the root, kill or otherwise deal with the snake, and then be straitjacketed to stop the rash being scratched open.
The question I wonder is, since these parts are not connected in any way, how did anyone come up with this process. There is no geographic or cultural connection to any of these properties. Sure that makes this difficult to do. However, how did someone put this puzzle together?
The components to make Atomic Energy are easier to put together that this process.
How common is the knowledge of this process? Is this 'secret knowledge' of occult/ secret societies? Is this just rare knowledge of a healer's order? Is this the thing of bardic tales and everyone knows it?
I have too many questions to easily digest the piece. It if was an adjunct to another post, this might be better. However, as a stand alone.. it is less than stellar.
While I wouldn't go as far as comparing this to atomic energy, the process seems a bit to spread out and disjointed to me.