Recreational herbs

[_Pigzig]

Do you think there are any herbs and plants that have recreational use?

[Wyssahtyn]

There's fogweed, also called by the more normal name of tobacco, which is generally smoked via pipe as in the real world. Somnus is made from dream flowers and appears to be a fantasy opium-equivalent, and is also a highly illegal and controlled substance; the growth of dream flowers is also highly regulated iirc. The Sylphs favor milkroot, or rather the white sap extracted from said roots which themselves are harvested from a species of ochu, which has a hallucinogenic effect. There are others, like a general reference to hallucinogenic mushrooms in dialogue, but those three are the like, most noteworthy ones that ever get mentioned I think.

[Enkidoh]

There definetely are, Somnus is the major one mentioned and shown, which appears to be a narcotic similar to opium that is a purple coloured plant - it's sale and use is illegal in Limsa but naturally the trafficing of it is lucrative to the pirate gangs so they continue the trade with impunity. Some of the refugees near Blackbrush Station are also secretly cultivating in in a cave, and the plants appear to glow in the dark. As a drug it has sedative and calming properties similar to opioids, and is highly addictive - signs of somnus addiction and withdrawl can be seen in the eyes of addicts (as stated during the GNB quests).

The chocobo hunters of Tailfeather also cultivate a native herb that appears to be rather like tobacco that they smoke as a calmative (some of the gnath beast quests involve disemenating the herb to the chocobo hunters, and they're grateful when you do, suggesting like tobacco it too is addictive).

Even beastmen have their own herbs they use as recreational drugs that have no affect on people - the sylphs have a plant called milkroot that is highly potent on sylphs (it greatly intoxicates them and is apparently considered a scourge on sylvan society), yet to non-sylphs it's harmless, or at least does not intoxicate them.

Souunsy did an in depth study on all the known herbs and recretational/intoxicating drugs known in Eorzea, but I lack the link to it alas.

[Wyssahtyn]

Even beastmen have their own herbs they use as recreational drugs that have no affect on people - the sylphs have a plant called milkroot that is highly potent on sylphs (it greatly intoxicates them and is apparently considered a scourge on sylvan society), yet to non-sylphs it's harmless, or at least does not intoxicate them.

Uh.

[Enkidoh]

Except during the sylph beast quests the sylphs tell you that as a "tall one" you are immune to milkroot's effects (which is why they enlist your help in destroying it). That FATE description was misleading and I presumed was referring to the sylphs, with the 'families' thing is at the least metaphorical (the sylphs being plants and as such reproduce via pollination), or at worst is just an error (there are plenty of such minor context errors in the game's dialogue that the development team have had to fix in the past or at least clarify, so I'm putting that down as yet another one - remember the whoohaa over Brayflox's gender? Or the whole thing about who and what Nael van Darnus really was?).

Also, with a bit more thought, I'm wondering if that FATE description was initially true (that FATE was part of ARR's launch), but was retconned later by the sylph beast tribe quests (which were introduced a few months later and sought to clarify milkroot and it's effects) and the development team just never got around to fixing the FATE description. After all, the only ones seen to be using it are sylphs (and the tempered ones are growing it), and yet no one in Gridania or the Black Shroud besides the sylphs has ever been shown using it or even referring to it (to my knowledge).

If there is any information to the contrary though, I will be more than happy to be corrected about it.

[Wyssahtyn]

Mist Opportunities only suggests that the Warrior of Light specifically has no reaction to milkroot, not that people in general don't.

"Brave one feels nothing from milkroot, yes? Perfect! Brave one must take bottles of burny-goo, burn touched ones' mist-makers and stop those ones from making more mist."

[Enkidoh]

Okay I admit that they did not state it's "because you're not a sylph you're immune" but just "brave one feels nothing", but despite the ambiguity it makes no sense that this particular herb has no effect on you simply because you're the WoL where as every other one does, and so it seems a little sus to me (after all, the WoL is slipped a mickey in a drink in the HW patch story and immediately passes out, yet they're immune to this drug?).

And again, there is no reference anywhere in Gridania to people using milkroot as far as I'm aware, that make it appear to be more and more that it is specifically a sylvan drug, where as the likes of somnus are shown being used all over the world and grown and sold in many places.

But I'm derailing the thread so that's enough from me.

[Cleretic]

Milkroot is generally depicted as something akin to Fantasy Meth in the sylph beast tribe quests. Given that, it probably explains how it's treated in the Shroud. It's not that it does nothing to others, but more that the levels that the sylphs take to really get a high would be something akin to a tablet of Ritalin for an average 'tall one'; which is to say, probably not something you actively notice, and doesn't have an enormous effect by itself, but it is doing something.