Drugs
Don't be coy, you know why you accessed this file. Here's the goods; the rundown on things that get people messed up for fun or profit.
dust - smoked in small bowls, mostly. Moderately addictive, widely available, if one can get it past trade officers. Processed from the petals and parts of a flower that is easily cultivated in many climates and setups, owing to the fact it is native to forest floors and tolerates both the dark, and fluctuating temperatures. It induces brief but pleasantly intense euphoria, following by a more sustained intoxication that usually results in sleep -- and sometimes, death! Sometimes, people who smoke too much dust just don't wake up. These unfortunates are referred to, for reasons no one seems to remember, as lotus eaters. Or more unkindly, h*ckin idiots.
haze - milder, also smoked, either in bowls, hookahs, or rolled cigarettes. It's a fibrous plant matter that's been dried and is broken up to smoke. Moderate feeling of being drunk/intoxicated without the loss of motor control, and without the hangover. Has widely varying effects that might be tied to personality types, physiologies, or any number of factors there's been exactly zero research into. Something of an accepted and tsked at problem among the youth, particularly those of the Lyceum and the Northlands, this is counteracted by how h*ckin expensive it is. Seriously. This is because it is only grown who-knows-where, and is distributed but rarely.
BN - short for BaNana (leaf), there's no doubt it resembles one in its raw form: this intoxicant is made from long, green leaves of the inauspiciously named 'rat fern'. Some of us think this would be a way more metal name for a drug, but it's BN because that's how everyone was used to referring to it, so whatever. The leaves are dried somehow, possibly smoked (as in placed in a smoker) and definitely soaked in a bitter liquor. Shriveled chunks of these leaves are then placed in the mouth or chewed to release the juices, but few would be brave enough to swallow, as doing so can cause upset stomach. Also, it's gross. This drug is a hallucinogen, and a strong one. It can leave the imbiber very susceptible to suggestion and at the mercy of their own imagination.
Entries
Question: Are there any drugs in game that have the effects of cocaine or is that something someone would have to make or discover? Asking for a friend.
Answer: A few. I want to avoid designating them at this time until crime comes in and they could be coded.
Question: 1) Are there ways to get Haze and Dust into the city that aren't through the LB crime network, or should it basically assumed that if people are doing drugs they're coming in through the smugglers and lowlifes in my neighborhood?
2)2) Just how bad is it to be a Dusthead or a Hazer in modern Arx? Socially, what are the ramifications for users? If you get caught using, is it a major scandal? I mentally associate like ... Dust = coke, Haze = pot, just in terms of ramifications, but even that seems incomplete. How high can you get?
3) How addictive is Haze?
4) Does it make sense to cut Dust with Haze and what would that do if you did it? How do these drugs interact? SHOULD SOMEONE STORYREQUEST AND FIND OUT?
Answer: 1) Primarily lower boroughs, but not necessarily the criminal network down there- Arx is the busiest port in the world, and that's an awful lot of smuggling even outside of the criminal families. There's a good amount of land based trade with some contraband coming in from caravans passing through seawatch gate. The majority of illegal smuggling is just any trade with Abandoned, it is unlawful to trade to anyone that refuses to recognize the authority of the crown. Abandoned just happen to live in a lot of poppy fields to boot.
2) It's pretty frowned upon if someone doesn't have it under control. Treated with a similar amount of disdain as a prodigal. Would it get a noble kicked out of their family? Maybe not, but it's often treated with a bit more disapproval than someone being a drunk. The Inquisition doesn't tend to lock up users, since use alone is not a crime, just the smuggling aspect, and then it would mostly be about whoever they can extort for profits, really. The Iron Guard would treat someone pretty much the same as a drunk, probably ignore them unless they are a problem. As for how high, in extreme cases dust causes hallucinations. Dust is an opiate, and Haze more like pot.
3) It's not really, as a pot analogue.
4) Drugs, and there will likely be a lot more, probably have a lot of interactions but how they interact would be based on quality, quantity, type, etc. In general most likely better highs, but for specifics yeah storyrequest.