Brewing in the Last Days more resembles medieval alchemy than modern science, based on trial and error and the occasional use of involuntary test subjects.
Brewing Equipment
Helium-3 Distilling Stand (Brewing Stand)
The He-3 Distilling Stand is crafted from a collection of scrap metal and the eponymous He-3 rod, found in the posession of the He-3 Excavators on the moon. Although they originally were meant to power large fusion reactors, the rods undergo a slow fusion process of their own, constantly emitting a low amount of radiation and creating small amounts of electricity.
Savvy and adventurous survivors use these properties to their advantage, funneling the electricity into hotplates and the radiation into emitters targeted at whatever they want to experiment with.
High Pressure Tank (Cauldron)
Once a container for various liquids and gases to be treated or stored at high pressures or variable temperatures, these sturdy tanks are now sawn of to hold precious, clean water.
Cola Bottle
Although their brand labels and once priced contents are gone, these bottles are valuable artifacts in the wastes. They are relativley lightweight and almost impossible to break.
If they weren’t more useful as liquid containers, they would be classified as weapons.
Clean Water Bottle
A rare ingredient in the wastes and base of all potions.
Hall Monitor Brain/ Reprocessed Hall Monitor Brain
Before Prof Crocopolous’ departure and the Event, Orbital ran a cybernetics programm with the aim of incorporating the brains of deadly wounded policemen into the robotic bodies of Hall Monitors.
Although the wounded volunteers lost most of their higher cognitive abilities, the test results were promising.
After the collapse of civilisation however, the brains deteriorated and succumbed to madness, making the cybernetic Hall Monitors as much as a hazard as their purley robotic counterparts.
Some ruthless potion manufacturers harvest the brain jars from defunct Hall Monitors, reprocess the nutrient solutions (and sometimes the brains themselves!) and use them in their concoctions, always with unhealthy results.
Base potions:
Moonshroom Distillate (Awkward Potion)
Crafted from the rare Moonshroom (that only grows on fine dust in the low gravity, low residual atmosphere environment (side effect of the failed portal experiment ) of the Belly), this potion is the base of nearly all potions. The secret to its applications is a number of “super stem cells” found inside the moonshroom’s mycelium.
When properly prepared and ingested/injected they quickly bond to your body, applying any effect bestowed on them in the process.
The preparation process can be called “crude” at best and, since the moonshroom cells don’t undergo cell division within humans and therefore die quickly, none of the potions effects are permanent.
Unless of course you die by its effect. That’s defenitley a permanent effect. Usually.
Bulb Fraction (Thick potion)
Water, irradiated by the light bulbs of the Belly’s lighting systems, apparently isn’t beneficial for your health. No matter what you add afterwards, it always turns into poison. However, irradiating a pre-made potion increases its potency at the cost of duration. You can’t explain that!
Malign Fraction (Mundane Potion/Mundane Potion (extended))
The easiest potion to craft. Cram an amount of anything into the bottle, heat without care, frequently bump into the distillator and use some nonspecific secondary equipment onto the distillate. Done.
There is a more complex, extensive way, involving wrapping a water bottle with a wire and subjecting it to a series of alternating magnetic fields created by current flow through the wire.
The result however remains the same: Malign Fractions just can’t be used for anything constructive.
The magnetic treatment however enhances the duration of pre-made potions at the cost of potency. Fractioning magnets! How do they work?!
Primary Potions:
Restoration Paste (Potion of Regeneration)
This paste gains its regenerative properties from repeated, long and thorough centrifugations through a SecurAll rotation filter. The resulting rosy, gelatinous filter cake of moonshroom stem cells can be ingested, injected or directly applied on open wounds to speed up the healing process.
Since the cells weren’t imbued with other agents, they travel to where they are most needed and form into skin cells (or bone tissue in case of fractures). Their high concentration in the paste gives the body enough time to reinforce the wounded body parts before the stem cells die off.
Spee-Cola® (Potion of Swiftness)
Based on the super secret Spee-Cola formula® (found on the ingriedients list of every bottle) this concoction consist of mainly 7 things: Sugar, phosphoric acid, sugar, coffeine, sugar, carbon dioxide and sugar.
