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[Pieter Tuulinen]

I have never heard it / read it mentioned that Hak'len in the concentrations used for the regular tea/liquor is toxic to Caldari AT ALL. Since the resistance to it was built up because it was one of the few green things available during wintertime on Home (and therefore found its way into the diet) I find it hard to believe that it remains toxic to ethnic Caldari in anything but truly heroic doses.

[Lyn Farel]

So, what do they add in their teacups for them to be lethal for the Ceremony ?

[Aria Jenneth]

My guess is that it's the difference between eating blowfish properly versus improperly prepared.

Fugu, or blowfish, is a meat that must be very carefully prepared: the slightest nick on the fish's liver in the process of removing it renders the whole fish deadly toxic. For this reason it is only to be prepared by a licensed fish surgeon.

I do not know the truth of this, but I've heard it claimed that the same blowfish venom that the liver contains also permeates the meat-- just in a very low concentration. It is this that is said to make the diner's lips and gums tingle. I've also heard it suggested that the fugu, itself, is unremarkable in flavor-- that it is only the special zest of mortality that delights a diner's palate.

This is a phenomenon I can really see the Caldari getting behind, especially if the low doses in properly-prepared hak'len tea or liquor are deadly to most other ethnicities in much smaller quantities-- being able to drink without fear is proof of the hardships a drinker's ancestors endured and overcame.

Pieter, I'd think that the Caldari would not need to be more than, say, ten or twenty times more resistant to the stuff than the average Gallentean or Achur in order to have functional immunity as long as the drink is properly prepared. Make it wrong, toxin level skyrockets, you find yourself having trouble drawing breath whoever you may be because you're now drinking a good thousand times the concentration.

[Mithfindel]

As for the "need to eat the only green thing", I present you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyromitra_esculenta]gyromitra esculenta[/url], the only mushroom listed on local guides as "delicious, deadly, needs to be prepared".

[Katrina Oniseki]

My guess is that it's the difference between eating blowfish properly versus improperly prepared.

Fugu, or blowfish, is a meat that must be very carefully prepared: the slightest nick on the fish's liver in the process of removing it renders the whole fish deadly toxic. For this reason it is only to be prepared by a licensed fish surgeon.

I do not know the truth of this, but I've heard it claimed that the same blowfish venom that the liver contains also permeates the meat-- just in a very low concentration. It is this that is said to make the diner's lips and gums tingle. I've also heard it suggested that the fugu, itself, is unremarkable in flavor-- that it is only the special zest of mortality that delights a diner's palate.

This is a phenomenon I can really see the Caldari getting behind, especially if the low doses in properly-prepared hak'len tea or liquor are deadly to most other ethnicities in much smaller quantities-- being able to drink without fear is proof of the hardships a drinker's ancestors endured and overcame.

Pieter, I'd think that the Caldari would not need to be more than, say, ten or twenty times more resistant to the stuff than the average Gallentean or Achur in order to have functional immunity as long as the drink is properly prepared. Make it wrong, toxin level skyrockets, you find yourself having trouble drawing breath whoever you may be because you're now drinking a good thousand times the concentration.

Started reading your post and was confused where you were going with it, but I like where you went with it.

[Ayallah]

This needs to come to some sort of consensus, I want to do  dangerous games of drinking poisonous drink while staring down the opponent.

Sounds like a great way to settle an argument IC without fists. [which no one will play with me :'( ]

[Aria Jenneth]

This needs to come to some sort of consensus, I want to do  dangerous games of drinking poisonous drink while staring down the opponent.

Sounds like a great way to settle an argument IC without fists. [which no one will play with me :'( ]

Ha. Well, that's one way to drink someone under the table. Last one to be put on a respirator wins?

So far what we seem to have:

* Hak'len toxin is a natural paralytic. Hak'len toxicity induces death by paralysis-induced respiratory failure, similar to real-life shellfish toxin. It appears to have no other effect.

* Ethnic Caldari have some unspecified, but relatively high, resistance to the toxin, probably based on many centuries of contact (people with low resistance have tended to get weeded out of the gene pool after having one drink too many). Other ethnicities can still survive low concentrations, but drinking too much or too fast is still lethal.

* (just my opinion) Probably the natural resistance is based on tolerance (like a kingsnake's resistance to rattlesnake venom) rather than on digestive enzymes. It seems pretty reliable, where the possibility of getting your digestive chemistry screwed up (by an ulcer, maybe?) would seem to make the enzymes less so. However, there's no reason that resistance can't be fortified with a bit of biotech knowhow.

* Hak'len liquor is made from kresh grapes. It is used recreationally. Toxin level: low.

* Hak'len tea is made from kresh leaves. It is used for coming of age rituals, funerals ... and executions of the highly-placed. Toxin level: low (properly prepared) or, probably, extreme (improperly prepared).

* There's been a lot more said of the history and such than of the flavor. Maybe that's something else to try and reach consensus on?

[Katrina Oniseki]

* There's been a lot more said of the history and such than of the flavor. Maybe that's something else to try and reach consensus on?

I've always RP'd that it is relatively bitter and unpalatable. Sweetened with additives, it can be easier to take, but I've never roleplayed it as something 'enjoyable' per se.

[Lyn Farel]

This needs to come to some sort of consensus, I want to do  dangerous games of drinking poisonous drink while staring down the opponent.

Sounds like a great way to settle an argument IC without fists. [which no one will play with me :'( ]

Ha. Well, that's one way to drink someone under the table. Last one to be put on a respirator wins?

