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Alchemical Catalyst Essence of Acuity CFT912

—

by

Dale
in

From: Gyre Leaper 771

Following the research of alchemists like Lorian Vane, the nerve clusters of Gyre-Leapers have become a key component in potions and elixirs related to speed and reflexes.

  • Primary Component: A fresh Gyre-Leaper Nerve Cluster, harvested from the base of the creature’s skull.
  • Additional Materials:
    • The venom of a Zephyr Falcon.
    • Distilled Star-bloom Nectar.
    • Powdered Crystal-Horned Gazelle horn.
  • Crafting Process: This is a delicate alchemical procedure. The nerve cluster must be carefully dissolved in a solution of heated Zephyr Falcon venom, a process that must be done in a precisely controlled magical field to prevent the volatile components from denaturing. The Star-bloom Nectar is added as a stabilizer. The entire mixture is then filtered through the powdered gazelle horn, which acts as a magical catalyst, activating the latent kinetic energy within the nerve essence.
  • Properties: The resulting liquid, the “Essence of Acuity,” is not a finished potion itself but a potent catalyst. Adding a single drop of this essence to a simple Potion of Haste or Reflexes will dramatically increase its potency and duration, creating a powerful, albeit short-lived, burst of preternatural agility in the user.

Lore

The Essence of Acuity is the groundbreaking, and controversial, invention of Master Alchemist Lorian Vane. The formula, designated CFT-912 in his private ledger, was the first to successfully stabilize the raw kinetic energy of a Gyre-Leaper’s nerve cluster. Vane’s genius was in realizing the individual components acted as a magical system: the Zephyr Falcon venom is a hyper-conductive medium, the Star-bloom Nectar is a bio-magical insulator that protects the user, and the Crystal-Horned Gazelle horn acts as a focusing lens, refining raw, chaotic speed into controlled, precise action.

The creation of this catalyst has caused a frenzy in both alchemical circles and the black market. The demand for its rare ingredients has created a new, dangerous “gold rush,” putting hunters in conflict with conservationist groups like the Chasm Wardens, who view the targeted hunting of these three specific creatures as a threat to the ecological balance.

Tier 1 Statistics

  • Item Type: Alchemical Additive (Catalyst)
  • Form: A small, crystalline vial containing a shimmering, silver-white liquid. A standard vial holds 3 doses (drops).
  • Effect: When one drop is added to a standard Potion of Haste or Reflexes, it supercharges the concoction. The potion’s duration is halved, but its effects are doubled (e.g., double the speed bonus, or it grants two extra actions instead of one).
  • Side Effect: The immense strain of the catalyst is taxing. When the potion’s effect ends, the user immediately suffers one level of exhaustion.
  • Weight: Negligible.

Slot

  • Consumable: This item is carried in a protected pouch or an alchemist’s kit. Due to its volatility, it is almost always stored in a padded container.

Temporary Skills Gained (from the enhanced potion)

  • Preternatural Reflexes: The world seems to slow down around you. You can perceive events with incredible clarity, allowing you to react to threats with impossible speed.
  • Flawless Coordination: Your mind-body connection becomes perfect. You move with an unconscious efficiency, allowing you to perform incredibly complex physical actions (like reloading a complex weapon or navigating a collapsing structure) without hesitation or error.

Passive Magics (Post-Consumption)

  • Heightened Perception: All your senses are overclocked. Your vision is sharper, your hearing more acute, and you process sensory information at a rate that makes everything feel like it’s happening in slow motion.
  • Kinetic Blur: You move so quickly that you leave a faint, shimmering after-image. This visual distortion makes you harder to track and target, causing some ranged attacks to miss.

Active Magics (Post-Consumption)

  • Acuity Burst: The primary effect of the enhanced potion. This is the massive, short-lived boost to your speed or number of actions, allowing you to perform an incredible flurry of activity in a single moment.
  • Focus the Rush (1/duration): Once while the effect is active, you can consciously focus your overclocked senses. This allows you to perceive details that would be impossible at normal speed, such as spotting a single loose scale on a dragon’s underbelly, reading a word on a falling page, or identifying the trigger mechanism of a trap in a blur of motion.

