What exactly would the benefit of an internal release Chemical Gland?

The only thing I can see to put in it would be drugs and maybe some antidotes, beyond that....??

You mean as opposed to an auto-injector or somesuch?

There's a drug that gives you pain resist; something that kicked in when you were about to fall over could be handy. That's just one example.

-DrZ

Most drugs in the book aren't valid Chem Gland options, though.

You could set it to keep you perpetually drunk. It's always Miller Time!

So...what would you put in there?

Long Haul. Never need to sleep again.

Naturally occurring? Also the drug is a mixture of several substances.

With the GM's permission you might get away with producing adrenaline, and get (at least some of) the benefits of the Adrenaline Pump without the drawbacks.

Otherwise all I can think of is a suicide switch. A number of substances come to mind.

I'm thinking a different modification.

Endogenous Morphine (Endorphin) would be my suggestion then.

Socinus, I really can't think of anything that's a legal, useful option at the moment.

On a tangent: that huge problem aside, I certainly don't believe that this (or any other method) allows you to avoid an of the drawbacks of drugs, either.

Drugs are good for you and proof of better living through chemistry!

Just ask Spider Jerusalem! Or try to take his drugs away. Wear an adult diaper, it'll help. A little.

A Chemical Gland can be tied to a Cyber spur weapon (or fangs) and can then be used to deliver such natural substances as Cobra Venom, Naga Venom, and any other naturally ocurring toxin (Arsenic anyone?). There are applications for this. Additionally, I have seen individuals allow certain, not overly processed, drugs to count as well. It is a table decision, to be sure.

Of course, I may be confusing the Internal Release with another gland option... no access to my books currently.

Betel is naturally occurring and gives you what, a +1 reaction? Not the cheapest way to get it (especially compared to just consuming the drug), but there it is...

I'm not sure what chemical a Trauma Patch contains, but the usefulness of a stabilizing gland when you yourself is unconscious and about to bleed to death should be self-evident. I'm not sure if it's covered in the rules, though.

I'm not sure what chemical a Trauma Patch contains, but the usefulness of a stabilizing gland when you yourself is unconscious and about to bleed to death should be self-evident. I'm not sure if it's covered in the rules, though.

Endorphins!

Give yourself a natural high!






-k

I suggested that already. Also good for when you're in pain and want something that won't mess you up, but will take the edge off the hurt.

Yeah, Tymeaus, the 'Internal Release' option is separate from the cyberweapon toxin option.

I'm not saying there's nothing natural that might be useful (though *everything* should have drawbacks), but I don't know of anything valid that exists in the RAW. There's basically nothing in the RAW that's natural to begin with, with the exception of a few offensive toxins in Arsenal. Of those tiny few, almost half are from Awakened sources, even if they weren't offensive in nature. Whoever wrote the 'Internal Release' rule wasn't thinking of anything RAW, but maybe some trivial fluff like insulin.

Now there's an idea for injector rounds. A massive overdose of fast-acting insulin. May or may not kill you, but it will certainly take you out of the fight.

And how many guards are gonna carry a ton of sugary drinks to counteract it?



-k

Depends on how much sugar they put in their Soycaf I guess.

Even if the trauma patch contained only one naturally occurring substance this idea still would not work. There are only two ways to get the substance into your bloodstream/GI tract. Either it is constantly releasing the chemical or you learn a certain muscular command. Neither works for what you are attempting.

The more I read, the more this sounds like a bit of 'ware that maybe wasn't entirely thought out before it was published.

Well, it does other things. I assume the primary purpose is to spit, exhale, or apply poisons to implanted weapons. There are a couple of natural toxins. No, it's basically never an optimal choice, though.

Changeling
+Natural Venom [Ekyelebenie Venom]
+Chemical Gland [Internal Release - Ekyelebenie Venom]

= All your bodily fluids now contain poison that you have immunity against - including your own sweat.

Unless you plan on blinding or killing people I suggest you wear non-revealing clothing.

Take cynide. I really found one animal that can produce cyanide so it is "natural"

Is that a useful ability? The problem was never finding natural *toxins*, but natural *drugs*… something that Internal Release would be useful for.

Alcohol is natural.

"Ah, 'Runs over. It's Miller time. ... OK, buzzed nicely now."

Sure alcohol is natural, as is arsenic or gold. I don't however see a practical benefit of having any of those substances in your bloodstream all the time or at will.

Awekened person with the geas "must be intoxicated"

Reading this just gave me an idea...with all the transgenetic handwavium, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume the chem gland can create compounds which are produced by plants or fungi? Your very own source of opiates, caffeine, antibiotics, Aspirin, and of course countless hallucinogenic substances...

Hey, if my character had headaches as often as I do, aspirin direct to the bloodstream is a great idea!

Having Aspirin in your bloodstream while being subjected to high velocity lead poisoning is a very bad idea.

+1 to Perception (Ar 74).

And no downside, yay! :/

Blood-Thinner, yeah.

Having constant migraines, on the other hand, pretty much ensures you're going to nearly always be on it...

For a making a runner a better runner aspect not so hot. From a extra level of realsim for the game, pretty good. insulin for a diabetic for example, no more injections or top ups required.

It is also a hold over from ealier editions. I used it in 3rd ed to supply anti coagulents to someone with a platllette factory, so they would not die from thrombosis in a lock up.

