[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Okay, so it isn't here yet - but we all know it will be.  So here's a question I've answered to my own satisfaction, but I'm curious as to other peoples' takes on this: Awakened Drugs and Chemical Glands.

Chemical glands can produce any natural drug or chemical - that means, at least to me, something that in some way comes from a plant or animal, as compared to arsenic or other such compounds which are either 1) metal-based or 2) entirely manufactured and never had any sort of origin in biology.  But then ... laes, leal, all these other things are natural drugs.

Do you allow them in your game?  My ruling is that the chemical gland (producing 1 dose per day) for an awakened chemical or drug can only function if it's implanted in an individual that is, or will become, Awakened, i.e. is a mage or adept or has purchased 'latent Awakening' or something similar.

[8-bit]

Where is this from in earlier editions? I don't know much about it, but it sounds interesting. I don't think I can make any judgments without knowing what it is and how it functions.

[Namikaze]

Intriguing.  Though technically arsenic is absolutely natural.  It's found in a bunch of plants, so it wouldn't make sense in a metahuman runner unless there's some SURGE thing to give them plant DNA.  I think I'd allow the drug to be produced, assuming it makes sense.  Awakened drugs would only be in Awakened individuals.  Plant-based drugs would only be found in runners with some sort of plant-based SURGE effect.  That kind of thing.

[Angelone]

I was under the impression that laes and other BADs were synthesized to give them that awakened kick. They come from natural sources but are processed similarly to talismans to awaken them.

Arsenal pg. 76

Awakened drugs differ from normal drugs in two very important respects. First, each Awakened drug is made from an Awakened plant or animal. Second, Awakened drugs cannot be synthesized by modern science. The normal cost difference between natural and synthetic drugs is about the same as that between natural food and the mycoprotein-soy that the average citizen lives on. Drug artists write manifestos about their attempts
to capture magic in a needle and shoot it into their corroded veins, but this is as close as they can get. Just a taste.

Arsenal pg. 77

The creation of magical compounds involves alchemy (see Magical Compounds, p. 88, Street Magic). While the effects of Awakened drugs are completely chemical, the effects of magical compounds are magical in nature. Any character, Awakened or mundane, can benefit from a magical compound. Each magical compound has a shelf life of 1D6 weeks, after which it has no effect.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

In general I take a lot of 4e stuff with a pretty big grain of salt; considering that you can eat the fruit of the damn tree and get the effect, and that they make wine out of it, I find it hard to believe that laes and leal (and laesal wine/brandy) have a 'shelf life' of only 1d6 weeks.

*reads through again*  Actually, Angelone, both your quotes kind of support my statement.  These aren't magical compounds; these are Awakened drugs, needing an Awakened source, and can't just casually be cooked up in a home lab by Billy the Budding Chemist from some crap he found in his bathroom cabinets.  It requires certain ingredients, generally that Awakened source.  They might be processed somewhat; refined, concentrated, whatever, which is what I presume happens to produce laes.  But that's kind of where it ends.  To do more is to get into 'magical compound' territory, which requires Alchemy and a whole transformative experience for the stuff.

But a BAD is just a refinement of what's already there - getting gold from ore, as it were.
Namikaze, I believe I was thinking of cyanide; my apologies.  However, going by the chemical gland's description in various editions, if it's biologically generated, it can be produced by a gland, no matter the individual; plant-based drugs are capable of being generated by the gland just fine, and don't need a 'plant-based SURGE'.

I'm using 4e because the description includes everything that was in the 3e description, so:

A chemical gland is a sac lined with cells that are genetically tailored to produce a single, naturally occurring substance.  Examples of these naturally occurring compounds include snake venoms; toxins from insects, spiders, frogs, or fish; ink, such as that from octopuses; irritants, like skunk fluid; royal jelly; insulin; slime, as exuded by snails; acids, such as those used in digestion; pigments and fluorescing compounds, such as green fluorescing protein; some recreational chemicals, like alcohol and some hallucinogens; and simple compounds made of elements found naturally in the body, such as cyanide and nitrous oxide. The gland can also produce or concentrate elementary substances occurring in the body, such as hydrogen and chlorine, but not arsenic or other heavy metals.

While in general this gets used to load up your injector for your adrenaline pump and the like, other common (at least in my experience) uses are for useful toxins from the book - gamma-scopolamine being a prime candidate, because it's useful, non-lethal, normally expensive, and (when you boil it down) just a type of plant toxin.  That sort of gland is expensive, sure - 100x the single-dose toxin cost, plus 30k - and tough to get, but in the long run, it pays for itself.  The sticking part, though, is whether or not an Awakened drug would be able to be produced.

Now, as I said, in my mind the requirement would be needing to be implanted into an Awakened individual - probably not SURGEd - which would certainly limit its implanting.  But for that cybered mage / bio-adept ... it might be worth the 0.3+ essence impact.

[8-bit]

Yeah, that sounds reasonable then. Unless you want the mundane version to be produced by the gland, and then you need an alchemist to "awaken" the raw materials*.


*I may be interpreting it wrong, but from what I'm seeing, some magical compounds are simply mundane ones that have been specially treated with magic to "awaken" them.

[Namikaze]

Thanks for quoting the text Wyrm, it confirms that my memory of the 4e gland isn't as good as I hoped.  Looks like there is no prerequisite for any kind of plant based SURGE, as you said.  And it looks like cyanide is okay, but arsenic is not.  I can only assume the heavy metals exclusion is due to the severe danger involved - more dangerous than producing toxins that your body might become inured to, certainly.