Tags

Alchemical, Catalyst, Potion Additive, Consumable, Rare, Agility Buff, Reflex Buff, Short-Duration, High-Potency, Volatile, Beast Component, Enhancer, Speed Buff, Time-Dilation, Performance Enhancer, Multi-Component, Exotic Ingredients, Side Effect, Burnout, Essence, Liquid, Masterwork Alchemy

The Essence of Acuity is an elite, revolutionary alchemical product. It is not sold in common shops but is acquired through exclusive, high-stakes channels or on the dangerous black market. Its sale is a transaction of secrets and immense risk.

Example Establishments

  • Lorian Vane’s Laboratory: The only official source for a pure, stable vial of CFT-912 is from the inventor himself. This is not a storefront. Acquiring it requires securing a private appointment with the master alchemist, who is highly selective about his clientele. He only deals with those he deems “professional” enough to handle the catalyst’s power.
  • The Alchemists’ Guild (Black Market): Lorian Vane’s formula is the envy of the alchemical world. Within the guild, less scrupulous masters sell their own reverse-engineered, often unstable, bootleg versions. These are sold through secret contacts and back-alley dealings, never in the official guild hall.
  • Syndicates of Assassins & Spies: Organizations that rely on speed and surprise, such as assassins’ guilds or a noble’s personal network of spies, would consider this catalyst a supreme asset. A character might be able to purchase a single, priceless dose from their quartermaster if they are a highly trusted, ranking member.

The Transaction

  • The Official Purchase: A meeting with Lorian Vane is a formal affair. The buyer must state their purpose, and Vane will likely require them to sign a magical contract waiving his liability for the catalyst’s potent side effects (the exhaustion). The transaction is discreet and professional. The Essence is presented in a complex, magically-warded and padded container to ensure its stability.
  • The Illicit Purchase: Buying a bootleg version is a tense, paranoid affair. The deal happens in a hidden place, the price is paid upfront, and the product is handed over in a simple, unmarked vial. There are no guarantees. The bootleg version might have a shorter shelf-life, a reduced effect, or even a chance of causing the potion it’s added to to become toxic.
  • Authentication: A genuine vial of Vane’s CFT-912 is identified by its contents: a shimmering, perfectly clear silver-white liquid. Bootleg versions are often cloudy or have a yellowish tint. Furthermore, Vane’s vials are sealed with a complex wax seal bearing his personal rune.

Cost and Value

The cost of the Essence of Acuity is astronomical, reflecting its game-changing power, the extreme rarity of its multi-part ingredients, and the genius required to create it.

  • Lorian Vane’s Price: To fund his research, Vane charges 50 Platinum coins for a standard 3-dose vial of his authentic CFT-912 catalyst. He does not haggle.
  • Black Market Price: A single dose of a genuine, stolen Essence can fetch 20-25 Platinum coins. A 3-dose vial of a bootleg, less stable version might sell for 30 Platinum, a high price for a dangerous gamble.
  • Barter Value: Lorian Vane is a researcher first and foremost. He is often more interested in bartering than in coin. He would gladly trade a vial of his Essence for equally rare alchemical reagents, credible information leading to a lost alchemical text, or for a party to undertake a dangerous quest to acquire an even rarer monster component for his next revolutionary project.

Roleplaying the use of an Essence of Acuity-enhanced potion is about describing a brief, dramatic shift in perception where the world slows to a crawl, allowing your avatar to perform impossible feats of speed and precision. The key is to portray your character’s actions not as just being “fast,” but as being calculated and deliberate within their own bubble of accelerated time, followed by the inevitable, bone-weary crash.

In a Pitched Melee Battle

Offensive Roleplay You drink the potion and the world goes silent and syrupy. You describe how the enemy champion’s charge becomes a slow, lumbering jog. You don’t just attack; you dismantle their formation. “While the champion’s sword is still halfway through its swing, I sidestep his blow, disarm the guard on his left, and kick the legs out from the one on the right. I’m a blur of motion, acting and reacting before anyone has time to even register my first move.” You are not just fighting; you are a whirlwind of controlled violence, executing a dozen perfect actions in the time it takes a normal person to throw a single punch.

