How can I go about slipping someone a mundane poison that provides a penalty to actions (ala fatigue), but doesn’t actually wound someone? The guidelines in City and Guild and Art & Academy don’t address the issue.
My character is in potential flux, he was designed as a herbalist in 4th, but lost it in updating to 5th. I have the opportunity to take Mythic Herbalism, but if Profession: Apothecary and Medicine can cover it, I’d rather do that.
Does anyone have a guess as to how to make this work?
I would suspect (not being a botanist, herbalist or medical expert of any sort) that many of the herbs from whence medieval poisons were derived (notwithstanding other sources such as metals - i.e. quicksilver) would have had intermediate stages if somehow administered in sufficiently small quantities so as not to cause death.
From a brief search on the web for medieval poisons and varieties of poisons etc. I have noticed comments that even some beneficial medications were known to have been used in higher doses than required for medicinal purposes in order to poison a victim.
That said, it is also noted that the making of poisons was in fact the domain of Apothecaries (aka Alchemists) in the late middle ages (Ars era), so you would indeed be more contextually correct to go with Apothecary or Alchemist skills.
Do note that the making of poisons in this era was a process equally as deadly to the Apothecary as to the one ingesting it by reason of the unappreciated toxicity of the herbal components involved. So when making potions in a lab it would be legitimate for any SG to require Int+Skill rolls to avoid poisoning yourself.
Theriacs can be made which impose fatigue levels. The Level 3 guideline, although specifically for relieving pain, also removes fatigue. So a theriac of Moderate potency would reduce its victim by three Fatigue levels, and can be made by anyone with a Int + Medicine total of 5 or more.
Note the Herbalism Virtue in Chapter 4, which allows you to have a form of "Hedge Medicine" which doesn't need academic training. Your theories about sickness are wrong (because humoral theory is right), but it still works. "Ah yes. The problem is that the faeries who live in your left lung have gone to war with the faeries of your right lung. The green pus you are coughing up is their blood, which has been spilt in the battles..."
Well, to me the first drug I can think of that will do this is alcohol. All you need do is concentrate it and fiddle with it to remove the taste and smell.
Oh, that was on my mind. A while back I even did some research into this as well as a drug that could be slipped into someone's drink to make them nice and sleepy. I could find the plants and drugs that were reputed to do it, I just didn't know how to mechanically represent it.