He was so damn insistent I almost did it just out of frustration, to get him to shut up. I didn’t know why it had to be done in some dank, musty old cellar, though I do now. He said the location and the work of the alchemist, some ancestor of his, had to be kept secret. Clearly he was correct.
So there I was, sitting at the old man’s work table in a dank, underlit cellar. I picked up one of the stoppered glass vials at random, opened it, and dripped one drop of the clear liquid into each eye.
No sooner had I re-closed it and set it back on the table, when my eyes began to sing like hell and I went completely blind. Screaming, I jumped up from the bench and fell backward, scrambled back to my feet and began stumbling in terror for the exit.
The old man caught me by the arm and whispered in his usual calm voice to trust his grandfather’s grandfather. He took me back upstairs and sat me at the kitchen table. I heard a slight clunk and smelled fresh coffee.
Soon and abruptly my vision returned, far more clear than ever before, a slight tingling in my eyes soon passed. I was intoxicated with a sense of great power and a magical incantation had wormed its way into my head.–John Blackwell, former accountant and fledgling sorcerer.
Sometimes called Sorcerer’s Eye, Wizard’s Sight, or other apt names, the Eye Drops are a magical elixir derived from the carefully extracted vitreous and aqueous humors of dead wizards. This liquid and tissue must be extracted immediately after the sorcerer’s death and the fullest amount possible must be taken from both eyes. Otherwise the process will fail.
The process for creating the Drops requires 1D6 hours of careful work and magical incantations, and costs 1D6 Sanity Points and 1 POW. This results in twenty drops, ten uses, worth of the substance. Moments after the Drops are applied, the user will experience a powerful stinging in their eyes and be immediately rendered completely blind for 1D10 minutes.
Afterward, their sight will return in an instant and be perfect 20/20.
For 24 hours, someone already skilled in magic will gain 4D4 temporary Magic Points. A mundane person will permanently gain 1D4 x 5 POW and one spell which was known by the wizard who’s eye fluids were used to make the Drops. Naturally, this immediately qualifies them as a sorcerer who’s ocular humors can be harvested.Sanity Loss: Creating the Eye Drops costs 1D6 Sanity Points. Since the process takes 1 or more hours to complete this poses no risk of Temporary Insanity. Using the Drops requires a Sanity roll for 1D4/1D6 points.
My name is CthulhuBob Lovely, I live in my childhood hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and have a son and two daughters. I volunteer at MisCon, which occurs each year on Memorial Day Weekend in Missoula, Montana and help out at other shows.
In my younger years I had seen H.P. Lovecraft’s books in the collection of my older brother, Brian, who is also responsible for introducing me to Monty Python, Star Wars and many other things geek.
I began running and playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1977 at the age of 15, and Call of Cthulhu since its original publication in 1981.
I believe geekery and gaming can have positive effects on math, reading and writing, and social interaction skills, as well as family togetherness. I have three published stories online at
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/bios/lovely_bob_bio.html
