Name: Poisonous skin, Batrachotoxin, "Death's kiss" Description: The use of Batrachotoxin comes from the old times, where various indigenous tribes used to apply it to darts and spears with deadly intentions. "Naturally weaponized" creatures are common in the galaxy, and this obviously gets the attention of a variety of lowlife-employing people that wants to make use of such " natural defensive systems" for their own benefit. There's a fairly infamous process in which the body of a person is modified and treated in a FOR SURE undeniably painful experience to make it gain a, visually, subtle mutation. It makes the skin color of the subject gain a slimy texture(Unchanged if naturally a Hylotl) and acquire a vibrant yellow and black color. The not so subtle part of this process, is that the subject acquires the poisonous properties of the Phyllobates Terribilis(Golden Poison Dart frog). Abilities: -Naturally produces Batrachotoxin with the ingestion of certain food. This deadly poison is commonly used through injection, ingestion, or previously prepared. It is known that this certain poison can stay active in a surface for a long period of time, since it doesn't deteriorate. -This mutation grants immunity against Batrachotoxins, but just a subtle tolerance(Not resistance or immunity) to other poisons of similar properties. (EX: If you need to ingest 1g of certain poison for it to be deadly, these lads would need to ingest 1.2g) Conditional Abilities (Optional): -They can stop producing this poison temporarily by going through a 2 to 4 hours long process. They should also clean any recess poison in their skin, clothes, and any surface they touched. There is a con to this, noted below on conditional limitations. Limitations: -Visually, unless covered or Hylotl(But still a bit weird in this case), the subject is obviously under the effects of a mutation, which can cause social stygma, make people be careful(And with good reason) around you, or straight up avoid you. (Ex: Human, Apex, Avian...Imagine them with slimy, yellow and black skin. Hylotl are closer to normal looks because of their own biology, but the color is still weird.) -Unability to touch anything or anyone without a suit prepared for it. The suit should be skintight and it should include gloves. Exposed skin is still dangerous to touch, and any contact of the external parts of the suit with exposed skin will render it useless until a deep wash.(Ex: Full body latex catsuit. If you scratch your face with the glove, they'll need to wash their gloves.) -The subject need to replenish it's poison with certain foods. While it is generally unknown due to the lack of willingness of these subjects to talk about their eating habits, it is known that they ingest the poison generated by certain animals to later process it into their own Batrachotoxin. The animal consumption is unnecessary for this process, but does include the poison for the diet and makes it less distasteful. Conditional Limitations (Optional): -The skin, if exent of the poison for some reason, must be moisturized every 6 hours. If this time passes, the subject itself will start to have an itch. If unattended for more than an hour, the itch will grow stronger and much more annoying. If unnatended for other 30 minutes, the subject will feel an excruciating pain with every move, for it's skin will have dried completely. This condition must be followed by at least full 10 hours of hydration both consumed(half a liter per hour) and in constant contact with water. -If exent of it's basic poisonous diet for a long period of time(At least 1 week to start the process), the subject's ability to create and process this poison will slowly enter a dormant state. To re-awaken this ability, the subject must start consuming the poison in smaller doses over half the period that it's been inactive(Max 1 month of inactivity accumulated).(EX: If a person stays 2 weeks without consuming the poison, the dormant state will have developed for a full week, which means it would require 3-4 days for the subject to re-awaken this ability with this strict diet.) -If set on a solid surface, food, or even poured in a drink, they'll give out a faint yellow glow. Besides that, if you look at the surface in a steady manner, you can see inconsistencies on it, undulations(Like watching something through water or transparent slime). -If in contact with a person's skin for too long, they'll start feeling an itch that'll grow up to the point of creating a painful rash. -Antidote to this poison exists, but IT IS extremely rare.(Since it doesn't actually exist irl) <--This way it has an extra countermeasure anyways, tell me if you want me to expand on the antidote or need me to do something else with the visibility. How does it work: This poison prevents its victim's nerves from transmitting impulses, leaving the muscles in an inactive state of contraction, which can lead to heart failure or fibrillation. Alkaloid batrachotoxins can be stored by the subjects for years after the subject is deprived of the poison, and such toxins do not readily deteriorate, even when transferred to another surface. However, as stated above, if deprived of the poison for a long time, the subject will need to awaken the ability to PRODUCE(not to deliver in case they had it stored) the poison. The subject, like the creatures it's mutation mimics, stores its poison in skin glands, which is very slowly suppurated onto the skin, thus creating a very thin layer of the poison over the subjects skin. The poison must be INGESTED, but it can be passively ingested by the subject touching the hand of a person, and this person touching an apple which another person eats. The effect starts diminishing after 3 to 5 interchanges of surfaces, depending on the quantity of the poison and the properties of the surface. Note that while the effect diminishes, it won't fully dissapear until at least 6 to 8 interchanges, in which case the poison will most likely only cause vomit or stomach-ache. It can also affect a person if it enters the bloodstream directly(Hence why people used darts for that purpose.) -Made a edit here for clarity, sorry- Due to their poison, the subjects are deterrent to certain extent to predators. Flavor text: This mutation requires the person to be very carefully trained in the applications and uses of the poison. Generally, the process is not used in cutthroats or thugs, but in trained assassins, certain mercenary groups, or, sometimes, on kidnapped victims brainwashed after, due to the weak state of mind the process leaves people in for a while. Referenced Technologies (Optional): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_poison_frog Attainability: Open It's not fully open ONLY because the subject must be strong willed and it needs to have a backstory linked to the process itself being applied to them(And them surviving it with their sanity intact.), anyone can obtain it with enough money, asking the right people, in the right places.(But it would be hard to believe someone would go through it willingly without a valid reason.) Tags: [Military] [Genetic] Category: Genetic
Alright. After having read this over, I only have one concern. If the application is meant to be obtainable by all willing to go through the process, I'd like you to edit it's attainability to open.
