Assassin’s Teapot

Weight 1 lb.; Price 900 gp; Feats Craft (alchemy) DC 29

DESCRIPTION

This Tcho-Tcho item resembles an ordinary teapot in an elaborate style borrowed from other nearby cultures (often jade or porcelain with elegant designs). Inside lives a Tcho-Tcho creation, a sessile creature composed of a simple system of sphincters and bladders.

The creature’s main bladder is filled by pouring water, tea, milk, or any desired liquid into the top of the teapot. To use the assassin’s teapot, pour whatever is in the main bladder from the spout into the victim’s cup. While pouring, the user can signal the creature to release a liquid from one of its other bladders to taint the tea. This is usually a poison but not always. It could also be a hallucinogen, a potion, or even something helpful. The creature does not consume or expose itself to any potion or alchemical concoction stored in its bladders, which are protected by a thick layer of inert mucus.

The creature can be trained to listen to subvocalized commands, recognize keywords, or respond to slight taps on the outside of the teapot. It is not intelligent or sentient, but it is able to follow these simple orders.

Thus, the user can pour regular tea into the cups of everyone at the table except the chosen target, who gets tea plus a dose of poison. The user doesn’t even need to hold the teapot, so long as he can drum his fingers on the table, tap his knife against a glass, hum something, or otherwise signal the teapot’s inhabitant. The deadly applications of this device make it highly useful for those who wish to dispose of or incapacitate another person in a formal setting.

Another of the creature’s bladders contains its food supply, which typically lasts for decades. When the food runs out, even then the creature does not die, but simply goes inert until it is fed again. The teapot can be opened through secret levers and latches to insert food.

Tcho-Tcho usually give the creature several scoops of human brain matter, but any high-energy fatty protein will do.

The teapot does not produce its own poison. Any ingredients the user wishes to dispense must be added to it.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos, © 2017, Petersen Games; Authors: Sandy Petersen, Arthur Petersen, Ian Starcher.

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