Add these ingredients to a moonshroom distillate, stir vigorously and you get a light blue drink that will allow you to run miles without stopping.
Excessive consumption of Spee-Cola ® might lead to insomania, palpitations, nervous twitching, breathlessness, erratic behaviour, an overreaching sexual drive and gun rampages.
Pris-Cola Ltd. doesn’t assume liability for any damages caused, while under the influence of Spee-Cola®.
Burn Ointment (Potion of Fire resistance)
This is without doubt the most complex bio-chemical to be produced after the war. The moonshroom distillate is blended with protoplasm rich in Helium-3 particles, forming an orange, tough-flowing paste.
The virtually living protoplasm can be created by mixing the half-digested flesh and sticky remains from Mega-Amoeba with ground up He-3 rods, or be found inside P.W.C.s.
The ointment is partially ingested and otherwise applied on the skin and clothing as a protective overcoat.
The living shield formed by the ointment reacts with aggressive chemicals while shielding and cooling the body from the reaction heat, hardening and eventually, cleanly falling of the body in the process. Meanwhile the ingested part circulates through the bloodstream and destroys any openly cancerous cells it can find.
However, there is another, much stronger protection against radiation in effect close to the Burn Oinment. Through means unknown (unresearchable in the wastes) but possibly related to the presence of He-3, the paste emits some kind of “force field” that fuses incoming radioactive particles into heavier, harmless atoms.
While the Burn Ointment offers many benefits, there is one downside. The protoplasmic cells will eat a bit of you liver every time you apply the ointment. The liver is an important part of your body, in case you didn’t know. It’s very regenerative though, you just need to lay off the paste for a while.
Mélange de Melon (Potion of Healing)
While probably the most useful and most common potion, the Mélange (snobbish for “mixture”) requires a devout drinker to reach its full effect. The main ingredients for the potion are the custom Moonshroom Distillate and a squirt of melon liquor enriched with gold particles.
The gold particles and the salts formed by them give the liquor and subsequently the Mélange, a distinct red color and indeed posses a slight medical effect (apart from intoxication): They cure arthritis.
While arthritis definetly isn’t among the top ten death reasons in the wastes, the Mélange de Melon’s real power stems from ignorance and the imagination of the user.
Drinking something brewed from the most valuable metal of the old world just has to have a positive effect, right?
This placebo belief, combined with the intoxicating properties of the liquor, make the Mélange a very effective antidepressant, painkiller and healing elixir.
Cheers.
He-roid (Potion of Strength)
The name of this dark red substance is misleading, since it doesn’t consist of actual steroids and has no effect on hormonal basis.
Its creation is rather simple and requires as little as a crushed He-3 rod and a few drops of blood, in addition to the always required Moonshroom and Distilling Stand. It’s unknown how exactly the prologend exposure to the radiation and heat of the stand affects the helium powder and ultimatley the moonshroom stem cells, but the effect is visible.
Upon ingestion the cells nearly immedeately reinforce the muscle and bone tissue of the upper body. Additionally to this stabilizing effect they produce huge amounts of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which allows for continuous use of the affected muscles without the danger of muscle soreness.
Unfortunately the He-roids can’t be used to permanently impress any local survivors, since increase in muscle and strength are temporary, like all other Moonshroom compounds.
On the other hand they are free of any known side effects, unlike anabolic steroids, if you know what I mean.
Carrot Tonic (Potion of Night Vision)
Contrary to the “Mélange de Melon” the Carrot Tonic has an actual effect on the drinker, still the gold is actually redundant. While the concept of carrots being generally beneficial for one’s vision is a misconception (invented during a war to hide the invention of the radar), carrots do have a positive impact on those suffering from vitamin A deficiency. With the wastelands being just that, wasted and void of almost all plantlife, all survivors are lacking this vitamin and the super stemcells imbued with the carrot juice provide it in shovel load. This leads to a temporary drastic increase in vision which appears like night vision to the drinker.
