Water of the Styx

It looks like completely normal water. Flavorless, a bit rough perhaps (some type of mineral water?), with a slight touch of sulfur, but nothing alarming. Trust me, completely normal.

Quick Guide
Core Genre	Fantasy
Origin	Unknown
Party Impact	Cursed
Pricing	4,000-12,000 GP
Rarity	Rare

The Styx: one of the five rivers that runs through the realm of Hades and the most famous. Charon’s ferry slowly travels its waters, delivering souls to their proper destination, from the fields of Elysium to the pits of Tartarus. It’s a melting pot of half-dead and dying ideas and items, a bubbling brew of human decay slowly trickling deeper into obscurity.

Water from the Styx has many properties; the river itself is so heavily corrosive so that normal materials melt quickly, and supposedly surviving the waters bestows a type of invulnerability. However, water from the Styx, properly collected- most often by Charon, who is also perhaps the most prolific smuggler in existence- can permanently move one closer to death, or at least fray the bond one has with the living. While it makes it a bit easier to see spirits of the dead, it also makes it easier to kill you.

Powers and Usage

It tastes like water. Looks like water. Smells like water. Pretty much impossible to differentiate from water, which makes it one of the best poisons to ever exist, especially because it (strictly speaking) isn’t technically a poison.

After drinking the water, you have advantage on any perception checks to see ghosts or spirits of the dead, but you also are treated as having one failed death saving throw (being closer to death and all). Since it isn’t a poison (the failed death save is technically a side effect that deals no damage and doesn’t incapacitate the character), it can’t be detected as poison (but it will be detected as magic).

Additionally, it can’t easily be cured; since it isn’t a poison, cure poison/restoration spells have no effects. The only way to undo it is either through drinking (a very watered-down concoction of) nectar, the drink of the gods and of immortality. A portion of a Golden Apple of the Hesperides would also work- anything of the Greek Pantheon to dispel the curse of mortality lain upon the afflicted.

Game Mastery Notes

Poison is kind of boring. The poisoned condition is crippling, but it’s a quick status effect that isn’t designed to linger- keep a character under the poison affect for longer than half a session and the player will likely be miserable, as they can’t properly play their character, it probably gives them no new personality traits to play aside from ‘crippled’, and they can’t even role up a new character. It’s like time-out for the player. Poison as a damage type is just a way to up the damage of less-threatening monsters and offers players a chance to plan around certain challenges and enemies (rings of resist poison, antitoxins and herbology kits), which is great but still falls flat on the idea of an “avoid at all costs” poison, something that has meaningful consequences if you suffer its effects, but doesn’t necessarily ruin the character.

 If something’s poisoned in a dungeon, it’s arithmetic; “will taking this damage hurt me more than the reward will help me?” High level players especially run into this problem; when you have greater restoration and your god on speed dial, damage just isn’t enough for most poisons. Even when you take poison damage, it doesn’t necessarily change your playstyle dramatically. I think this does; even though there’s no change in the characters actual abilities or health, the idea of being one bad role away from death will impact the player. One critical fail on a death save is now lethal. Drinking water from the Styx means that death is a role away, and I think that works.

Histories

“For oft on tables of sumptuous feast,
A draught of death where expected least.
May a mighty tempest be swiftly stirred,
Against wastrels whom the world be spurred,
The Lotus-Men have no love with them
The roving hordes of the Ferry-Men”
From the Nodyssey

“Of the many merchants in Nod, there is one whom deserves a chapter, but alas, there is room only for a footnote. The skeletal ferryman, Chiron. The silent immortal is most known for ferrying people throughout the river, in exchange for a single silver drachma (though the exact fee seems to vary somewhat in different accounts- perhaps the clever businessman is wary enough to change his rates to maximize profit!). What few know is that the respectful may barter with him for other things- to the living he sells the bounties of the lands of the dead, and to the dead, the wonderous bounties of the living. It’s said that there is no haggling, no dealing- an item is provided, and the price Chiron asks is known to the purchaser. He can provide water from any of the 5 Chthonic Rivers and all manner of jewel or trinket. Whether the domain’s dread lord Hades is aware of his discretions is unknown.”
From A Most Humble Account of a Simple Trader’s Eventful Life and Similar Such Stories the World Over (by Gideon Cornelius Meyer the Second, edited by George Hawthorne) (A cheap but well-known bit of overly prosaic stories of merchants across Nod, respected (post-editing) for it’s record of unusual vendors.)

“The Waters of the Chthonic Rivers are each known to have unique properties; the amnesiac abilities of the Lethe is well known, the liquid fire of the Phlegethon both iconic; however, the other three’s properties are less documented. The Styx, the Great River of the Dead, can, through its consumption, weaken the bonds between the life and death, allowing one to freely see into the spiritual realms. Beware! For such a thing separates the bond between spirit and body, and forever after shall you be in danger of drifting down that river. The affects of the Acheron and the Cocytus are also well-established, but must be handled further on in our text…”
From “A Treatise on Otherworldly Regents” by the Alchemist Nisla Macorn

Skill Checks

Alchemy	It’s water; definitely enchanted, and likely at least partially harmful. An excellent check could reveal it’s full abilities as Styx Water.
Arcana	Determines the primary power (1 failed death save) of the poison.
Chemistry	It seems to be water. Definitely not filtered water, but about typical for a stream near a volcano. Potable.
Detect Magic	Not exactly Arcane, and not exactly divine. It’s odd; it radiates what could only be described as death magic, like off-brand necromancy.
History	Reveal a piece of lore from above
Identify	Identify reveals it as a potion that brings one closer to death; aiding one in seeing hidden ghosts but is more likely to directly harm you.
Religion	A successful religion check will reveal the full information of the item.