Defensive Roleplay An enemy mage begins to cast a spell, and you see a volley of arrows launched from a dozen archers. For you, this is not an instant event. “The mage’s words stretch into a slow, deep drawl. The arrows crawl through the air like lazy insects. I see the exact path of every single one.” You describe your avatar moving with impossible speed—not just dodging, but pushing an ally out of the way, positioning your shield to block three arrows at once, and catching the final one out of the air. To everyone else, it was an unbelievable, instantaneous blur. To you, it was a simple, slow-motion problem with an obvious solution.

In a Trap-Filled Environment

Offensive Roleplay You’re faced with a complex mechanical trap or puzzle on a timer. After drinking the potion, the roleplay is about absolute clarity and precision. “The grinding of the gears slows to a deep, groaning crawl. The sweeping scythe-blades become lazy pendulums.” You describe your character waltzing through the deathtrap. You aren’t frantically disarming it; you are calmly and deliberately plucking the tripwire, sidestepping the poison dart, and sliding under the descending blade with an eternity to spare. You are thinking and moving faster than the trap itself.

Defensive Roleplay A trap is sprung! A glyph on the floor begins to glow, about to erupt into a massive explosion. Your allies are caught in the blast radius. The roleplay is about reshaping the outcome before it happens. “The glyph’s light intensifies with agonizing slowness. I have all the time in the world.” You describe your avatar becoming a blur of motion: shoving the fighter behind a pillar, throwing the cleric’s heavy shield in front of the rogue, and diving for cover yourself, all in the two seconds before the room is consumed by fire. You didn’t just escape the blast; you mitigated its damage for the entire party.

The Inevitable Crash

The most important part of the roleplay is describing the moment the catalyst wears off. The world, which had been moving in slow motion, suddenly snaps back to normal speed with a violent, jarring lurch. The sensory overload hits you like a physical blow. You describe your character stumbling, gasping for breath, their muscles screaming in protest. The world feels dizzyingly, sickeningly fast. The exhaustion is profound, a deep, aching weariness in your very bones. You were a god for thirty seconds, and now you must pay the price.

Perception of Activation:

Sight

  • What’s Perceived: High-Fidelity Slow Motion.
  • Description: The moment the enhanced potion takes effect, the user’s vision sharpens to an impossible degree, and the world appears to slow to a crawl. Moving objects leave faint, shimmering after-images. An arrow in flight becomes a lazy crawl through the air. Colors are intensely vibrant, and every detail is rendered with preternatural clarity.
  • Positives: This effect provides an incredible tactical advantage, allowing the user to track and react to high-speed threats with ease.
  • Negatives: The sensory overload from the vibrant colors and light trails can be disorienting and nauseating until the user’s mind adapts to the flood of information.

Sound

  • What’s Perceived: A Deepening of Pitch and Time.
  • Description: The user’s hearing becomes incredibly acute, but the most profound effect is on pitch and duration. All sounds seem to drop in pitch and stretch out in time, as if the world’s audio is being played back at half-speed. A quick shout becomes a low, drawn-out word; the clang of a sword becomes a deep, resonant goooong.
  • Positives: Allows the user to process auditory information with incredible detail, such as discerning individual footsteps in a stampede or understanding a sentence spoken in a split second.
  • Negatives: The constant influx of slowed, distorted sound can be a disorienting cacophony, making it difficult to focus on a single important sound amidst the noise.

Smell

  • What’s Perceived: Hyper-Acute Olfaction.
  • Description: The sense of smell becomes hyper-sensitive. The user can detect faint, complex scents from a great distance and can mentally separate a single aroma from a complex bouquet, like picking out the scent of a single flower in a sprawling garden.
  • Positives: An incredible boon for tracking targets or detecting hidden substances like poison or alchemical traps.
  • Negatives: In a scent-rich environment like a city sewer or a swamp, this can be an overpowering and physically sickening experience.

Touch

  • What’s Perceived: A Lack of Inertia and Tingling Nerves.
  • Description: The user’s entire skin tingles with a pins-and-needles sensation, as if their nervous system is firing at maximum capacity. They feel a profound lack of inertia; their body feels weightless, instantly and perfectly responsive to their every thought. They can feel the subtle shift of air currents on their skin as if it were a strong wind.
  • Positives: The feeling of perfect, instant responsiveness provides supreme confidence in one’s own physical abilities and reaction time.
  • Negatives: The constant tingling sensation is distracting and can border on painful. The lack of inertia can cause a user to over-correct their movements until they adapt to the new sensitivity.

