May 28

May 28 Liquid Firestorm

R.J.

First off thank you to Vladimír Stáňa for letting me use his piece Bottle as the art for this post. You can find more of his fantastic work HERE.

Looking for a simple way to turn someone into a screaming juggernaut of death and destruction, ready to explode like a Daisy-Cutter at the slightest spark? Keen to submerge your players into a hellscape of flaming insanity where water won’t soothe their burns and daggers won’t kill? Read on, hermano. Read on…

A DRINK BY THE FIRE

-from the Book of Substances-

“What better way of gaining intense personal illumination than spontaneous combustion?” - Leona D’Brassus

There they sat on ornately carved wooden chairs that were older than this dirty little berg, trying to pretend that the magistrate, petty tyrant, hadn’t just ordered his guards to kill them if they so much as thought about batting a lash.

“Apparently the simpletons of this town love to drink this liqueur before they go to sleep. They say it calms their nerves. “Day Chaser'“ I believe they call it. Chases away the worries of the day. Quaint. As a gesture of good will, they gave me a bottle, and I simply cannot wait to try it.” said the magistrate, his voice barely muffled by the voluminous folds of his scarves.

The bottle was large and spherical, perhaps the size of a human head, and made of a flawless crystal. It was stopped with another piece of crystal, cut to look like a blazing sun at noon, set high above the bright carmine colored liquid within. The liqueur was like clarified blood, and it seemed not merely to occupy its vessel but rather to wait.

Gorrin and his battered companion sat, listening to the wretched official. Gorrin fantasized about meeting this talkative man in an alleyway and staving in his face with the butt of his dagger. Borf was quiet in his corpulence, the ropes biting deep into the flesh of his shattered arms. His eyes were deep dark, and liquid. Death sat invisibly beside Borf, arm around his shoulder, ready to lead him away from this place of suffering.

“However, my friends, I have a problem. You see, my most cherished poison taster died the other day, and he was responsible for ensuring that gifts like this weren’t cleverly disguised murder plots”. He paused for effect, but his captives merely stared.

“He has children, of course”, he drolled, “but they’re far too young to have developed his same level of…discernment…and besides, you merry bunch of berries have fortuitously plopped into my lap, so why waste perfectly good children? The townsfolk do so hate when I do that”. A smirk twisted his painted lips and Gorrin felt his heart in his chest like a bear crashing through underbrush, an unstoppable mass of fangs and claws and feral death. First chance he got, he would tear this magistrate to shreds.

The magistrate clapped his hands daintily and a servant entered. She was young and pretty and wore coarse homespun garments with a faded bruise beneath her left eye. She stared at the ground, walked quickly to the table, and filled each of the small pewter chalices from the large bottle, then left. The magistrate never once took his eyes from Gorrin.

“If it is as the low beggars of this town say, then I must say that no thanks are needed. You are my guests at this table, and…” he turned his head over his shoulder and spoke to the three guards in the room. “how are my guests treated, gentlemen?” The guards, through gritted teeth, replied, “as royalty, my liege!”

“Ah yes, and so it is.”

“However, if this beverage is as I suspect, well, I apologize for the gut full of poison and the agonizing death. This dirty little berg simply cannot afford to lose me, certainly not with harvest season on its way. Anyhow, bottoms up!”

The guards stepped forward heavily, They seized the seated prisoners by their chins, digging their fingers into their cheeks to pry open their mouths, and then poured.

Were it not for the violence of the action forcing rivulets of the burning liquid down his windpipe, Gorrin would have not have minded the flavor. The careless cruelty of the guard resulted in far too much day chaser in the trachea and Gorrin wrenched away from the guard, coughing and hacking as he pitched backwards, bound to his chair. The guard laughed as he fell.

He had swallowed very little of the incendiary liquid, but he knew immediately that this was not the dreamy “day chaser” of local custom. Yes, there was the warm bite of a distilled spirit, but there was something else lurking within. This was an artist’s venom, nurtured into existence by loving hands from a recipe as old as Cruelty herself.

His body felt suddenly awash in hellishly dancing flames. The hatred he felt for the guards, for the goddamned magistrate, he felt them burst into a wrathful star of death in his chest, felt the murderous heat suffuse his entire body and lash out into the room, covering the furniture, the timbers, the walls, and everything within those walls in a blanket of vengeful flames. He squeezed his eyes tightly as the heat poured over him. He felt the ropes giving way as he strained and contorted.

Gorrin screamed as the fire consumed him, blackening his flesh, but above the sound of his own torment were Borf’s sounds. Fear, anger, agony, all pumping impossible amounts of air past fraying vocal cords. It was a diabolical howl, a hideous crushing sound as if from a rampaging beast large enough to fill the room to its corners. Gorrin opened his eyes and witnessed Borf.

