The Apothecary
About This Book
Forty poisons and venoms, thirty-six drugs and medicines, ten antidotes, and fifteen gases and chemical agents, from hemlock to nerve gas to a toxin built for one person's genes. One stat line covers all of them.
A poison is a clock, and somebody can stop it. Nothing in this book kills on a single roll. Every poison has a Potency, an Onset, an Interval, and a Course: how hard it is to resist, how long before it starts, how often it acts, and how many times. Between the first check and the last there is time to notice, to name it, to find the antidote, and to work on the victim.
This book stands alone. It supplies the poison, drug, and gas rules that The Ranged Armory, The Modern Armory, The Black Powder Armory, and The Stellar Armory leave to "your Universe's poison rules". It requires only the Exodus NDS core rules.
Disease is out of scope. Plague, infection, and engineered pathogens belong to the Universe that needs them.
Credits and Notices
The Apothecary An Exodus NDS Sourcebook First Edition © 2026 Kaosweaver, Inc. All rights reserved.
Credits Writers and editor: Paul Davis Layout: Homebrewery
Rules. This book is a rules supplement for the Exodus NDS Core Rules, which are open under the ORC License. The supplement itself is not open: it is © 2026 Kaosweaver, Inc. Where it repeats a core rule, only the rule as written in the Core Rules is open.
Copyright. The text, setting, names, characters, tables, stat blocks, layout, and trade dress of this book are © 2026 Kaosweaver, Inc., and so are its artwork and maps to the extent the law protects them. The claim covers how things are written and drawn. It does not claim ideas or methods of play. Nothing here limits a right the law gives you, such as quoting for a review.
Trademarks. Exodus, Exodus NDS, and the Kaosweaver, Inc. dragon logo are trademarks of Kaosweaver, Inc.
Use at your table. Print it, copy it, play from it, and share the unmodified book with friends. Making something with it? Just ask. To publish, sell, stream for money, translate, or build a supplement, adventure, video, or fan project on this book's setting, names, characters, or art, ask first at exodusnds.com/license. Kaosweaver, Inc. is generous with permission and usually asks no fee. We do not allow wholesale copying or passing the work off as someone else's.
This is a game book. Entries in this book are game statistics for stories. The names are generic, and the Also known as line under each exists so a reader can recognise the type. Effects, timings, and doses are simplified for play and are not accurate to any real substance.
Nothing in this book is medical advice, and nothing in it is instruction in obtaining, making, or using any poison, drug, or chemical agent.
Drugs and dependency at the table. Chapter 5 has rules for habit and withdrawal. They are optional. A group should agree before play whether they are in use, and no rule in this book gives anyone control of another player's character.
Real-world references. This book names real products, makers, places, institutions, religions, historical people, and works so that readers know what is being described. They are named for identification and in a spirit of fiction and play. Their names, marks, and logos belong to their owners. No connection with, approval by, or endorsement from any of them is claimed or implied.
Icon imagery uses Lucide, Copyright (c) 2026 Lucide Icons and Contributors, licensed under the ISC License. The full license text is printed in the Licensing chapter.