So far what we seem to have:

* Hak'len toxin is a natural paralytic. Hak'len toxicity induces death by paralysis-induced respiratory failure, similar to real-life shellfish toxin. It appears to have no other effect.

* Ethnic Caldari have some unspecified, but relatively high, resistance to the toxin, probably based on many centuries of contact (people with low resistance have tended to get weeded out of the gene pool after having one drink too many). Other ethnicities can still survive low concentrations, but drinking too much or too fast is still lethal.

* (just my opinion) Probably the natural resistance is based on tolerance (like a kingsnake's resistance to rattlesnake venom) rather than on digestive enzymes. It seems pretty reliable, where getting your digestive chemistry screwed up (by an ulcer, maybe?) would seem less so. However, there's no reason that resistance can't be fortified with a bit of biotech knowhow.

* Hak'len liquor is made from kresh grapes. It is used recreationally. Toxin level: low.

* Hak'len tea is made from kresh leaves. It is used for coming of age rituals, funerals ... and executions of the highly-placed. Toxin level: low (properly prepared) or, probably, extreme (improperly prepared).

* There's been a lot more said of the history and such than of the flavor. Maybe that's something else to try and reach consensus on?

So for executions, it is improperly prepared then.

[Ayallah]

So for executions, it is improperly prepared then.

Maybe there is a traditional 'poisonous' preparation?

[Aria Jenneth]

So for executions, it is improperly prepared then.

Exactly.

Maybe there is a traditional 'poisonous' preparation?

Probably it's a highly-ritualized version of doing it wrong-- ritually skipping a certain specific step.

Now, making tea is, in general, one of the simplest ways to prepare much of anything. Scalding water is either strained through fresh or dried leaves or has same dumped into it. It's hard to get wrong.

... Which means that "doing it wrong" must be something interesting. Thoughts:

* It can't just be fresh versus dried; that's too hard to screw up.

* If the poison works like the tannin in black tea, allowing the leaves to remain in contact with the water for very long turns it deadly. To make it properly, the scalding water is poured through a cloth (NOT METAL-- the holes have to be too small for bits of leaf to pass through) strainer, which probably contains large chunks of shredded, dried leaf. Properly prepared, the tea is pale; improperly prepared, it might be dark, and may have bits of kresh leaf floating in it.

* If the above is the way it works, I'd expect typical, minor mispreparations to usually be pale but to have leaf fragments-- the one warning you get. Toxicity would be closer to human tolerance, if not necessarily much more survivable (does it really matter whether the muscles you breathe with are just paralyzed or really, really paralyzed?). I'd expect purposeful ones to be darker (water added directly to a teapot of dried leaves in the manner of the black tea that comes to your table when you're having a dim sum lunch), and also more toxic.

* If the poison is flavorless, even a ritual cup of deadly hak'len tea need not be a bitter draught-- in fact, it might even be infamously sweet.

* Alternatively, part of preparation might be dissolving out the poison. This likely involves soaking the dried leaves in something prior to making the tea-- brine, perhaps, or vinegar. This, however, would flavor the tea and would likely result in commercially available "processed" kresh leaves that have had the toxin extracted prior to packaging. It would also possibly change the flavor, making properly prepared hak'len tea a little sour or salty, or something of the sort. It would also probably dull the flavor somewhat. Improper preparation, in this case, would probably be about the same color but taste a little different.

* As another alternative, the poison might reside in only certain parts of the leaf, which would need to be carefully removed. I'd guess poison might be concentrated in the central vein, stem, whatever the hell a botanist would call that bit of the leaf that forms ye olde main road / structural support. This has to be carefully removed, like a blowfish liver. Kresh leaves in this event are probably used fresh, not dried (otherwise the leaf could be carefully cut and inspected prior to drying), and trimming out the central stem of each leaf is part of the preparation process; no fragment must remain. Intentionally toxic tea would be made with the whole leaf.

Upon reflection, I think I like that last one best. Thoughts?

[Ayallah]

The last one times ten.

Scalpels, botanists, and inspections...
That is how a true Caldari makes tea.

[Silver Night]

Yeah, the last seems more likely. Possibly with a touch of the second-to-last. That might give you 2 options - a universally fatal way, and a (perhaps traditional, but now virtually unused?) actual trial by poison that is in theory survivable for at least some Caldari.

[Katrina Oniseki]

* As another alternative, the poison might reside in only certain parts of the leaf, which would need to be carefully removed. I'd guess poison might be concentrated in the central vein, stem, whatever the hell a botanist would call that bit of the leaf that forms ye olde main road / structural support. This has to be carefully removed, like a blowfish liver. Kresh leaves in this event are probably used fresh, not dried (otherwise the leaf could be carefully cut and inspected prior to drying), and trimming out the central stem of each leaf is part of the preparation process; no fragment must remain. Intentionally toxic tea would be made with the whole leaf.

From my limited understanding of plant structures, what chemicals resides in the midrib (that primary center vein) would also reside in the veins (the smaller branches). This would make removal of the toxin even more difficult, with varying levels of toxin remaining per leaf when finished. There may be mystical methods and communing with the Ancestors and Winds to determine whether each vein of each leaf should be removed or not, resulting in a sort of artistic removal of some but not all poison veins of the leaf. The more and larger veins remain, the more toxin.

Keep in mind that these veins eventually become microscopic in size, just like blood capillaries. It is impossible to remove all of them by hand without completely destroying the leaf itself. Thus, no matter what you do... some toxin will remain, as intended.

[Silver Night]

Well, it could also be something like young vs old leaves - and part of what makes a Tea Maker is the ability to tell the difference.