I think it makes perfect sense though to expect the gland to be incapable of producing Awakened drugs without the character being Awakened.  Out of curiosity, would you consider Technomancers to be in that category?

[8-bit]

Thanks for quoting the text Wyrm, it confirms that my memory of the 4e gland isn't as good as I hoped.  Looks like there is no prerequisite for any kind of plant based SURGE, as you said.  And it looks like cyanide is okay, but arsenic is not.  I can only assume the heavy metals exclusion is due to the severe danger involved - more dangerous than producing toxins that your body might become inured to, certainly.

I think it makes perfect sense though to expect the gland to be incapable of producing Awakened drugs without the character being Awakened.  Out of curiosity, would you consider Technomancers to be in that category?

That makes me wonder if there have ever been any Technomantic drugs. Hmm, even if there hasn't that's something to think about for an interesting house rule...

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Like Awakened drugs (or magical compounds), a technomantic drug would give you some of the abilities of a technomancer - very mild ones, undoubtedly.  IMO, one of the worst ideas of 4e were 'virtuakinetic critters', but hey, you work with what you got.

In regards to the 'is a technomancer actually Awakened', that's a sort of iffy/wary subject.  In my personal opinion?  Yes, it's just that they're 'fully Awakened with the computer world', and there's an innate clash between the psychological makeup of the two that is incredibly difficult to overcome.  This may, however, be why we're hearing rumors of virtuakinetics gaining powerful physical capabilities that were only previously found in the realm of the adept - but then again, if you have someone with a very powerful mind, whether that's magically-generated or 'computer-generated', you're not going to see a lot of functional difference between the two...

[Marcus]

My understand of Awakened substances is your using what amounts to magic radicals to cook them up. SR tech cannot engineer "awakened" DNA. At least as of 4th. Chem glands being artificial organs that produce fair complex substances, still require genetic engineering, meaning that you need to be DNA mapped to that substance. So I would argue no to chem glands. The awakened part has some nice logic behind it I'll give you. But the gland isn't magic b/c it was put in some who is magic. To be fair its been a bit sense 4th it maybe possible that by 5th they advanced to the point where you can mess with Awakened DNA, but that's what it would take to do this as I understand it.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... but they don't NEED genetic engineering.  All they have to do is figure out how to make a cell with that gene structure (of the actual fruit/plant/critter that produces the chemical) survive inside their genetically-constructed gland.  They don't need to fiddle with the gene structure of the chemical-producer pretty much at all ...

[Shaidar]

... but they don't NEED genetic engineering.  All they have to do is figure out how to make a cell with that gene structure (of the actual fruit/plant/critter that produces the chemical) survive inside their genetically-constructed gland.  They don't need to fiddle with the gene structure of the chemical-producer pretty much at all ...

Is the crux and definition of genetic engineering.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

... but they don't NEED genetic engineering.  All they have to do is figure out how to make a cell with that gene structure (of the actual fruit/plant/critter that produces the chemical) survive inside their genetically-constructed gland.  They don't need to fiddle with the gene structure of the chemical-producer pretty much at all ...

Is the crux and definition of genetic engineering.

Context is all.  Don't emphasize the non-critical part of the context.

They have the fruit cells.  They're happily making forget-me-now juice.  They need to take those cells and, not modifying those cells at all, determine how to continue to feed and care for them so they stay alive, making forget-me-now juice.  The genetic engineering comes in the second stage - creating the support structure - and not in the first stage, creating the cell that makes the chemical.  They have the cell that makes the chemical.  It's persuading it to stay alive, stay 'juicing', and replicate at a rate equal to its senescence.  They would also need to genetically engineer OTHER cells that extract the chemical itself while discarding the dross, essentially refining it from its original 'leal light' version into a full-concentrate laes version.

The genetic engineering occurs all around the critical 'we're Awakened cells producing an Awakened toxin', but doesn't touch those critical cells at all.  Get it now?

[cantrip]

I'd let one of my SURGEd players take a Laes Chemical Gland....as a negative quality.    Under stressful situations, they would make a roll, maybe Willpower + Body or Willpower + Edge; on a failed roll Laes would be released into their system. On a glitch they'd wake up in a run down hotel room with a bunraku girl in an unknown location. On a critical glitch they'd wake up in a run down hotel room with a bunraku girl in Aztlan...or Asamando!

I like your idea of using the chemical gland but requiring the player to be awakened to produce an awakened drug. If you think it is too powerful, you could offset, by having it give you a background count(rating of drug) while in use. A lot of the awakened drugs have a downside when they wear off don't they?

One thing to consider - if you do allow in game, is that your player with the awakened chemical gland could be at risk of someone coming after them for ahhh....farming purposes. A dose a day would make someone some good money! So they'd want to keep that ability on the low down.

Another thought would be to make this a truly 'awakened' gland -- so it isn't implanted so much as exists in a magical or SURGEd individual. You could pay it off as a quality or power point cost or something along those lines.

[Marcus]

Most Day I'd be willing to go 10 rounds with you on the definition of Genetic engineering and how that process is done, and why it means this wont work Wyrm.  But, honestly this issue doesn't cause me significant concern, there no awakened drug currently in the game that's more dangerous then what we saw in SG. So I'm gonna leave this one alone.