Borf was a living, shrieking ball of flames, thrashing in the midst of a conflagration. He had torn free from the chair he had used to brain his chalice-bearer, and now had the magistrate pinned to the floor with his massive fleshy hands clamped around his neck. Borf screamed a scream of blood and horror and agony, the song of the immolated, his flesh feeding a ravenous blanket of blue and white and yellow and orange flames. Still, the wet crunch of the magistrate’s pulverized neck was easily heard, like melon and stones being smashed together by the hands of an impatient mason.

The guard, the filthy rat-bastard that had forced the poison down Gorrin’s gullet, having watched Borf murder his colleague and his employer in a moment, knew he must act before the massive killing hands wrapped around his own throat. Despite the flames covering his body, he drew his dirk, a long, wicked-looking sliver of dull metal, and lunged forward, plunging it clumsily into Borf’s wide, soft back. The blow landed, but there was no response but an impact heard through his agonized screams. He merely squeezed the magistrate’s neck tighter, screaming into his dead face.

Borf didn’t seem to notice until the fourth time the blade was driven ruinously into his body, at which point he spun like a boar, wrenching the handle of the blade from its wielder’s hand, the entire length of steel still hidden to the hilt in his massive body. The guard snatched the oil lamp from the table and dashed towards the door.

Despite the agony of being burned alive, there was a flash of confusion in Gorrin’s dissolving mind, for the guard was remarkably well composed for an immolated man. No screaming. No buckling at the knees under the burden of the bright blanket’s agonizing appetite. He moved as if he were immune to the murderous flames.

The guard stopped abruptly at the door and pivoted. Borf was hunched low, ready to spring, eyes like hateful lances piercing those of the terrified man at the doorway. Gorrin writhed as agony drowned out his mind, dimly aware of another incongruity as the guard spoke three strange words before he pitched the burning oil lamp at Borf’s feet.

“Burn, you bastards!”

The lamp was ornate crystal, no doubt worth a decade’s taxes for any number of the dilapidated hovels on the other side of the mansion’s wall. It tumbled through the air, its flame gyrating within, ruby oil catching the light like so many gemstones. It shattered perfectly, as if it would rather explode into a scintillating shower than live with even a single marring chip or crack. The oil sprayed, ruby droplets of flame, flame so bright that it seemed divine, covering Borf and his coarse, blood-soaked pants.

There was a blinding flash, a concussive roar, and with them came annihilation. Darkness. Ringing. The smell of smoke. Cracked plaster falling. A sea of colored stars, throbbing and singing a ringing canticle. Cold wind and the snap of a growing fire. The faint sound of…cheering from the street?

Rough hands grabbed Gorrin and suddenly there was pain, so much pain and shouting and jostling and being hoisted by his armpits. He had a headache like he had spent a long heavy night with Sarah, the buxom barmaid at the Black Whale. More shouting, more cheering rolling in from the street through the destroyed windows and walls. His mind was stunned, as if he had been struck with a sledge in the center of the forehead. His memory evaded him, like a fish in murk and moonless darkness.

And then the elusive fish wheeled on him, its huge mouth a black pit surrounded by killing razor teeth.

Borf.

There was nothing left of Borf but…shrapnel.

His charred bones had been sprayed around the room as if they had been loaded into cannons and fired in all directions. Fire. The goddamned fire. Everywhere. And then the explosion. If it had reduced Borf to mere fletchettes, then what remained of Gorrin?

As he was carried from the room by the two strong men he looked down, expecting to see a body ravaged by flame, concussion, and the murderous fragments of his dear friend that rode that wave of crushing pressure like shrikes to a kill.

He laughed, a grateful coughing laugh that turned to sobbing when he felt between his legs and found himself, aside from singed hair, countless bruises and shallow cuts, aside from the thick patina of grease and ash, completely intact.

The End of an Era is the Beginning of Another

Why liquid firestorm? Why now?

Well, more often than not these ideas leap to my mind unbidden, no doubt piped into the quivering lump of bioelectric antenna-jelly that I call my brain by an intangible agent from an intangible existence.

But there are fragments of my mind and of my heart that sometimes wish the world would just burn away and let us start anew. Makes me envious of our great ancestors that watched the comets fall during the Younger Dryas Impact Event.

I’d rather watch it burn than fall into the hands of the malevolent or the cowardly.

Call me old fashioned.

As a result, I find myself fantasizing about comets. Fire. Cataclysm. Washing it all away.

