Time-Wine

Full Item Description

Unless properly labeled, a bottle of Timewine looks like other *normal* wines It comes in both red and white varities. It has much the same effect as other wines too, with one important difference. The effects kick in several hours after it is drunk.

History
On the northern coast of Vallermoore in one of the bays was one of the world's only monasteries of Mathom, with no less then eight Priests, a huge number to be gathered together. They supported themselves through growing crops, donations (which were few) and the favour of their God. Debt collecters, for example, could never quite get around to moving against them. It was not that anyone was in any way scared of them or their tiresome God. It was that something more important allways turned up, or there was some war or disaster that needed to be sorted out.

All the same, the monks knew that they had to sooner or later get their debts paid or even their God would not protect them any longer, so they started growing grapes and making wine. They tested the first barrel themselves and at first thought it was a failure, so drank more-and a few hours later they got roaring drunk and then came down with hangovers.

When it was properly labeled their wine was a roaring success. People could drink it before going into alcohol-free areas and if they timed it right it would be undetectable. People could drink at work and not need to go to the pub in the evening. It also had far darker uses. In the wrong hands it could be used to humilate or even, in rare cases, to kill a person, whilst it was easy to accidently overdose on.

When the news reached Queen Amber she decided to outlaw it but ran into all sorts of problems. First her newly-summoned Parliment refused to do so, holding out for more power. When she rammed the issue down their throats a fire broke out in the Court of Chancellory where the new laws were written. Noone was hurt or killed but all the paper got burnt and it took weeks to get more together. Then a war nearly broke out with Karnival over a border dispute,and when that was sorted out, three copies of the decree were sent to the local Sheriffs of the area.

One was caught in a gust of wind and ended up in the sea. One was used by the bearer to wipe his buttom with when he got *the runs* on a busy road, and the third was eaten by a donkey.

It was a long while before the Queen found out and redoubled her efforts to stop the problem at source, finally getting the decree to the Sheriffs. The Sheriffs protested that they had all sorts of other things to do, rather then raid a sacred place of Mathom, but at last the action was taken. By that time however there were several barrels out there.Nowdays, it is far less common then normal, but there are still a few barrels and bottles of Timewine around in out-of-the-way places.

The monks paid ther debts and became quite rich, and they managed to delay the case, (or maybe their God delayed it) until the statuate of limitations ran out and they were all set free.

Magic/Cursed Properties

It's much like normal alcohol-one drink will be nice, a second might make a person typsy, and so on. It is not very good as a murder weapon because a lot needs to be taken to cause death, but it can be used to induce delayed action drunkenness. The one big difference between it and normal alcohol is that it is several hours (betwwen 2 and 6) before the effects kick in. It does not have a strong taste so is easy to slip into other drinks.