Bookworm
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a new and highly addictive substance to enhance one's connection to the dark side of the Force
- Image Source: https://www.shutters.../uncut gemstone
- Primary Source: N/A
- Name: Creeping Lignan
- Manufacturer: Taeli Raaf, Order of Shadows
- Affiliation: Taeli Raaf, Sith Empire, Closed-Market
- Homeworld (optional): Kessel
Production: Limited
- Modularity: No modularity
- Legal Status: As it is a brand new substance, no laws exist against it, but it is highly probably this substance will be outlawed in any Light-aligned faction or system.
- Ingredients: Glitterstim, Yaladai Spice, Lignan Ore, Anothian Living Crystal
- Classification: Drug
- Method of Consumption: Can be consumed orally or inhaled, with most applications only requiring a single use to begin the process, but continued hits will enhance one's experience and accelerate the process.
- Average Life: Indefinitely after the first hit, unless treated properly. Once taken, the spice crystals will start to root and grow in the subject's body, slowly forming a twisted symbiosis with the host. The more one does, the faster this process goes.
- Nutritional Value/Allergies/Side Effects/ Purpose:
Possible Side Effects - Possessiveness, Paranoia, Chronic Pain, Headaches, Pale Skin, Reddish-Black Veins, Complaints of a voice in their head
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Due to the tampering with the energy spiders by the Order of Shadows, the Creeping Lignan, when consumed by an individual, starts to create a parasitic bond with the consumer. Slowly at first, and only noticeable as a gradual paling of the skin and reddish-black veins, the crystals will take root and grow within a host. Eventually, larger crystals will start to emerge from the subject's skin as a twisted form of symbiosis forms. Eventually, the crystals will overgrow the subject's body, creating a rough crystalline armor until the final stage when the crystals completely overtake the host and they become unable to move and form a new source of the Creeping Lignan.
- A consumer with a connection to the Force can draw upon the power of the Creeping Lignan crystals in their body, greatly enhancing their strength and reflexes, gifting them with a greatly increased tolerance for pain, and a heightened connection to the dark side of the Force. However, this does accelerate the growth process of the crystals unless carefully done.
- Greatly enhances a user's strength, easily three times that of a Wookiee
- Greatly enhances a user's reflexes, placing them on par with a Knight-level Force User
- Greatly enhances a user's tolerance to pain
- Greatly enhances a Force Sensitive's connection to the dark side of the Force, the crystals forming an extra energy supply to draw upon
- Once sufficiently grown, the crystals can form a rough armor for the user
- Once a few days have passed after consumption, there is no way to reverse the process and stop the growth of the crystals. If caught in the early stages, they can be cleansed from a body through the use of bacta and Force Healing. After roughly 96 hours, however, the only way to hinder the growth of the crystals is with the user communing with them through the Force, and even that only slows them. A non-Force User has no chance of doing this.
- While they greatly enhance a user's strength, reflexes, and tolerance for pain, they also can degenerate a user's mind. Paranoia and possessiveness are the two most common mental side effects, but after a certain point, users can be reduced to a feral state where users will break small chunks of the crystal off and try to force others to consume it.
- While they enhance one's connection to the dark side of the Force, and act as a potent reserve of energy to draw upon, doing so will accelerate the growth of the crystals. Growth that might take weeks or months to occur will happen within days, if not hours.
- Once the crystal overgrows the body to a sufficient degree, the user becomes completely immobile, rendered into a giant chunk of Creeping Lignan that can be harvested for further distribution and testing
A shadowy project begun by researchers of the Order of Shadows, Creeping Lignan is an insidious new substance. First created in a recently established base on Kessel, the Order of Shadows began their experiments by introducing strands of Lignan crystals and Yaladai spice into the bodies of Anothian Living Crystals, forcibly changing their crystalline structure until the entire creature was a living example of a Lignan crystal.
Once a subject had been sufficiently created, they introduced the subject into the path of Kessel's native energy spiders for consumption. When consumed, the energy spider would be subject to a parasitic symbiosis with the Anothian Living Crystal as the crystal creature began adapting the glitterstim spice within the bodies of the spiders into more of the newly dubbed Creeping Lignan. The new creation was harvested from the energy spiders, and tests began on captured subjects from the Sith Empire's recent campaigns.
Subjects reported enhanced strength and reflexes, along with a greatly enhanced tolerance for pain. The Order of Shadows researchers did note some psychological side effects, but they were well within acceptable practices to continue observing the experiments. Captured Force Sensitives reported feeling the dark side flowing through them, an incredible rush of power at their fingertips. Several subjects even demonstrated this by using the power of the Creeping Lignan to sustain powerful arcs of Force Lightning and other applications of the Force.
However, it quickly became clear what the costs were.
The crystals emerged from the test subject's skin, slowly growing over their bodies. Those who had been recklessly drawing on the power only accelerated their transformation into crystal covered abominations, slowly losing their minds to a voice in their heads. Two researchers were forced into quarantine when one agitated subject forced them to consume a crystal they had snapped off their body, the test subject screaming they needed to know the power and hear the voice.
Eventually, all test subjects became encased in a crystalline armor, and days later, rendered inert. All that remained was a silhouette of their body within the still pillars of reddish-black crystal. The Lady of Secrets immediately greenlit more tests when she received reports from the facility.
