WHUZZAT SMELL?

IS BLUUD!

Josh (@BernietheFlumph) made a tweet

Idea: A "love potion" that instead of increasing erotic desire, amplifies agape--your altruistic love for humanity as a whole.

I couldn't let this fall by the wayside, so here's a shotgun scenario writeup.

PREMISE: The actual, literal, not metaphorical or sacramental transubstantiated blood of Yeshua ben Yosef (carpenter and political agitator) is the Potion of Greatest Love - an elixir which evokes in its drinker an immediate and essentially irrevocable altruistic drive towards all beings.

It's effects are (slightly modified from Josh' suggestion):

• Whatever your CHA or WIS score is, you now have a +3 modifier in both.
• Whenever you attempt to heal someone, you always heal the maximum amount possible.
• Advantage on all rolls involving medicine, empathy, or diplomacy.
• You must make and fail a WIS check in order to participate in or order violence.
• No cap on number of hirelings. They still need taken care of, but they won't need traditional pay.

HOOK: Somehow, the Potion of Greatest Love has been found, or thought to be found. Perhaps there is a book. An apocryphal book! The Questions of the Upper Room, which is a fragmentary 2nd century text in Greek that rewrites the Last Supper scene to contain all the big apocryphal hits: miracles out of nowhere, symbolism nobody remembers the meaning of, virulent antisemitism, the works. The actual important bit is how, through some seriously improbable events, some of the apostles figure out the blood = potion thing.


PROBLEMS: Can include -

• The Questions is currently in the hands of some billionaire playing the antiquities market! Someone (ie, you) should go steal it!
• The Potion isn't where anyone would look for it! Someone probably took it to Ethiopia or India ages ago and forgot about it!
• The Potion is currently in the possession of a reclusive religious order who believes the time is not yet right! They have taken everything falling apart into account and do not see any reason to change!
• The Potion is currently being sought by a garden-variety USAian messianic cult! The leader is just some guy with enough charisma to take advantage of vulnerable people and is generally pretty terrible. None of them have any idea what the Potion will do, and would be disappointed if they did.
• The Potion is considered a threat by a militant randian accelerationist faction who wish to destroy empathy and altruism entirely! What are you waiting for go stop that shit!
• Through the power of SCIENCE it may be possible to generate more of the Potion, if you can find a sample!
• A sphinx! Why is there a sphinx guarding the Potion? Who knows! It's the sort of thing that just happens in apocrypha!