Alright. As I mentioned, the only reason why it's closed is because you need to go to some dark places and go through some stuff. Doing it now Done
Hey, I'm going to be grading your application further today. I have a few concerns I'd like to bring up with you. "-This mutation grants immunity against Batrachotoxins, but just a subtle tolerance(Not resistance or immunity) to other poisons of similar properties. (EX: If you need to ingest 1g of certain poison for it to be deadly, these lads would need to ingest 1.2g)" I'd like the wording here to be a little more concise for the sake of future reference, and so we'll all know exactly what you mean by this, as you've switched between 'immunity' and 'tolerance' but then shot both of those terms down. The way I see it, since the poison is being secreted to the person's skin, it would be ideal and completely sensible for them to be outright immune to the poison so as to not die by licking their own lips. EDIT: My bad on this one, I misread what you meant. This part is clear. My other major concern is the implications and potential consequences that would come from a character being able to, in the moment, touch someone's food while they're eating it for example, in a brief moment they might be looking away from it, and seal their almost assured death, or to shake someone's hand and kill them the next time that character touches their own face. It is one thing to whip out a syringe and inject someone's food with a poison over the course of a short bit of time using equipment that they need to carry, draw and use on something in order to kill someone; that takes premeditation, and it's far less likely to not be deliberate. It does not take much premeditation to impulsively reach out and touch something when a person so much as glances away, be it food or a place that the person they want to kill in that particular moment happens to put their hand a lot since the poison is constantly being secreted all over their skin. There would be absolutely nothing in RP that can be done about that short of not giving consent or borderline metagaming. Before this possibly gets passed I want to be absolutely sure that the above scenarios don't happen through a few measures. This poison is going to have to be visible when put on surfaces, be it in the form of a sickly-yellow handprint or something else; you can detail how, and if left on an organic species' skin for a minute or two, it should cause irritation so as to balance all of this out by drawing attention to it. Without measures like that, this could be a little unbalanced.
I agree with those measures and understand the reason perfectly, and will add such changes to it now. Give me a minute.
It's alright. Moving on... You said this, further down in your app. "The effect starts diminishing after 3 to 5 interchanges of surfaces, depending on the quantity of the poison and the properties of the surface. Note that while the effect diminishes, it won't fully dissapear until at least 6 to 8 interchanges" After three to five interchanges of surfaces, what severity are we dropping to? At no surface interchanges we're going to assume they're on the road to death. How long does it take to die? Are they still on the way to dying at 3 to 5? How much longer would that take if so? Is it treatable without an antidote at this stage so long as they make it to a hospital? Let's assume a hand-sized cookie is the surface we're talking about here as the first thing that gets touched, and I stamp that cookie against a desk in 6 separate places to spread the poison. Is the cookie the thing with reduced potency to that extent after 6 interchanges, the desk (provided someone licks the 6th spot I stamped the cookie on the desk or something), or both?
Okay, in this case scenario, here's what would happen. 1-First contact > The Cookie is deadly as heck upon ingestion. You're facing about 10 seconds for your body to start feeling chills, sweating, and general dizziness. 30 seconds in you'd start feeling your muscles painfully contract at a steady pace, but you're not yet paralyzed. The point in which you would be completely paralyzed would be at around the 2 to 3 minutes, this does not mean you're dead yet, though. The poison will keep on working it's way into more important muscles in your body, leading to the final event of Heart failure or fibrillation in around 10 minutes. 2-Cookie is placed on a table > Both the cookie and the table are deadly without the antidote. Same case scenario as above. 3-Cookie is placed on a shelf after that > Both cookie and the shelf are deadly, but it is treatable in a med station, basic on-field medicine won't suffice, but it'll stall the effect for a bit. In this case, the paralysis would come at around 10 minutes(With medical assistance) or 5 without. The point of fibbrilation/Heart failure would come in around 30 minutes. 4-Cookie is placed on a different table > Same case scenario as above with an added time of about x1.2 5-Someone touches the cookie > Still same case scenario, but the poison starts losing most of it's kick. It can still kill you, but you can move up to 15 mins without problems, and then you'll start having problems. In this state, the case of death COULD come in about an hour. 6-Cookie falls to the ground > Makes both the ground and the cookie mildy dangerous. It'll still probably paralyze you, depending on your physic prowess, in 20 to 40 minutes. The deadly state will never come at this point, unless you're weak physically. 7-Someone else picks up the cookie, and eats it. It'll still cause partial paralysis, but not complete, in the same time periods mentioned above. 8-Someone snags the cookie from number 7's hands before they eat it > The cookie will only cause a bad stomach ache and a very probable case of diarrhea, maybe general stiffness in the muscles. If someone were to rely on fast movements to fight, this could probably give them some problems because of this muscle stiffness. If something's unclear, please, tell me, I'll be happy to try to explain it in another way PS: Note that while the 5th surface will have the severity of 5, the first surface the cookie touched will still have a severity of 1/2 - Deadly as heck. PS2: I didn't use your specific example cause the cookie, when smashed, touches different parts of the room, but that wouldn't diminish the poison potency on the table, since the cookie did touch it while it was poisoned and the surface never touched anything else after. This would basically mean that the desk is deadly as it can be, and your hand would also be pretty deadly(if licked). The cookie parts, being that they have reduced quantities of poison cause they're in pieces, will get a reduced amount of poison, but it would still be of a gravity similar to 3-4
