Dungeon Dust

What is Dungeon Dust?

Dungeon Dust is a powdery substance that is found in certain places within dungeons with the correct temperature, humidity, and airflow. It resembles the niter that creeps out of cinderblock walls, or hard water scale with small needle or finger-like protrusions. In this form, it is highly toxic.

Raw dust can be scraped from dungeon walls and processed, usually by mixing it with (redacted) and grinding it into a paste. This paste is made into bricks and dried under high heat. A forge or pottery kiln will do. After being completely dried out, the brick is ready to be used. A brick of dungeon dust is worth a thousand standard gold crowns, assuming high quality and uncut. The bricks can be cut into a variety of shapes for distribution, cubes are the most common form.

There aren't plastic baggies in the DungeonVerse, so dust isn't generally handled or sold in powdered form, most buyers have to crush or grind their own dust before using it.

Effects:

Dungeon dust is a psychoactive stimulant that enhancing spellcasting powers, increases intelligence, dexterity, and causes hallucinations, synesthesia, altered perception of time and space, astral projection, past life recursion, and dream-walking. Prolonged use and abuse cause permanent reductions in constitution, strength, hit points, and perception as the extremities of the body start going numb from nerve damage. It also can cause permanent blindness, psychosis, spiritual possession, spirit death, alien body syndrome, glass body syndrome, extreme insanity, alignment change, mutation, and death.

It is highly addictive.

History:

Ethno-Religious Use - primitive races with dungeon access often will have shamen who will expose themselves to dungeon dust for its vision quest properties, or to aid in the casting of communal rites and rituals. The most extreme of these rituals belong to the Eynthotan tribe (humanoid beastmen) where the Szyn (female shaman) consumes raw dungeon dust mixed with blood and alcohol and allows their body process the chemicals before passing them as hallucinogenic urine. The Eynthotan did not fare well after contact with the high elves, who found them abhorrent and wiped them out, but not before discovering their use of the dust. Other races, notably orcs, make regular use of a low concentration mixture of dungeon dust, blood wine, and a yellow fern with anti-toxin properties as a sort of warrior's brew.

Dwarves have long been aware of dust, and when they find it, they tend to burn it out of the stone, and then replace the stone, considering the dust to be a form of stone rot. It causes them headaches and allergy-like symptoms.

Elves perfected the purification process and used to create small jewel shaped lozenges (pills) that they would use as a counter for PTSD, nightmares, unwanted memories, and as a stimulant for spellcasters. To them, the effects are muted, and act in a manner similar to energy pills mixed with a dash of MDMA.