An RP Device - "The Ceruleum Death"

[SeijiTataki]

An edit since, apparently, the text seemed overwhelming:

 

The Poison Itself:

"The Ceruleum Death" is a poison that has been distilled from the blood of Coblyn that have been gorged with Cobalt and Ceruleum (from which it derives its name). Because Coblyn have a tendency to consume large quantities of these materials for their own use, their blood is highly saturated in these materials in a form that is usable as a concealable liquid state, something that would not be normally possible for the metal cobalt or the otherwise highly volatile liquid ceruleum. This reddish liquid can be introduced into the subject's system either through direct injection or introduction to the blood (such as a deep wound with a poisoned weapon) or via ingestion.

 

Symptoms

The primary source of death from this poison comes from the Cobalt component, which has a high enough concentration to invoke toxicity. Symptoms of Cobalt Poisoning are blood thickening, thyroid problems, nerve damage and cardiomyopathy (Your heart enlarges and has difficulty pumping blood). Even if someone survives the poisoning attempt, the effects are quite severe and can cause prolonged pain and weakness, leaving the subject debilitated.

The high quantities of Ceruleum in the poison may have adverse effects upon different individuals, but does not currently have a standardized list of symptoms and side effects. On occasion, Aether Sickness is known to occur.

 

Cures

There is currently no known cure for Cobalt Poisoning (There is in the real world, but it's unlikely that many people have succumb to cobalt toxicity to warrant one existing in Eorzea yet), though hemodialysis will help remove the cobalt from your system once it's been introduced. Standard bleeding practices available in Eorzea will, eventually, remove the blood impurities to negligible or completely removed levels.

Magical treatment is all but impossible, as it requires you to remove mineral impurities from the blood, and even if magic could be applied to remove the impurities the presence of the Ceruleum complicates the treatment immensely. The ceruleum reacts to the aetheric energy of conventional magical treatment and becomes active, generally wrecking havoc upon the internals of the afflicted and causing severe aether sickness. Prolonged treatment could theoretically 'out pace' the damage caused by the ceruleum in a long term treatment plan, but would be painful to the subject and potentially life threatening. More conventional treatment is always advised.

Once the poison has been fully removed from the system, more conventional healing magics can be applied without further cause of concern.

 

Introduction to Eorzea

Ceruleum Death is a very recently introduced poison in Eorzea. It was concocted by a Garlean agent on long term assignment on an assassination attempt on a known Garlean defector working against the Empire. Though their initial assassination attempt was thwarted, their escape put several Brass Blades and the initial target nearly on their death beds. Eorzean healers made several attempts at using conventional healing techniques (to disasterous results in some cases) before finally coming up with a cure via blood letting.

Though several vials of the poison were confiscated, a few managed to slip free into the criminal underbelly of Ul'dah, no doubt due to an exchange of coins with some less than reputable blades, and it did not take long for the relatively simple poison to be replicated.

The Ceruleum Death is finding a number of uses in the criminal underground, though rarely as a direct tool for killing a target. The delivery of a sufficient quantity of the poison makes it less practical than more conventional poisons. Its long term side effects and the intense pain associated with it, however, has made it popular as a long-term poison to escape detection or as a large dosed poison to cause immediate and potentially long-term suffering to a target. There are some rumors of others using it as a catalyst for interrogation or even execution, using the cobalt poisoning component to disable a subject while using magics to activate the ceruleum component for the desired end result.

 

For posterity sake, the original plot explanation and details are below:

 

So I recently decided to switch my main from Monk to Machinist (Along with a billion other people, I am sure!), but thought that I'd need an RP hook to explain why my character that had generally relied and depended on the fact that they were a strong close-engagement brawler would switch to something less 'hands on' for combat. The character was already mechanically inclined, but lacked a real reason to suddenly change fighting styles; so I ultimately moved toward the idea of poisoning the character and explaining the fighting style change as one necessitated due to the recovery period. The character was written as a Garlean defector, and that she was also using her earnings as a sellsword to help fund resistance forces as well as attempting to weaken the Empire, making her a target as she would have ultimately been seen as a terrorist threat against the Garlean Empire. Long story short, I ultimately had a character made that was a Garlean assassin that was forced to work in Eorzea long enough to procure the materials she needed to create the poison that she needed in order to make the assassination attempt on my main's life. In story, the attempt was a bit of a 'to-do' and the would be assassin managed to escape capture but not before wounding some Brass Blades in her escape and making known the concoction that she had come up with in an attempt to pull off the murder.Since I went to all the effort to come up with this, I figured some people might want to know about the poison that I devised in case they ever wanted to use it for some plot or RP of their own. One of the things that I absolutely wanted was a poison that couldn't just be 'cured' with a hand wave (figuratively and literally) by people using magic. The poison has been given the name "The Ceruleum Death", as one of the ingredients in it is a 'refined' form of Ceruleum. The idea here is that when people use their magic, that is based upon aether manipulation, it causes the ceruleum to become reactive and damages the person who has been poisoned, making attempts to heal via magic both painful and significantly less productive than it should be, to the point that doing so would generally be viewed to be detrimental to the person being healed. What this means is that the person ultimately has to 'tough it out' the old fashioned way, and have treatment provided to them in a more traditional sense.

The primary source of the poison is actually Cobalt; to save you a google search, cobalt poisoning is generally rare due to the amount of exposure you'd need to induce toxicity (generally you suffer from it getting in your lungs, instead), but includes blood thickening, thyroid problems, nerve damage and cardiomyopathy (Your heart enlarges and has difficulty pumping blood). It's a slow, painful, and even if you are recovering has potentially long term side effects that will also weaken you considerably. The poison is actually made by processing Coblyn blood. Coblyns are convenient in that they are great at processing down materials and storing it in their body (the lore even mentions that often times Coblyns are gathered up and smelted due to the heat burning away their bodies and leaving pure metal behind), and they are known to feast on all manner of ores - and even, thanks to a storyline quest, Ceruleum. The idea is that the Coblyns are gorged on the Cobalt and Ceruleum till their bodies are super saturated with it, and they are slaughtered and their blood is used to purify a poison that when ingested (or introduced to the blood directly in some manner) causes cobalt toxicity. The high concentration of both materials causes all sorts of pain and suffering to the target, and even if they survive the long term effects are quite problematic.

Not sure if this sort of plot hook is useful to anyone, but boredom set upon by the introduction of Heavensward's patching led me to share what might ultimately be no use to anyone!

 

[Nero]

[Mod Mode]

 

Moving this to Making Connections for better exposure with people who may be looking for a plot.

 

[Gharen]

So, I read the 1st line of this and stopped. Primarily because it's in a wall of text layout, you will likely get better results if you correct this.

[Wooden Fingers]

Formatting aside, that was really interesting to read. Thank you so much for sharing it. I don't know much about poisons, so seeing something like this that has a lot of thought behind it is thrilling. I also like that it's immune to magical curing; that's a very nice touch.

[SeijiTataki]

Readjusted the format since the old explanation was apparently hard to follow. Original post in a cut in case anyone wanted to read it.