I write every morning. Its part of my morning ritual. This morning, whilst writing, I realized that my internal Comet Worshipper is motivated by a want of rest. You see, if a comet comes and turns the earth into a naked ball of burning stone again, the timeless struggle of good versus evil gets to take a nap. A LONG nap. We don’t have to worry about tyranny, useful idiots, psychopathic politians, sociopathic bureaucrats, avaricious technocrats, or the perversions of the powers of church and state. We no longer have to watch as the world descends into depravity and madness. I don’t have to struggle to do the right thing. I don’t have to worry if I’m doing right by my family or my lovely lover.

The comet comes, and it burns it all away in a flash. Problems solved, and I get to take a good long dirt-nap, my brain no more than an atomized radio.

A curious mind such as mine knows no rest. Naturally I explored the black, slime-choked foundations upon which the Comet Worshipper’s temple is built. Bringing light to a place like that does marvelous work. The slime is catalyzed by light, by the attention of sentient men, and so the temple and its thanatophilic priest sink slowly into the darkness of the earth.

Again, what’s this got to do with the Firestorm Potion?

I need to stop drinking so much.

That’s what.

LIQUID FIRESTORM

KEYWORDS: Anarchical, mischievous, chaotic, daring, dangerous, illegal, cruel, evil

THE EXPERIENCE: There are as many recipes for liquid firestorm as there are artisans willing to make it. Some draw from ancient alchemical tomes, some draw from family recipes, and some are the result of curiosity and misadventure. Most commonly firestorm appears to be a clear dark red liquid, stained that color by its active compounds.

The taste is said to be like scotch or mezcal, but with mineral tones, and there are hints of rare spices like cardamom, cinnamon, sumac, and star anise. It is common in the moments before all hell breaks loose to see the drinker’s eyes widen in surprised delight at the unexpected flavor.

Within moments of consuming liquid firestorm a not unpleasant warmth is felt to spread through the chest and limbs. While pleasant at first, this warmth quickly rises to a burning sensation and then to the feeling of burning alive. As these sensations increase, hallucinatory flames spring up from the victim’s clothes, from nearby objects, from the very ground itself, and these flames swiftly come to drown everything within sight. These flames feel absolutely real when touched, and all of the senses cooperate to ensure that these hallucinations are utterly realistic.

Screaming begins almost immediately.

First in confusion. Then in agony. Then in horror.

The victim feels the universe aflame and finds this deadly energy multiply their own strength to the point that wrenching a heavy door off of its hinges requires only a few swift jerks, and killing with their bare hands, snapping bones and crushing organs, is effortless. They become screaming juggernauts, desperate for help, desperate for vengeance, desperate to extinguish the flames and end the pain.

ACTIVE INGREDIENTS: The primary active ingredients for liquid firestorm are arsonite, redplasm, and poetic mead. These three ingredients, when combined in the correct ratio and then suspended in a potent distilled spirit create liquid firestorm. Any distilled spirit will suffice, be it vodka, whisky, or tequila, but it does seem that higher alcohol contents tend to increase the effects of firestorm to a certain point.

Obviously it is hard to scream bloody murder and go on an ogrish rampage of death and destruction from within a ball of living flame when you’re black-out unconscious from drinking a pint of everclear.

EFFECTS:

Infernal Hallucinations: Liquid firestorm is most notorious for inducing hyper-realistic hallucinations involving the victim and all they can see bursting into flames. The five senses work flawlessly to convince the victim that these visions are reality. Touching these illusory flames is an experience identical to touching real flames, complete with searing agony, involuntary reactions, and the smell of burning hair and flesh. Prolonged contact with these imaginary flames can cause insanity, catatonia, and death.
Living Fuel-Air Bomb: the flammable compounds from liquid firestorm are excreted in the sweat and are quickly aerosolized due to soaring body temperature. The combustion of these compounds, if ignited by a nearby flame or a spark, results in a powerful thermobaric explosion, capable of simultaneously suffocating, pulverizing, and incinerating anything within the blast zone.
Unkillable: when the world around you is suddenly ablaze and all you know is searing agony, your body does strange things. The perception of pain is recalibrated, causing anything but the most grievous injury to be ignored. A kick in the shin, for example, doesn’t really register in the brain when you’re on fire. A punch in the face? Try again. Hacking off an arm at the elbow? At least you don’t have to feel your burning hand anymore. Dagger to the lungs? Now we’re getting somewhere, but still. It could be worse. You could be, ya know, on fire.
Juggernaut Murder Rage: believing that you, your belongings, your loved ones, and the world at large are now drowning in a lake of fire is stressful, and the body’s normal response to this stress is augmented by firestorm to monstrous levels. Strength and endurance surge. There are tales of a simple librarian sentenced to death by gladiatorial contest who was given a draught of this chaotic concoction prior to meeting his death. As a result he bear-hugged a gladiatorial bear to death and then proceeded to tear off its arm, scale the walls of the amphitheater, and attempted to kill the judge overseeing his sentencing.

