Tonic
Tonic by Lusine
The VaM-style spell today is Tonic- the title coming from this song by Lusine (ICL at the time).
I love love love Lusine's music - Iron city is calming, condensed is like concentrated cyberpunk walking through megacities, Serial Hodgepodge sounds like museums and walking paths and lots of other things, Language Barrier is just so beautiful and otherworldly, A Certain Distance is likely one of my favorite albums of all time - I listen to it all the time, Lucky Numbers is dance-y, The Waiting room is a wonderful combination of all he previous albums, And Sensorimotor sounds like the future.
You can expect more Lusine songs as spells, I love his music so much - especially when his wife does the singing!
Here are some definitions that inspired the spell -
The main inspiration for this came from Godel Escher Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid
Achilles: Yes, but that's just a two-dimensional world-a fictitious world-a
picture. You can't visit that world.
Tortoise: I have my ways ...
Achilles: How could you propel yourself into a flat picture-universe?
Tortoise: By drinking a little glass of PUSHING-POTION. That does the
trick.
Achilles: What on earth is pushing-potion?
Tortoise: It's a liquid that comes in small ceramic phials, and which, when
drunk by someone looking at a picture, "pushes'' him right into the
world of that picture. People who aren't aware of the powers of
pushing-potion often are pretty surprised by the situations they wind
up in.
Achilles: Is there no antidote? Once pushed, is one irretrievably lost?
Tortoise: In certain cases, that's not so bad a fate. But there is, in fact, another
potion-well, not a potion, actually, but an elixir-no, not an elixir, but
a-a
Tortoise: He probably means "tonic".
Achilles: Tonic?
Tortoise: That's the word I was looking for! "POPPING-TONIC" is what it's
called, and if you remember to carry a bottle of it in your right hand as
you swallow the pushing-potion, it too will be pushed into the picture;
then, whenever you get a hankering to "pop" back out into real life,
you need only take a swallow of popping-tonic, and presto! You're
back in the real world, exactly where you were before you pushed
yourself in.
Achilles: That sounds very interesting. What would happen it you took some
popping-tonic without having previously pushed yourself into a picture?
No lyrics!
Tonic
Duration: Potentially Permanent
Range: Line of Sight
This spell conjures two small ceramic phials of tonic- one full of red and one full of blue liquid.
The red will pull the drinker into a drawing or painting, the blue will pop them out, they must drink while looking at the desired piece of art.
When pulled into the piece of art, it must be flat – and anything they are carrying will be pulled with the affected.
Each phial has three normal-sized humanoid mouthfuls, which is a dose.
Miscast Table (Roll this secretly)
1 – The drinker of either liquid becomes addicted – if they do not drink the liquid generated by Tonic daily – they suffer the effects of sleep deprivation (see page 36 in Rules and Magic)
2 – Time passes in the flat world faster – when the drinker pops back out – it will have been 1d8 hours for each hour in the flat world.
3 – Time passes in the flat world faster – when the drinker pops back out – it will have been 1d8 years for each hour in the flat world.
4 – The blue liquid also makes the drinker drunk. (see page 36 in Rules and Magic)
5 – The phials each have 1d4-1 mouthfuls instead of the normal 3.
6 – The liquid’s effects are reversed – and so they will usually accidentally drink the pop out liquid first – which will reveal to them that their world is a painting.
7 – The experience of being inside of a flat world deeply challenged the assumptions the character once held – they must change alignment. If their class has a normal alignment, they may lose their powers for a time.
8 – The experience of popping in and then out is like diving – if the drinker surface too quickly from their initial dive in – they will suffer from the reality-bends. The person must make three paralyze saving throws – if they fail once, they are stiff and have joint pain and rashes – two failures will have them paralyzed permanently, though this will likely be just part of the body – three failures is immediate death. This problem affects the entire batch of tonic.
9 – The red liquid also makes the drinker lose 1d4 hit points when drank – the blue liquid heals 1d4 hit points when drank.
10 – The red liquid makes the drinker manic – tell them if they act manic, they will get exp for it. This lasts until they next sleep.
11 – The blue liquid makes the drinker depressed – tell them if they act depressed, they will get exp for it. This lasts until they next sleep.
12 – The drinker’s appearance is changed – they appear in the style of the art they leave when popping out - This problem affects the entire batch of tonic.
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