Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Finbert brews poison from dried herbs!

This post is a play-by-post for Finbert, one of the hobbit in the Palantir Commission campaign, who decided to use his down time to improve upon his recipe for a contact poison that he already invented. One bug of the original invention is that is can only be prepared from fresh material... and right  now we're in the dead of winter.


GURPS invention process for Finbert's oily sting from dried material

Finbert has decided to try to make his "Oily sting" poison from dry material. All attempts so far have failed. However, after months of travelling and brooding about, he decides to see whether he can tackle this problem. We are going to use GURPS new invention rules to determine whether this is working.


The first step for Finbert is to determine whether he has a good concept to run with. He has Herb Lore-11 and Naturalist-11. The is clearly a Herb Lore check. He rolls 9, a success by a margin of 2. He knows how to make the poison from fresh Emory Blades, but can't get the oils out of the dried stuff. He's got some dried herb, and an idea about re-hydrating the material using steam and other aromatics elements. It is a simple invention to make this improvement on his existing herbal preparation.

The next step is to prototype the idea. A day later, he makes his first attempt. The oil that acts as his main poison ingredient doesn't extract from the material. He persists and keep working. After 4 more days, he tries again with a modified setup: it works! (He rolled 6 against Herb Lore-11). Some 5 days were required to prototype the preparation. The new preparation inherits the bugs of the original recipe: the oil lose its potency if it remains exposed to air for more than an hour, and has the additional problem that is is highly viscous and a bit harder to setup on his darts.

By day 7, he has processed most of his remaining dried Emory blades and prepared a small amount of it: 5 new doses are added to his inventory. Finding more Emory Blades in winter will be a difficult task, requiring 1-2 days of hiking, a successful Area Knowledge and a Naturalist roll.

Finbert acquire 1 pt in Herb Lore. The Experience post for Session 7 has been updated.

5 comments:

  1. Nicely done. Now can Finbert get back to something of real importance, such as a new recipe for rabbit? Something with a bit of a kick.

    Kasper has to maintain his new physique. :-)

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  2. Very Cool! I am sure if we continually mentioned that whle on adventure I was doing the cooking my cooking levels would go up quickly.

    I shall try to remember.

    I do carry Shire Shalt as we call it.

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    1. And Wow so glad I came up with that re-Hydrating idea. You would think I had spent the last 20 years of my life in a science lab!

      Usually I am such a dry chap.

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  3. And cool Gurps mechanic. Looks like you had a bit of fun with it.

    Next downtime. I try to make it more dangerous.

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    1. The rules are at page 473 onwards. This is the same rules as used to create anything such as new spells, etc. it is fun do do in a live sessions as well.

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