d100 Terrible Toxins & Vile Venoms

Despite the ubiquitous presence of Poisons (my inner pedant nearly always perks up to mention that these are more accurately referred to as Venoms when it comes to monster attacks) I have never been terribly fond of just inflicting Hit Point Damage, a persistent (and often conveniently disremembered) penalty to rolls, or even that sainted staple of old-school play: Instant Death for these types of attacks.

Those may still occasionally appear as consequences, but I typically prefer these types of harm to linger a bit longer, create interesting challenges for the characters to overcome, and introduce another delicious layer of tension to the situation. For particularly dastardly critters, these sometimes can occur even on a “successful” Saving Throw.

I suppose some of the more physiologically improbable entries could serve as Calamitous Curses as well in a pinch, and I heartily encourage providing options for miraculous cures and treatments (driven by adventure generally of course). Perhaps some of these Herbs & Plants might be just what the Cunning Folk ordered?

So as promised during some of my d100 Encounter Activities, I went ahead and put together a table with One Hundred sometimes squicky ideas for giving these types of attacks a little more bite.

This table comes with a Content Warning for what I feel might qualify as mild Body Horror, because it is surprisingly tricky to explore these kinds of effects without a soupçon of the gruesome.