Narcomancy

They told you "it's forbidden magic that turns the living into the living dead via narcomantic potions."

The truth: drug chemistry, a custom mana system, and a lot of pretending it's magic. The Narconomicon's author insists otherwise. The chemistry diagrams disagree.

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What it adds

• A craftable Narconomicon book. The colonist who reads it becomes a narcomancer permanently, gaining Strike and Hotbox for free. Single-use; craft another to teach a second pawn.
• A three-bar mana system: Stim, Calm, Body. Pools start at 100 and grow with level, up to 250 at max. Refill by drinking the matching lesser potion, crafted at the drug lab.
• A neural heat system. Every cast builds psychic entropy. Stay in the sweet spot for stat buffs and mood bonuses; push too far and vanilla psychic breakdown fires.
• Twenty-one abilities, unlocked by levelling up, not by research.
• Narcomancer Levelling. Ingesting drugs, taking on a new addiction, and courting overdose all earn XP. XP raises level (0-10); level raises max mana per pool and earns an Attunement Point.
• Narcomancer Attunement. Spend Attunement Points in a dedicated window to permanently learn abilities. Only 10 points ever exist against 19 selectable abilities, so it's a real build choice.
• Addiction-gated abilities. Several abilities require the caster to already be addicted to a specific chemical, the channel runs on chemistry the body already carries. The gizmo still shows; it sits greyed-out with a tooltip naming the missing addiction. Toggle off in Mod Settings.
• A Narcothecary bench, a second crafting system with its own research. Load a crafted empty bottle to brew an ingestible narcobrew, or infuse the brew into a physical vessel (apparel, weapons, grenades, IED traps) as a woven enchantment with a Vessel Affinity bonus (x1.25) matched to the vessel type. Effects scale by drug tier (T1-T4) and can be shaped by reagents. Enchanted apparel is one-shot unless made permanent with ≥10 doses of Luciferium and the Forbidden Compounding research.

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Abilities

Level tiers are 0, 3, 6, 9. Strike and Hotbox come free with the book; every other ability costs 1 Attunement Point. In-game gizmos show exact mana / heat / cooldown.

Level 0

• Narcomantic Strike: ranged single-target. Applies stupor and a drug overdose bump. Free with the book.
• Hotbox: lob a smokeleaf charge at a cell. 3x3 cloud, ~20 seconds. Not hostile; safe to drop on your own people. Free with the book.
• Chemosense: pings every drug-carrying or addicted pawn on the map for 1 in-game day.
• Addiction Leech: drains a target's addiction, refunding the caster Calm mana (net-positive).
• Phantom Dose: copies the caster's own drug high onto a target at 50% severity.
• Neural Heat Dump: push your heat into a target's nervous system. Requires the caster to be a psycaster.

Level 3

• Stim Surge: inject an ally (or self) with YayoHigh and GoJuiceHigh for several hours. Requires caster psychite addiction.
• Dependency Web: links up to 4 pawns; any linked pawn's drug high shares 30% to the rest.
• Vital Mend: close the worst hediff on a target. Healer-mech-serum mechanics. Requires caster go-juice addiction.
• Metabolic Redirect: transplants the caster's own high or toxic buildup onto a target at full severity, clearing the caster's own.
• Trip Sitter: equalise drug highs between caster and target. Both get narcomantic resonance (~4h buff), a mood boost, and 10 mana per pool. Psycaster pairs also share entropy. Requires caster smokeleaf addiction.
• Fugue State: timed thrall (~100s), target dies at the end. Requires caster smokeleaf addiction.

Level 6

• Purge Toxins: removes all addiction, tolerance, toxic buildup, and overdose hediffs from a target.
• Euphoric Surge: 8 seconds of pain immunity and huge speed/melee buffs, then a 30-second crash.
• Withdrawal Torment: forces maximum-severity withdrawal on a target for 30-60 seconds.
• Narcotic Aura: toggleable aura impairing hostile pawns within 8 tiles. Drains Calm while active.
• Til Death Do Us Part: slow obsession build over hours, ending in berserk violence and fatal overdose.
• Mind Veil: hostile 3x3 gas cloud, stupor + smokeleaf. Indiscriminate.

Level 9

• Deturalquake: radius-8 burst at a target cell. Full overdose stack on every pawn in range. Survivors get luciferium addiction. Caster is in range if within 8 cells.
• The Living Dead: permanent thrall. No timer. Shambler pallor. Requires caster luciferium addiction.
• Overdose Cascade: spikes a target's toxic buildup to 85% severity. The last pick a narcomancer will ever make.

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Narcomancer Attunement

Ability access isn't research-gated. All 21 abilities unlock via narcomancer level and a limited pool of Attunement Points, spent through the Attunement gizmo. Strike and Hotbox are free; every other ability costs exactly 1 point, never lost once learned.

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Neural Heat

RangeState0-30%Safe.30-100%Narcomantic High: stat buffs and mood bonuses, scaling with heat.>100%Vanilla psychic breakdown (knockout / mood crash).

Every narcomancer accumulates heat from casting, psycaster or not. Aim for 30-100%. Heat decays between fights. Psycasters can offload with Neural Heat Dump; non-psycasters rely on timing.

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Narcomancer Levelling

XP sources: +10 for any drug ingested, +25 more for a Narcothecary-brewed product, +15 further if T3+. First-time addiction to a chemical pays +75 (once ever per chemical). Overdose pays big: +300 for a drug overdose or toxic buildup at 75% severity, +200 more for surviving it (peaked ≥90%, recedes below 40% while still alive). Level cap 10 at 16,000 XP; each level adds 15 max mana per pool and grants 1 Attunement Point. A single big XP grant can cross multiple levels at once and awards a matching number of points.

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Friendly fire warnings

Mind Veil and Hotbox clouds hit every pawn inside them. Mind Veil stuns your own people.
Fugue State death timer fires regardless of faction.
Deturalquake catches the narcomancer if within 8 cells of the target.

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How to play

1. Research Drug Production (vanilla), then Narcomancy.
2. Craft a Narconomicon book at the drug lab.
3. Right-click the book, "Read the Narconomicon". Colonist gains Strike and Hotbox, free.
4. Craft Lesser potions to refill mana bars. Autodrink handles this when bars drop below target.
5. For the Narcothecary: craft an empty bottle at the drug lab, right-click a bottle stack and pick "Load into narcothecary", then compose the recipe and queue it.
6. Use drugs, brew narcobrews, and risk the occasional overdose to earn XP.
7. Open the Attunement gizmo whenever you have unspent points and pick a build.

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Requirements

Royalty is required for Neural Heat Dump and Trip Sitter's entropy equalisation bonus. Without it those features silently no-op. Everything else works without Royalty. A psylink is obtainable via Royalty or any mod that grants psylinks.