Of Course Your D&D Character Can Get High AF Today
Whatever universe you’re playing in, everyone celebrates 4/20, and in Faerun, you’ll find plenty of ways to, uh, smoke some Greenwood.
Faerun is the default setting for Dungeons & Dragons, a decision that hearkens back to the 80s and the departure of Gary Gygax from TSR, and while there’s a whole lot to be said about the implications of that (we’ve written about it, multiple times), the upshot of why we’re here today is it’s had the chance to accumulate decades of background lore from the 80s and 90s all the way to today–including some surprisingly detailed information on recreational activities of all sorts in the Forgotten Realms. Sex, violence, rock and roll, and drugs.
Elminster certainly loves his pipeweed. And I’m not saying that the Forgotten Realms is a stoner’s paradise, but I am saying the whole Realm was designed by someone named Ed Greenwood. Who also So if you’re looking to roll a 20 today, let’s get right to it and look at five different ways to get high AF in Faerun.
Ziran
Ziran, also called Bloodfast, first introduced in the Forgotten Realms expansion Lords of Darkness, is a drug from the Underdark that dazes users for a round then grants the user increased Dexterity for 1d3 hours, as well as giving users a floating sense of detachment or out-of-body experience, with users reporting ‘watching themselves from a distance.’
Panaeolo
Also called Netheril Herb, this was first discovered in the empire of Netheril and had long vanished from the Realms until the reappearance of the City of Shade, which reintroduced the herb to the world at large. It is a “magical” herb that “attunes you to the weave” giving you the mechanical effects of increasing your spell save DC by 2 (or 3) but at the cost of doing Charisma Damage because you keep talking about how your hands can touch anything but themselves.
Mordayn Vapor
Also called Dreammist, this is potent concoction of rare herbs that is generally taken by inhaling the vapors of tea, which is about on par with what you’d expect from the Forgotten Realms. Inhaling the Dreammist induces a dreamlike state wherein users see “visions of incredible beauty” that enthrall them, distracting them 50% of the time.
Vornduir
Introduced in Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster’s Forgotten Realms, Vornduir is created from a mixture of “essences” of certain herbs and select animals, which is distressing–but when inhaled users can expect to experience a variety of effects including feeling warm, content, alert–and resistant to cold, but they might also experience a veritable buffet of side-effects from nothing at all, to itching, or reversing pain and pleasure stimuli (and if that feels a little BDSM-y, well, there’s a whole other article about Faerun’s horny history).
Cheeeese
Or more properly known as Luiren spring cheese, cheeeese is as D&D a drug as it possibly gets, which is to say it’s what someone’s idea of a drug for hobbits would be. It only effects halflings, it’s a special cheese that was introduced in a supplement called Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalogue, and it is basically a cheese that gets only halflings drunk, and it’s every bit as awful as you’d expect.
1992 was a heck of a year, is all I can say.
Happy Adventuring
