Using Clocks for Poisons and Diseases
Our time on this earth is limited, creatures. (How’s that for a greeting?)
I’ve been toying around with using clocks to make poisons and diseases a bit more interesting. My goals for this design were:
- Keep book keeping down: I’m lazy. I don’t want much to track.
- Progression: I want poisons and diseases to be able to progress, adding symptoms over time.
- Simple Descriptions: I want to be able to write out a poison in a couple minutes max and have an easy reference list of what happens at each stage.
I thought clocks would be perfect for this! It lets diseases and poisons progress slowly, with different effects tied to different segments. You can do all sorts of things with the clock structure, like jump to further segments.
It’s advised that the referee keep track of the clock and only relay symptoms to the players. Hopefully (if your players deal with getting poisoned often) they can start to recognize different poisons by their symptoms.
This has yet to be playtested, but I plan on including this rule in further games of mine. If I remember I’ll come back here and update this post :)
Enjoy!
Poison Clocks
Each poison clock has a number of segments, a “tick time” which indicates how quickly the clock progresses and a list of symptoms at each segment. Each segment includes all symptoms from prior segments.
Unless specified, effects last until cured with antidote / magic.
You could extend this idea to include specific cures that players can remember, but D&D type games usually come with catch all “cure poison” spells that should cover most of it.
Effects are only listed on segments that have them. Unlisted segments are still on the clock, but nothing happens when they’re reached.
Poisons come in two types.
- Eaten: Poisoned is consumed or otherwise digested to activate.
- Blood: Poisons enters the bloodstream. This means it can be applied to weapons.
Sample Poisons
Drow Poison
6 segments. Blood. Tick 10 minutes.
1: Target falls asleep. They can be shaken awake, ending the poison.
3: Target can only be awoken by antidote or magic.
6: Target can only be awoke by high level magic.
Malice
4 segments. Blood. Tick 1 hour.
1: Vision clouds, treat bright light as dim light and dim light as darkness.
2: Target is blinded.
4: Target is permanently blinded.
Slow-Acting Sea Snake Venom
6 segments. Eaten. Tick 1 hour.
4: Fever
5: Sweating and dry mouth. Curative magic is only 50% effective.
6: Death
Wyrmblood Venom
8 segments. Blood. Tick 1 hour.
Each tick, the target makes a save against poison. If they fail, they lose 1d3 points of Charisma. If they succeed, the clock decreases by one point. If the clock reaches the 8th segment, the Charisma loss becomes permanent. If the clock goes below segment 1, the poison is fought off and Charisma returns at 1 per day. A target dies at 0 Charisma. Curative magic restores as many segments as the level of the spell.
Giant Wasp Poison
4 segments. Blood. Tick 10 minutes.
On each tick, a DC 10 + 2 times [segment number] Constitution Saving throw is allowed. On a success, the clock does not progress. After three successes, the poison wears off.
2: DC 14 Save
3: DC 16 Save
4: DC 18 Save or Death
Wyvern Poison
One dose of wyvern antivenom can be harvested from the tail of a dead wyvern. Two on DC 20 survival roll. (This is really deadly, inspired by 1e. Make wyverns scary again!)
6 segments. Blood. Tick 1 round.
1: Stinging swelling wound.
2: Rash spreads around wounded area.
3: Rash intensifies. Disadvantage on attacks.
4: Skin burns red hot. Intense fever.
5: Foaming at the mouth, incapacitated.
6: Death. If you’re lame (or fair) give them a DC 20 Constitution Saving Throw first.
Redmouth Poison
A witch poison brewed in revenge. When fully imbibed, the victim can be controlled With the corresponding chant.
6 segments. Eaten. Tick 10 minutes.
2: One tooth falls out.
4: Two more teeth fall out.
5: Mouth fills with blood and half remaining teeth fall out
6: All teeth fall out, victim becomes mind controlled by nearest chanter for d6 times 10 minutes.
Sample Diseases
Flesh Rot
4 segments. Tick 1 day
1: Skin peels
2: Skin reddens.
3: Skin decays, withering appearance. Disadvantage on Charisma checks.
4: Flesh withers. All damage is doubled.
Dragon Plague
6 segments. Tick 1 day (3 days if consistently next to a warm fire). Anyone within 5 feet of a Dragon Plague victim has a 50% chance every hour to catch the disease. Dragon Plague is part disease part curse, it can only be cured with high level magic.
1: Sickly cough which can spread the disease.
3: Extremely cold. Cold sources deal double damage.
4: Aching joints. Movement rate halved.
5: Blood thickens and turns black, showing through skin. Target cannot move.
6: Death.
Arcane Blight
6 segments. Tick 12 hours.
1: Victim becomes paranoid. Doesn’t trust anyone.
3: Skin develops hard dark scale-like growths.
4: Hallucinations of team members plotting against victim. Paranoia heightened.
6: Victim transforms into a Nothic.
Yellow Mold Sickness
6 segments, tick 1 hour
1: Yellow spores in lungs, DISADV on CON saves and checks
3: Cough out yellow spores, everytime this clock progresses CON save (DC 12) by all within 10’ or contract yellow mold sickness
6: Turn into yellow mold