The Eyekelebenie poison thingy was mainly too see if I could make a character that can BLEED people blind.

The venom is nasty as it is a contact poison that cause temporary or permanent blindness apart from regular damage. Since the characters bodily fluids contain the poison they can literally swipe sweat on someone to get poison on them.

Cyanide is also a contact poison and you suffocate from the inside. I don´t know if it is a better or worse way to die, but the definitely die faster. ^^

Actually, Cyanide is Ingestion, Inhalation or Injection vector.

You would only get contact if you manage to mix it with DMSO - And do you want to mix your bodily fluids with DMSO as it fills your entire body...

Is there anything in the rules specifically ruling out awakened drugs? If not, Immortal Flower would be rather awesome.

Good question.

I think that would depend on the compounds composition.

Since the chemical gland produce the chemical it would require the correct trace elements that exists in the compound. The gland could produce it by siphoning the needed elements from the human body if the human body naturally contains these elements.

In the case of elements that normally do not exists in the human body then one might have to complements ones diet with the neccessary trace elements as long as the recipient can actually safely digest the needed nutrients - intestinal reinforcements through augmentation, magic or metagenic qualities might be neccessary.

In the case of magical compounds I would say no as there is no way of knowing how (for example Immortal flower) siphons magic from ambient mana - and a chemical gland have no way of siphoning mana to create a magical compound.

Well that depends on your definition of the words "naturally occurring"

Really? Damn, then i choose the wrong poison for my surged-character.

Easy enough to fix. Tooth compartment. That's some old skool stuff there, man. Cold War Gangsta Drek!

I ran into a similar problem when I purchased an auto-injector for my street sammy- there was no 'medicine' stated out to put in it. My GM allowed me to purchase stun patches and trauma patches in inject-able form. Now that my auto-injector is linked up to a bio monitor, I can stabilize myself automatically if I pass out in combat.

I can just see your Street Sami acting like a bullet sponge, taking that last, final bullet, and gasping out, "I'll be back." before collapsing...

Then coming back after a trip from the Street Doc, "I'm back.", and watching everyone drek themselves.

This is seriously one of the best tricks almost nobody ever figures out.

What, cheating? Just kidding: that's obviously the intended use for auto-injectors, and the GM'd have to be crazy not to allow it.

When Bioware was first introduced in the ShadowTech supplement, a lot of them had drawbacks.


Platelet factory requires a daily intake of an anticoagulant.
Undesired Adrenal Pump activation could be suppressed by using a chemical enzyme called MAO.


The chemical gland would have been a good way to deliver these (though it was only available after ShadowTech).


Iirc, in Harlequin's Back, there was a kind of berry that restores a box of damage when eaten (sorta like goodberries in DnD). If you can convince your GM that these actually exists, it should be possible to have the glands produce the active "extract".

Free emergency healing/stabilize?

Well, Arsenal says, magical compounds (like "Immortal Flower") are created via alchemy. Rather difficult to do that within your own bloodstream...
On the other hand, if a substance being"natural" is sufficient for use with a chemical gland, most awakened drugs (same chapter, different effect: chemical, not magical) would certainly count - the current downside of BADs is, as far as I remember, that they can't be entirely synthesized. Still, ask your GM in advance, wether you're allowed to use plant based drugs.
Currently, one of my characters is about to make use of a lower cyberarm, a cybergland filled with DMSO and a connected chemical gland producing Laés. Only have to convince my GM it might be awesome

Do not underestimate nature's ability to produce complex chemicals.
The peyote cactus, for example, contains over 300 different alkaloids. Do you have any idea how hard it is to synthesize mescaline alone?
That tiny plant does it at room temperature, simply drawing the precursors from the soil.
It's basically a pocket-sized, naturally-occuring drug lab that does things we can only dream of.

Given how advanced gene splicing is in SR, about every non-magical compound appears feasible to me for biogenic production.

With that in mind, look at it from a game balance perspective.
The chemical gland only has two highly situational advantages over the auto-injector :
It can resupply itself, and as bioware, it is harder to detect than standard cyberware.
This is balanced out by a much higher price, higher availability, actually having an essence cost and the fact that you can't stick an infinite number of chemical glands in your cyberfoot.

"Naturally occuring" is a pretty hazy restriction. It's not as if it was a clearly defined rules term. It leaves a lot of leeway to the individual GM for ruling it either way, but i see no problems with allowing players to produce most compounds in a chemical gland.



Look at the legality ratings of SR drugs. There's hardly anything that's not at least semi-legal.
With the exception of some toxins, BADs and K-10, almost anything is unrestricted or R at best.
Now, R can mean a lot of things, from "prescription only" to "unscheduled due to legal loopholes".
But the impression you get from looking both at the tables and the fluff texts in Arsenal and the core book is that drug laws in SR are very, very lax.

Not that it would bother career criminals routinely packing military-grade cyberware if things where handled differently.

Even detecting the chemical gland in the first place would be beyond what average security is capable of, and determining what it does exactly would require extensive lab tests. Saying "oh, that's just my insulin gland" and waving a fake license should suffice in almost any case where it even comes up at all.



I'd say it's a given that the drug works the same way as usual, including drawbacks.
If you are immune to it's negative effects, you should also be immune to the positive ones, as immunization treatments aren't said to be selective for particular properties of a drug.