Communion is a bitter-tasting powder that causes the user to experience ecstatic union with their god or gods. Usually taken by mixing into tea (generally with a lot of sugar), Communion is particularly popular with the devotees of Karla Sommers living on Al Amarja. Continue reading Communion
Communion is a deeply sinister drug, and all the more so for being legal. In a future of ecological catastrophe and over-population, that government has sanctioned mass suicides. They even provide the drug for them, at no charge: Communion.
| The drug has two parts: a neurotoxin absorbed through your saliva, and a muscle relaxant that kicks in more slowly, killing you softly and painlessly.
Unless, of course, your mouth is dry from the excitement of your impending end, in which case the neurotoxin won’t work and the muscle relaxant will, killing you, but only after a minute or so of anguish in which time you are fully conscious but unable to move. |
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A cyberdrug, that is, one used only by robots and other cybernetic organisms, each Darkshot is in fact part of the body of the entity variously known as the Hell Ditch Pilgrim or Andy Soames.
| One of the most potent drugs ever known, each Darkshot is a small captured quantity of Dark Energy – the very virtual particles that bind galazxies and timelines together. Taking it allows machine consciouness to access – or at least view – the root controls of the universe in some fashion.
Perhaps fortunately, Darkshots are no longer produced, as the entity that it derives from has now mutated into a more benign form. |
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Related drugs: Hyperdrene, Mongoose Blood and Xenite
Deathsticks are a serum, usually distributed in glass tubes – to consume, the user simply ingests the contents, which are bright red or yellow in colour (the different colours are purely cosmetic and have no different effects).
Continue reading Deathsticks
Created by the Ethicals of the Riverworld, Dreamgum is a form of highly addictive chewing gum. It is distributed along with their food to all Riverworlders at each evening meal in their Grails.
Continue reading Dreamgum
A street drug developed by the very people who are charged with policing it, Dust is a red powder that stimulates telepathic powers in humans (and some other species) for the duration of its use.
| Dust was created by the Psi-Corps in an effort to create more human telepaths. It has been an unmitigated failure in that respect, and remains potentially a huge embarassment to the Psi-Corps should its origins become public. In the meantime, the same people who created the drug have the job of hunting down and punishing those who use it.
The fact that the drug works on non-human races, notably the Narn, is most likely indicative of the genetic meddling of the Vorlons with these races, with the drug tapping the telepathic genes implanted by that race. |
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Related drugs: Psi-blockers
It’s somewhat unclear whether Ent-Draughts are some form of enchanted juice or some form of enchanted water. Certainly it is loved by Ents, as Treebeard keeps a supply laid in. But what is most attention-grabbing about this liquid the effect that it has on hobbits.
| Even a single draught will cuase feelings of extreme well-being and act as a restorative to good health and boundless energy.
In the cases of Merry and Pippin, it even caused them to grow a considerable amount, making them two of the tallest hobbits ever. Presumably, it would have analogous effects on humans, although thiis has never been tested – and the only species to drink Ent-Draughts are the Ents themselves. The effect it has on them is unclear, although it is implied to be a mild intoxicant. |
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Related drugs: Athelas, Miruvóre and Pipe-Weed
Ex-Tend is an anti-agathic about which little is known. It appears to be a close relative of the drug FOREVER.
| Although little is known about the mechanisms by which it works, it is known that it does not confer immortality.
Ex-Tend exists in only a handful of closely-related alternate timelines or eigenstates. |
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Related Drugs: FEMFREE, FOREVER, NEURO and ORGASMOR
An almost completely reliable truth serum, Fast-penta is a commonly-used tool of ImpSec, the Barrayaran intelligence agency, and of numerous of its allies and enemies, too.
| The drug itself relaxes physical tensions, as well as mental and emotional inhibitions. It is not so much that it compels honesty, as that it compels docility and helpfulness – which, in the hands of a skilled interrogator, amounts to about the same thing.
Artificial immunity to it is sometimes given to operatives by their agencies, and more rarely, some people have naturally idiosyncratic reactions to it, in which the effects are more similar to those of ecstasy or LSD – Miles Naismith Vorkosigan is one of these. |
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Related drugs: Synergine
Fayalin is a naturally occurring drug found in the fruit of a native Crevenian shrub. The drug, when extracted from the fruit, is usually drunk in tea, and has a red colour.
| It is a mild stimulant with no intoxicating effects, and is considered a luxury item in many parts of the galaxy. Its consumption is often ritualised, and it is somewhat addictive. |
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Related Drugs:: Bentlam, Ladolian, Hadive, Nitrolabe, Thionite, Vee-Two Gas and VXN Gas.
FEMFREE is a drug that suppresses the maternal instincts in women. It is not clear how this physical effect is acheived, but it seems likely that it suppresses certain hormones, and likely also reduces the likelihood of conception.
| However, the social effects of the drug are even more striking. Shortly after the drug’s introduction, it was outlawed by President Lousewart, which swiflty led to the formation of a black market selling FEMFREE to the women who wanted it. |
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Related drugs: Ex-Tend, FOREVER, NEURO and ORGASMOR
FOREVER is an anti-aging drug produced by Blue Sky Inc.
| Although little is known about the mechanisms by which it works, it is known that it does not confer immortality. It is available only in pull form and must be taken daily.
FOREVER is known to exist in most of a cluster of closely-related alternate timelines or eigenstates. |
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Ex-Tend, FEMFREE, NEURO and ORGASMOR
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