Cyanide (no ontology)

From Mazeworld

Revision as of 11:48, 20 August 2013

Cyanide is a chemical compound known for its very high toxicity. In real-life, cyanides can be found under many forms, such as gases (hydrogen cyanide), salts, liquids, and so on. In Mazeworld, pure cyanide can be found in liquid solutions inside syringes.

Cyanide poisoning has been reported as both a method of assassination and of suicide, as many historical cases have shown. The most infamous method of killing via cyanide poisoning was during World War II - the infamous Zyklon B agent, used by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, was hydrogen cyanide contained into pellets and released in the infamous gas chambers.

Strategy

Cyanide is a very particular item, unique in that it can be administered in different ways and has different effects depending on the way of administration used. Being a poison, it is unique in that it can be used offensively, like a weapon, without being considered as one statistically (it does not take a Class slot).

Careful use of cyanide may transform the deadly substance into a weapon in its own right, which may be useful in select cases to save time or ammunition for actual weapons, among other things. The potential lethality of cyanide makes up for its relative rarity - it is a hard-to-find substance.
Aside from the usual methods of finding (at random in the rooms or purchased in a hospital room), cyanide can notably be found in TYPE-Y crates

Being a syringe, it is strongly required the drug is kept until the contestant finds a medic or a peaceful scientist to identify the pill, as it shares its appearance with Epinephrine, Heroin, Lorazepam, Morphine and a form of Placebo.

Cyanide can be used in one of three ways:

• Direct injection
• Injection inside of food, a method known as food spiking. Certain food items may be found at random in the rooms already spiked.
• Use in certain blueprints to create poison-tipped weapons

Direct injection

Direct injection of cyanide in the victim's organism causes instant death. As such, it is extremely dangerous for a contestant to use an unidentified syringe, as he/she may be accidentally injecting himself/herself cyanide. Deaths caused that way are treated as suicides; if the syringe was unidentified, it will be treated as accidental suicide.

Alternatively, the contestant may attempt direct injection on an enemy, much like with a weapon. This is one of the reasons cyanide is particular among medical aids. If the contestant attempts this, it will be treated as an attack, and normal !mdice rolling rules apply, exactly as if the cyanide syringe was a weapon.
Certain creatures are resistant to poison, because of inherent immunity, or are unable at all to absorb or be affected by poisoning. Refer to the individual articles of each encounter to know which creatures are immune to poisoning.

If the attack is a success and the creature is not immune to poison, death occurs immediately after injection, ensuring a swift and painless kill.

Food spiking

Another method of using cyanide, and another factor of its uniqueness, is that it can be used for spiking food items with poison. By injecting cyanide inside a food item, the nutritional value of this item is negated, as well as any potential secondary effects, instead replacing them with a poisoning effect.

Ingestion of spiked food causes standard poisoning, which enables the poison counter. See the page about poison for more information about it.

Spiked food is as dangerous for the contestant as it is for his/her potential enemies. As such, trickery or social engineering can be used to fool an encounter into eating or ingesting spiked food. Because it causes standard poisoning instead of instant death, which kills in 5 turns, it is a less commonly used method, as it gives plenty of room to the target to retaliate if it can or feels inclined to, although with proper manipulation, the prospect of impending death can be used to bring an enemy to submission.
Of course, all of these are examples - contestants are free to make use of imagination to attain their goals.

It must be noted that food merchants are equipped with a syringe of cyanide and may use it as a self-defense means; see the article for more information.

Poison-tipped weapons
A third and equally interesting way of using cyanide is its role in two blueprints, the PBolts blueprint and PArrows blueprint, as it allows the creation of poison-tipped crossbow bolts and bow arrows, respectively.

Poison-tipped variants of these ammunition may also be found at random, but cyanide may be used to actually craft them.
More information about the effectiveness of poison-tipped ammunition is available on the crossbow and bow pages.

Gallery

See also

• Medical aid
• List of medical aids

• Poison