SIDE EFFECTS: Consuming liquid firestorm may result in death by stroke, hyperthermia, dehydration, spontaneous combustion, spontaneous explosion, misadventure, or cardiac arrest. Other adverse effects include vocal cord rupture, tendon rupture, tendon avulsion, hyperalgesia, insanity, catatonia, and moodiness.

Long term side effects worth separate mention are severe PTSD and flashbacks, triggered most violently in the presence of flames or smoke. Survivors typically never eat warm food again.

ENCOUNTERS: In all the wild world, its warzones and warrens, where does one find a good bottle of firestorm?

SHOPS: Depending on the purveyor, a bottle of firestorm may be high on a shelf of curios with a sign saying “do not touch” hung around it’s neck or it may be in box lined with purple velvet in the section of the store reserved for “special clients” only. An alchemist may be willing to make the deadly decoction, but the price is steep, the ingredients rare, and the dangers of the King’s Men arriving in the middle of the night with a writ of execution are very real.
LAW ENFORCEMENT: There is no place in all the world, except for the places between places where law is whimsy, that does not strictly control and punish the production of firestorm. As such there are always agents of the law and agents of the King prowling about for such contraband. Where they sniff a smuggling ring, they are swift to launch a raid, seizing a bottle here or a crate there. Once in impound or an evidence locker, these rare liquids tend to fall into the same pockets as impounded gold or bawdy art. Stories abound of sheriffs and agents dosing their prisoners with firestorm before an interrogation. Tied to oak chairs with thick ropes, their helpless charges wills are broken as they and the world around them are burnt to ashes, over and over and over again.
BLACK MARKETS: Just because something is declared illegal doesn’t mean the market for it disappears. It just means that it’s shareholders have to get creative. Hidden alchemist workshops, ingredient acquisition agencies, smugglers, fences, and the Midnight Bazaar, all eager to find clients for their contraband wares while finding cunning ways to dodge the law: secret compartments in hay wagons, deliberately mislabeled bottles, dead drops, encrypted maps, and of course the eternally classic “hiding in plain sight”.
ZEALOTS: A puritan may think of firestorm as the work of the devil, a thing that must be destroyed, a thing that marks its owner as an agent of evil, a think that they are demanded from on high to paradoxically purge in fire. It does seem that those most willing to act out their puritanical beliefs in theatrical fashion are also most keen to partake in the forbidden fruits when they think nobody is watching. Its a fare wager that there is a cleric out there that drinks a drop for every ten he spills.
USERS: Arsonists, pyromaniacs, flame worshippers. There are those in the world that see firestorm as a symbol of divine love or as a form of communion with their beloved idols. Perhaps it is a rite of passage. Perhaps it is a glimpse into the afterlife or the protolife or a world untouchable by crude matter. Some may microdose as children clinging lightly to the hem of their messiah’s garment. An arsonist may turn to firestorm during the wet seasons.
ASSASSINS: The application here is obvious. One may wonder why an assassin would choose firestorm over a more directly lethal poison like lyude desh? The most obvious answer is that firestorm’s effects are uniquely horrific. Vengeful, even. Plus it makes people explode. Which is a nice way of potentially killing a bunch of people while sending a message.
CHAOTIC/EVIL: Some call it anarchy. Some call it terrorism. Others call it performance art. Either way, leaving festively-colored clay bottles labeled “magic potion” and filled with liquid firestorm on street corners and doorsteps and in the hands of unconscious drunks is a dick move. Leave an unmarked bottle out for the kids to find. Spike the holiday punch. Poison the well, ne’er-do-well. Who would suspect such deadly venom from so charming a smile?
COLLECTORS: Those with more money than sense are oft keen to collect dangerous things. A spoiled son of a wealthy merchant may keep a bottle of the stuff in his liquor cabinet, highly diluted of course, as a way to show off to his friends. A diplomat may possess an ornate carafe bound in iron as a gift from a foreign king. Another may have a shelf lined with dangerous decoctions with a single empty space, reserved for that liqueur which is said to light the world on fire.
NAIVE FOLK: It is rare to find firestorm on someone’s person it has little practical use. It can be found in a bag of loot on a highwayman’s horse or high on a shelf in an old house, collecting dust, with rumors that “Old Great G’nannah said we have to keep it there for the lad what comes from the South to buy it. If we throw it away, we’re cursed. But if we DRINKS it, we’re WORSE’D”.

VALUE: Thanks to the rarity of its ingredients and the legal risks of its production, liquid firestorm can be quite expensive to make. Despite this, the monetary value of a firestorm potion lies solely in the eyes of the purchaser. A commoner may find the notion of paying for such a dangerous concoction ludicrous while an assassin will happily trade a heap of heavy coins for even a small bottle.