Taste

  • What’s Perceived: A Persistent Electric Buzz.
  • Description: An sharp, electric, and metallic taste floods the mouth from the catalyst itself. This taste doesn’t fade but seems to “buzz” on the tongue for the duration of the effect, a constant internal reminder of the potion’s power.
  • Positives: It’s a direct and unmistakable confirmation that the super-charged potion is active.
  • Negatives: The taste is artificial and unpleasant, a constant, low-level distraction.

Extra-Sensory Perceptions

Arcane Sense (Aura)

  • What’s Perceived: An Unstable, Crackling Aura.
  • Description: The user’s own aura, as perceived by themselves and others, flares violently into a brilliant, chaotic, silver-white torrent of raw Transmutation magic. It crackles and spits with contained kinetic energy, looking like a barely-controlled magical storm.
  • Positives: The sheer power of the aura can be intimidating to magical foes, clearly marking the user as an extremely dangerous, high-energy threat.
  • Negatives: The aura is a massive, screaming beacon to any magic-user or magical creature in the area. It is the opposite of stealthy and announces the user’s presence and unstable power to all magical senses.

Chrono-Perception (Time Sense)

  • What’s Perceived: Extreme Time Dilation.
  • Description: This is the core of the experience. The user’s internal perception of time slows down immensely. To them, one second of real-time feels like an eternity. They can think, plan, and strategize at a normal subjective pace while the rest of the world crawls by.
  • Positives: Grants a nearly unbelievable amount of subjective time to analyze any situation, plan a complex series of actions, or find the perfect moment to react. It is the ultimate tactical advantage.
  • Negatives: The disconnect between one’s own perception and the world’s actual speed is profoundly alienating. When the effect ends, the sudden snap-back to normal time feels violent and jarring, often causing severe mental fatigue—the “crash.”

Cognitive Sense (Neural Feedback)

  • What’s Perceived: A Torrent of Pure Thought.
  • Description: The user feels their own thoughts moving with impossible speed and clarity. Complex problems become simple, and tactical possibilities are assessed in an instant. It’s a feeling of pure, frictionless mental acuity, as if all the normal barriers to thought have been removed.
  • Positives: Allows for incredible feats of problem-solving and tactical planning in a literal split second.
  • Negatives: This hyper-accelerated brain activity is what causes the exhaustion side effect. The mental “crash” when the effect ends can be severe, causing splitting headaches and a period of sluggish, “fuzzy” thought.

Mood setting excerpt from:
Alchemist’s Ledger of Boons and Banes
Chapter XXXIV: Of the Clockmaker and the Borrowed Hour

…Hearken to this tale, which moves first as a snail, and then as a falcon, and then as a snail once more. It is a story of a great prize, and a great price.

There was a Master Clockmaker in a great city. His eyes were as sharp as a needle, but his hands had been kissed by the palsy of old age and trembled like leaves. A great King, to celebrate his own long reign, commanded a contest: the artisan who could craft a clockwork nightingale that sang the most perfect song at the exact moment of the new year’s first sunrise would be named Royal Artisan for all their days.

The Clockmaker knew he had one last masterpiece in his mind, but his trembling hands could not make it so. His rival, a younger man with swift but careless hands, was already boasting of his own creation. In his despair, the old Clockmaker went to an alchemist who dealt in strange and potent essences.

The alchemist gave him a small vial containing a simple Potion of Haste, but into it, he let fall a single, shimmering drop. “This is the Essence of Acuity,” he said. “It will grant you a perfect hour, where your hands will be as steady as the mountain and your eyes will see the world as a sleeping beast. But be ye ware. Time, when it is borrowed, must always be paid back, with interest.”

On the final night, the Clockmaker drank the draught. And the world grew slow and quiet. A falling pin took a year to reach the floor. The frantic ticking of a hundred clocks became a slow, deep heartbeat. His trembling hands became as steady as a surgeon’s. He worked for what felt like a lifetime, yet the candle beside him did not shrink. He saw every microscopic flaw in his gears and polished them away. He tuned the bird’s song by watching the vibrations of the chimes hang in the air like smoke. He finished his great work. It was perfect.

