Drow knockout poison

Drow knockout poison, also called drow sleep poison or simply drow poison, was a poison often used by the drow.

Description
The drow sleep poison was a black, gummy, and heavy substance like molasses.

Powers
The drow poison was delivered by injury and was used by smearing it on ranged weapons like crossbow darts or javelins, on other weapons, or&mdash;in extreme cases&mdash; on the bare hand. It was a potent poison but reacted to air and sunlight. Exposure to air caused it to lose potency in 60 days, while keeping it in a sealed packet kept it potent for years. Exposure to sunlight had an extreme effect, causing it to lose its potency in an instant.

The poison was delivered by injury or, in the case of delivery via bare hand, by hitting nose, eyes, mouth, or an existing wound. A weapon could deliver the poison twice with the same dose smeared on it, but the potency lessened on the second strike. Drow on assassination missions applied this poison on garrotes or fingernail polish. Slave-holding areas or drow camps outside of civilized Underdark environments were secured with tripwire traps that were poisoned with this.

When the drow poison was delivered into a creature's system, the creature felt weakness and lassitude before falling unconscious for two to eight hours. Sturdy people woke up after one minute. Even when one did not fall unconscious from it, the victim often had problems coping with subsequent detrimental effects. Once that happened, dispel magic or physical attempts to awaken the victim did not work. An application of neutralize poison, a potion of sweet water, or vitality worked perfectly.

One safe way to wash off a poisoned weapon was to apply alcohol on it.

It took four days to create the drow knockout poison when the creator had access to a functional laboratory.

History
As the name suggested, drow knockout poison was a poison associated with the drow. They often used it on subterranean ambushes but it was also standard equipment for surface drow rogues.

Reputation
The production of this poison was a closely held secret among the drow. Therefore, it was hard to find a source of it on the surface and in the Underdark where the drow were not in power.