“Phantom Philter” (Potion of Invisibility)
This brew is the result of “Project Ghost” by O.I. which had the aim of creating equipment and training routines for camouflaged, psionic super-soldiers. While O.I. was unable to find any soldiers endued with paranormal powers, the equipment developed by the program caused a massive leap in military technology. Among those inventions was the “Liquid Light Diffuser”, a spray that would divert incomming light waves between 380 to 750 nm around a coated body, causing complete invisibility.
It’s hardly suprising that the number of keys lost by the research and production personnel skyrocketed.
The light diversion effect is the result of a complex reaction between vitamin A and various substances that can also be found, among other places, in reprocessed Hall Monitor brains.
The only way to detect an object or person covered by the “Phantom Philter” (as it was called in military slang) is by stumbling over it, hearing it (e.g. due to heavy armor) or by using detection devices utilizing sensors that don’t rely on the visible spectrum.
Corrosive Poison (Potion of Poison)
This vile, green brew is crafted from the unreprocessed nutrient solution of a Hall Monitor brain. The Moonshroom stem cells absorb large quantities of this solution and metabolize it, turning into short lived unicellular organisms in the process.
These organisms need to be handled with extreme caution since their acidic, corrosive excretions are not only dangerous when ingested, but also etch through skin, flesh, solid metal and circuitry if given enough time.
“Almond Marzipan” (Potion of Weakness)
This compound differs greatly from most others since it doesn’t rely solely on the Moonshroom Distillate; Bulb or Malign Fractions can be used as base potions, too. The real effect stems from a Reprocessed Hall Monitor Brain.
The brewing and dehydration process enriches the paste with various cyanides and similar salts that inhibit the respiratory chain, mostly by bonding to the haemoglobyn (red blood cells) preventing the transportation of oxygen.
The finished gray-ish, sticky dough distinclty smells of almond which led to its name. Unless highly concentrated the effects aren’t deadly though, but the breathlessness makes any strong or coordinated movement impossible.
Suitable as peace offering for groups of roving bandits or as birthday present for your mother-in-law.
Jalapeño Sauce (Potion of Harming)
The name of this potion is absolutely misleading. DO NOT EAT IT! Seriously, it’s not a food product even if some ill-natured people want to make you believe it.
Actually there are two viable ways to create a Jalapeño Sauce and both of them involve a Reprocessed Hall Monitor Brain as key ingredient. Do you now believe that it’s not healthy?
Both Corrosive Poison and, suprisingly, Mélange de Melon can be used as base potion, the latter because it contains metal particles and unused stem cells.
The finished dark red Sauce has a stinging odor that makes the eyes water to a point where vision becomes impossible. Needless to say that ingestion or application to any sensory organ (especially eyes and nose) results in extreme pain and permanent damage.
But not only living beings, even robots can be damaged if the substance comes in contact with any important circuitry or delicate sensor arrays.
Fermented Swill (Potion of slowness)
This “potion” was probably discovered when a “master brewer” slept in and forgot something on the heating stove.
The creation of Swill is easy, all you nead is a somewhat liveable environment, a Reprocessed Hall Monitor Brain in decaying process and something for the fermenting bacteria to feed on, preferably a Spee-Cola® (sugar) or some Burn Ointment (protoplasm).
Heat on small flame over night and voilà: Fermented Swill in all its blue-gray sticky glory.
The huge amount of lactic acid produced in the fermentation process has bonded to the few surviving stem cells, who will cause a spontanous muscle soreness when ingested, preventing you from running, jumping and doing push-ups.
Should be offered to an expendable friend when running from a crowd of Huggatrons.
Splash potions:
By adding the small detonator (found within the supply of explosives inside the suicidal Huggatron) to the bottleneck, and some minor changes to the concoction itself, every potion can be turned into a throwable splash potion.
The overall duration of splash potions is shorter since it takes some time to absorb the potion through the skin; otherwise it they have their usual effects.
There are some exceptions though:
[Please don’t ask how Spee-Cola® thrown at a SecurAll can speed it up. It has to do with quantum mechanics and you wouldn’t understand that. Just don’t throw any beneficial potions at mobs and you’ll be safe from any illogicality]