Then the world returned. It crashed upon him like a great wave. The borrowed hour was gone. And the strength of his hands went with it, leaving him with a great and unending shaking.

The next morning, the King saw the two nightingales. The rival’s bird sang a beautiful song, a moment too soon. But the old Clockmaker’s bird burst into a song of divine, impossible perfection at the very instant the first ray of sun broke the horizon. And the Clockmaker was given his great prize and title. But he never touched a tiny gear again. For he had traded all his future hours of craft for a single, perfect one.

The Moral of the Story: A moment of perfection can be bought. But its price is often all the moments that come after.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

High-Level Overview This is the “Vial of Hyper-Perception,” a dangerous alchemical compound. It is not a tool for heroes but a desperate gamble for Investigators facing impossible odds. The “Essence” is likely derived from the nervous system of a creature that perceives time differently, such as a Yithian or a being from beyond the stars. Consuming it grants a brief moment of god-like speed, but the human mind is not built to withstand such a radical shift in perception, and the experience is sanity-shattering.

Game Mechanics

Vial of Hyper-Perception

  • Description: A single, shimmering drop of silver-white liquid.
  • Function: The Essence can be added to any ingested stimulant.
  • Effect: For one combat round after consumption, the Investigator’s mind and body operate at an impossible speed. They may perform two major actions (e.g., attack twice, or use a skill and move their full distance). The world appears to move in extreme slow motion.
  • Sanity Cost: The experience of perceiving time in such an unnatural way is a profound shock to the human psyche. Immediately after the effect ends, the Investigator must make a Sanity roll (1/1d6).
  • Side Effects: The physical strain is immense. For the next hour, the Investigator suffers a Penalty Die on all physical skill rolls (e.g., Athletics, Fighting, Firearms).

Blades in the Dark

High-Level Overview In Doskvol, this is a legendary stimulant known as “The Alcahest’s Flash.” It is not something one buys, but something a crew performs a score to acquire—a single, perfect drop from a master alchemist. It supercharges a dose of trance powder, granting the user one perfect moment of action where failure is impossible. It is the ultimate ace-in-the-hole for a Cutter’s desperate strike or a Lurk’s impossible infiltration.

Game Mechanics

The Alcahest’s Flash (Alchemical, 0 Load)

  • Description: A single dose of a shimmering, volatile catalyst.
  • Function: You can consume the Flash as part of another action.
  • Effect: For that single, pivotal action, you do not roll any dice. You describe how you move with impossible speed and precision, and you achieve a critical success. You narrate your perfect outcome.
  • The Price: After the action is resolved, you must immediately suffer a severe consequence. You take Level 3 Harm: “System Shock,” as your body and mind are ravaged by the violent after-effects.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

High-Level Overview The Essence of Acuity is a rare, consumable Wondrous Item. It is a powerful alchemical catalyst that can supercharge potions of speed, providing a massive but short-lived burst of power at a significant physical cost. Alchemists and high-level adventurers seek it out to gain a decisive edge in a critical encounter.

Stat Block

Essence of Acuity Wondrous item, consumable (alchemical), rare

This small crystal vial contains a single drop of a shimmering, silver-white liquid. As a bonus action, you can add this drop to a potion of haste as you drink it.

When you do, the potion’s duration is reduced to a single round, but its effect is immensely magnified. For that round, you gain the benefits of the time stop spell, though it affects only you. You take three turns in a row, during which you can use actions and move as normal.

After your third turn ends, the effect ceases, and your body is wracked with strain. You immediately suffer two levels of exhaustion.

Knave (2nd Edition)

High-Level Overview In Knave, the Essence of Acuity is a potent and dangerous alchemical drop. Its rules are its description: a brutal, direct trade of future vitality for a moment of absolute supremacy. It’s a high-risk, high-reward item that can solve an impossible problem or win a deadly fight in a single, brilliant moment.

