Blackwater Venomtail Poison

Type: Injury
Fortitude DC: 18
Initial Damage: 1d4 Str and 1d4 Dex
Secondary Damage: 1d6 Str
Price: 2,500 gp
Weight: —

DESCRIPTION

Distilled from the glands of the Blackwater Catfish, Striped Venomtail, this murky, olive-black toxin carries the slow certainty of drowning within it. It is typically stored in sealed gourds, bone vials, or thick glass containers, as exposure to open air gradually dulls its potency. When freshly harvested, it carries a faint brackish scent, like stagnant water left too long undisturbed.

Unlike many poisons that overwhelm the body with pain or shock, Blackwater Venomtail poison works through insidious degradation. Muscles weaken, reflexes dull, and coordination slips away in stages. Victims often remain fully conscious as their bodies fail them, aware of their surroundings but increasingly unable to respond.

Those reduced to 0 Strength by this poison lose all ability to swim or hold themselves above water, immediately placing them at risk of drowning if submerged. This effect has made the poison particularly feared in swamp and river regions, where even a minor wound can become a death sentence.

Creatures reduced to 0 Strength by this poison are considered helpless for the purpose of Mireborn Harvest Instinct.

LORE

Among those who know of it, this poison is rarely spoken of as a weapon - but rather as a condition. Survivors describe the sensation not as agony, but as surrender: the gradual realization that resistance is no longer possible. Limbs grow heavy, breath becomes shallow, and the will to fight seems to slip away alongside physical strength.

The Mireborn are the most infamous users of this venom. They harvest it directly from living striped venomtails, collecting it with patient, deliberate care. Their weapons are coated not for immediate lethality, but to ensure that those struck cannot escape. Many victims are found not where they were attacked, but where they ultimately fell - dragged by water, or simply unable to rise again.

There are whispers that repeated exposure to diluted forms of the venom can build a tolerance, though such practices are dangerous and rarely survive experimentation. Whether the Mireborn themselves possess such resistance is unknown, but their casual handling of the toxin suggests a familiarity that borders on intimacy.

KELWYN’S NOTES

Ah… yes. I have encountered this substance before - though “encountered” feels an insufficient word for something that lingers in both the senses and the memory long after one has prudently withdrawn from its vicinity.

This is not, as some might simplistically conclude, a poison intended to kill. Death, after all, is decisive. This substance is something far more… contemplative. It persuades the body to abandon itself - to relinquish strength not in a moment of violence, but through a quiet and inexorable surrender. One does not die from it so much as one ceases to meaningfully resist the world’s claim upon them.

I have reviewed accounts - fragmented, often written in trembling hand - of those who survived exposure. What is most striking is not their description of weakness, but of awareness. They speak of watching their own limbs fail with a kind of detached horror, as though the body had become a separate and uncooperative entity. It is, I think, a particularly cruel experience to remain present for one’s own undoing.

And then, of course, there are the Mireborn. I find them… profoundly distasteful. Not merely for their appearance, though that alone would suffice, but for their methodology. To harvest such a substance from a living creature, to refine it, to apply it with intent - this suggests not desperation, but preference. There is a deliberateness to their actions that I cannot comfortably attribute to mere survival.

There are many poisons in this world that kill swiftly, cleanly, even mercifully by comparison. This is not among them. This is a thing that teaches the body how to let go… and then ensures that it does so at the worst possible moment.