Item Description

Vial of Acuity (1 inventory slot, 1 dose)

  • Description: A single drop of a shimmering, silvery liquid that seems to move with a life of its own inside a tiny crystal vial.
  • Properties:
    • When added to any potion, it supercharges it. After drinking, the user perceives time slowing to a crawl.
    • Effect: For the next round, the user may take three full turns in a row before any other creature can act.
    • Cost: After the third turn ends, the world snaps back to normal speed. The user’s body is wracked with shock. They immediately take 1d8 damage (ignoring armor) and are stunned, unable to take any actions on their next turn.

Fate Core System

High-Level Overview In Fate, the Essence of Acuity is a potent, single-use Extra that represents a character pushing beyond all normal limits for one perfect, fleeting moment. Using it is a major narrative beat, allowing a character to seize control of a scene and perform an impossible feat, but at a significant cost to themselves.

Game Mechanics

Extra: Essence of Acuity

  • Description: A single, shimmering drop of a powerful alchemical catalyst.
  • Effect: Once per session, you can declare you are using the Essence as part of an action.
    • When you do, you automatically succeed on that action with a critical success (as if you had rolled +4 or better over the difficulty). You narrate your perfect, lightning-fast execution of the task.
    • The Price: Immediately after the action is resolved, you must take a Moderate Consequence, such as Nerve-Scoured Exhaustion or System Shock, to represent the violent backlash on your system.

Numenera & Cypher System

High-Level Overview This is a “Chronon Accelerator,” a powerful, single-use Cypher. It’s a dose of hyper-advanced nanites from a prior civilization that radically accelerates the user’s neural processing. It doesn’t actually speed up the user’s body; it makes their mind operate so fast that the rest of the world appears to stand still, allowing them to think and act with impossible swiftness.

Game Mechanics

Chronon Accelerator

  • Level: 8
  • Form: A single, shimmering drop of silvery fluid in a self-injecting glass ampule.
  • Effect: The user can activate this cypher as their action. For the remainder of that round and the entirety of the next round, the user can take one additional action on each of their turns.
  • Side Effect: At the end of the second round, the user’s system crashes from the strain. The difficulty of all tasks they perform for the next hour is increased by one step.

Pathfinder (2nd Edition)

High-Level Overview The Essence of Acuity is a rare, high-level alchemical catalyst. It is an additive that transforms a standard elixir into a legendary one, providing a massive but risky burst of supernatural speed. It’s a tool for high-level characters facing the most dire of threats, where the outcome of a single round can determine victory or defeat.

Stat Block

ESSENCE OF ACUITY ITEM 10 RARE ALCHEMICAL CATALYST CONSUMABLE

  • Price 180 gp
  • Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk —
  • Activate [F] Interact; Trigger You are about to drink an alchemical item with the ‘elixir’ trait; Effect You add the Essence of Acuity to the elixir as you consume it.

The elixir’s normal duration is reduced to 1 minute, but its potency is magnified. For the duration, you are quickened. You can use the extra action only for a Stride or Strike action. Additionally, your perception of time is so fast that you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your AC and Reflex saves.

Side Effect: When the effect ends, you are immediately stunned 2 and are fatigued for 1 hour as your body is wracked with pain and exhaustion.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE)

High-Level Overview The Essence of Acuity is a piece of Legendary Gear, a potent alchemical drop that provides a true “super-hero” moment. Its effect is simple, powerful, and dramatic, allowing a character to take multiple turns in a row, but it comes with a significant drawback, fitting the “Fast, Furious, Fun” motto of the game.

Game Mechanics

Essence of Acuity (single dose)

  • Description: A single drop of a shimmering, silvery liquid that crackles with contained energy.
  • Effect:
    • As a free action, a character can consume the Essence (usually by adding it to a drink).
    • Time Dilation: For the rest of the current round, the character may take two additional full turns. They act immediately, taking both turns before anyone else in the initiative order gets to act. If they have already acted this round, they still get two bonus turns. Their normal turn in the round (if it hasn’t happened yet) is skipped.
  • Crash: At the beginning of the very next round, the character is automatically Stunned and Fatigued as their system is overwhelmed by the incredible strain.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

High-Level Overview In the Sixth World, this is “Flash,” a military-grade, experimental combat drug. It’s an alchemical compound that hyper-accelerates the user’s nervous system, granting a breathtaking, split-second burst of speed and cognitive function. It is highly illegal and sought after by elite assassins and shadowrunners for that one perfect moment when a single combat turn decides the entire run. The crash is legendary and brutal.

Game Mechanics

“Flash” Combat Drug

  • Type: Alchemical Compound (Injector)
  • Availability: 18F
  • Cost: 3,500 nuyen per dose
  • Addiction: Addiction Rating 10, Addiction Threshold 4
  • Description: A single dose of a shimmering, silvery liquid in a high-pressure injector.
  • Effect: For one Combat Turn after application, the user gains the following benefits:
    • +2 bonus to Reaction and Intuition.
    • One additional Major Action.
  • Crash: When the effect ends at the start of the next Combat Turn, the user’s system is violently overloaded. They immediately suffer 8 boxes of Stun damage (unresisted) and a -3 dice pool penalty to all actions for the next hour.

Starfinder

High-Level Overview This is a “Synaptic Catalyst,” a single-use vial of potent nanites that, when added to another biotech stimulant, supercharges its effects. It’s a piece of advanced, often restricted, military or corporate biotech that allows for a brief burst of incredible speed and cognitive function, allowing a soldier or operative to out-think and out-maneuver any opponent.

Game Mechanics

Synaptic Catalyst, Mk IV Level 10

  • Price 20,000 credits; Bulk —
  • Type Technological item (consumable); Hands 1
  • Description: A single-use autoinjector containing a drop of silvery, energetic fluid.
  • Effect: As a swift action, you can apply this catalyst to a drug or medicinal item you are about to take. The item’s duration is reduced to 1 round, but its effects are maximized and enhanced.
    • If added to a medicinal that grants a bonus to speed or actions (like hyper), for 1 round you can take one additional standard action and one additional move action.
  • Side Effect: At the end of your turn, the nanites are violently purged from your system. You become fatigued and off-target for 1 minute.

Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition)

High-Level Overview This is the “Flash” Drug (Anagathics Variant), an experimental TL-15 military combat stimulant. It is not available on any open market. It hyper-accelerates the user’s neural processing to the absolute limits of biological tolerance, granting a literal moment of battlefield supremacy at the cost of severe neural strain and potential long-term damage.

Game Mechanics

“Flash” Drug

  • Tech Level: 15
  • Mass: — (negligible)
  • Cost: (Military Prototype, not for sale)
  • Description: A single-dose combat injector.
  • Effect: One dose is effective for only one round (6 seconds).
    • During that round, the user may take two additional Significant Actions.
    • The user gains DM+4 on their Initiative check for the next round of combat.
  • Side Effects: The neural overload is severe. After the drug wears off, the user must make a Difficult (10+) Endurance check.
    • Failure: The user takes 1D6 damage, which they must apply to either their Dexterity or Intelligence characteristics (or divide between them).
    • Success: The user is still mentally and physically exhausted and suffers DM-2 to all checks for the next 1D hours.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th Edition)

High-Level Overview This is a legendary and perilous alchemical substance known as “The Moment of the Blade,” a single drop of refined warp-essence and rare magical reagents. It is the creation of a crazed or genius alchemist, granting the imbiber a moment of speed and clarity that seems to defy the natural order. Using it is playing with fire, as such power always attracts the attention of the Ruinous Powers and takes a terrible toll on the mortal mind and body.

Game Mechanics

The Moment of the Blade

  • Type: Alchemical Concoction
  • Enc: 0
  • Qualities: Magical, Alchemical, Consumable, Very Rare, Volatile
  • Effect: A character who consumes this as an action feels time slow to a crawl.
    • A Perfect Moment: For the rest of the current round and the entirety of the next round, the character gains a +30 bonus to all Tests and may take one extra Action on each of their turns.
  • The Price: When the effect ends, the character is overwhelmed by the strain. They must succeed on a Hard (–20) Endurance Test or gain 1 Stunned Condition and 1d10 Bleeding Conditions as their body is wracked with micro-hemorrhages. Furthermore, on any Fumble made while under the effect, the GM should introduce a major magical complication, such as a minor manifestation of a Daemon or a brief, maddening vision of the Realm of Chaos.