Edifying Lamp, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Edifying Lamp

Description:  A small lamp made of delicate brass filigree with lenticular panels of some strange iridescent resin.  It emits a faint odor of lamp oil despite lacking any obvious fuel reservoir.  An obvious command word (often simply "light") is worked into the pattern of the filigree.  Basic magical senses reveal a mild aura of divination magic, while more advanced techniques reveal the powers below in some detail.

Powers:  An Edifying Lamp sheds a golden light on command of any creature touching it.  It starts as just a dim spark, then a feeble candle's glow, and brightens to reach full brilliance in about a minute.  This magical light lasts indefinitely but moving the lamp in any way immediately extinguishes it.  The lamp sheds light but no heat and cannot start a fire.

Any form of mundane written information illuminated by the item will be intelligible to all viewers, although magical writings are not translated at all.  Extremely complex or alien writings may be difficult to fully grasp, and truly incomprehensible concepts will be assigned a consistent nonsense word (such as "dexitroboping") for all readers, because those Arisians really know their stuff.   Non-magical cyphers will still require time, effort, and an appropriate skill or stat check to work through, although the lantern's light will allow you to roll twice and take the better result.

Possible Origins:  These items are crafted by artificer-sages for their own uses, although they can sometimes be tempted to exchange one for rare books or other items of interest to their current studies.  Ancient lamps also turn up in monstrous treasure hoards or the ruins of lost kingdoms, and so find their way into the hands of adventurers.

Complications:  While lit (even while still brightening) creatures within its light can only speak in a whisper.  Attempts to cast magic requiring vocalization will fail 25% of the time, and bardic songs and similar "sonic" attacks or effects automatically fail.  Sounds not directly produced by a creature's voicebox are unaffected, so (for example) one can still play a musical instrument or clap one's hands normally.

Unlike many magical items, Edifying Lamps are not especially durable, and even minor damage to the lenses or filigree will ruin its magic forever.

Design Commentary:  A magical light source that translates books, can't start fires, and makes everyone in the vicinity keep their voices down.  In a really high fantasy setting larger libraries might even be entirely lit by these things.  Adventurers will doubtless find more practical uses for them, such as lighting underwater caverns, fighting monsters with sonic attacks, or nearly silencing calls for help.

Seven Days At Sea: Old Salt Candles, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Old Salt Candles

Description:  Black candles made of a sticky tar-like substance, usually found in a container filled with seawater.  They are readily identifiable by alchemical means but radiate no magic unless lit, at which point they "burn" with a cool and smokeless flame that gives off a harsh, painfully bright white light and a strong aura of elemental and enchantment magic.

Powers:  These items cannot be lit unless they are currently damp with seawater.  Their cold white "flame" cannot start conventional fires (although it can light other Old Salt Candles) and cannot be quenched by any liquid or blown out by winds, no matter how strong.  They do not use oxygen like mundane flames and burn without smoke or dripping tallow, slowly diminishing in size over about the same burn time as a conventional wax candle.  They shed light over five times the normal area for a mundane flame, and can be seen from five times the normal distance.

An Old Salt Candle can only be extinguished by spending a full round snuffing out the "flame" with sand, soil, or simply a tight grip covering the wick - the "flame" being cool and harmless to the touch.  Regular fire will not melt this strange tallow, and they have neutral buoyancy in seawater.  They float in fresh water, which will slowly dissolve them over the course of several days.  

Possible Origins:  The rituals involved in crafting Old Salt Candles are modest hedge magic, but they do require unusual (albeit fairly common) ingredients.  Their wicks must be made of the braided hair of a sailing man, and their tallow must include the ground nail clippings, bones and/or teeth from one who's been to sea in the last fortnight.  Using rendered fat from the corpse of a mariner makes for even larger, brighter candles suitable for lighthouse lamps, although this resource is somewhat harder to come by. 

Complications:  These are a utility item found on many ships as a safety measure for foul weather, but their light sometimes attracts unfriendly denizens of the depths as well as opportunistic sea-reavers.  Because of this and their cost (about fifty times that of normal candles) they are generally burned only in emergencies where a standard flame cannot be kept alight.

Design Commentary:  Handy items for sailing men and not hard to come by near the coast, but adventurers might find them useful for exploring damp underground environs.  Carrying around a small keg of seawater to keep them moist for burning could be a bit of a nuisance, but it does offer an alternative to casting light spells.

Seven Days At Sea: Brine-Apples, A System-Agnostic Oddity

Brine-Apples

Description:  Brine-Apples are, despite their name, vine-growing vegetables created through alchemical hybridization.  They are teardrop-shaped, about 5-6" in diameter at their base when fully grown, and range from a pale blue shading to darker blue-green when ripe.  They are extremely nutritious, packed with vitamins (especially vitamin C) and high in calories, and the juicy flesh of a single apple provides adequate food and drink for a full meal for an adult human. 

Brine-apple seeds grow only when planted in soil that is submerged in at least one foot of seawater, with the seaweed-like vines sprouting to float in tangled mats near or on the surface.  The quality of the soil is unimportant (sand will do nicely) but the water must be fresh so if growing brine-apples in an enclosed space (for example, on board ship) regular addition of water will be needed.  Sunlight or its equivalent is also required, so growing these plants in the Underdark requires magical assistance.

A 30-gallon barrel or tub dedicated to growing brine-apples will produce enough vegetables to sustain a dozen men indefinitely.  Plucked brine-apples do not keep well, and dissolve into nothing but a papery skin within a day.  Their juice is little better, turning to undrinkable brine in about the same period.

Uses:  These plants are a quartermaster's best friend.  A nearly infinite supply of healthy food (and drinkable juice) in exchange for a few buckets of seawater a day is a godsend compared to hardtack and salted meat, and all you trade off is using hauling capacity for the hydroponics in place of the fresh water you'd need to carry otherwise.  Some captains even make a point of throwing spare brine-apples overboard to seed the seabed with the plant for future trips, although they don't seem to take well to growing in the wild except in fairly shallow waters (under 80 feet or so).  Because of this, it's not uncommon to encounter mats of brine-apple vine near well-travelled coastlines. 

Complications:  Anyone who subsists wholly on brine-apples for more than a week will develop a strong urge to live on or near the sea and travel the waves to distant lands whenever possible.  This "Call of the Sea" is a psychological addiction but requires tests of willpower to resist and long periods (months or even years) going Cold Turkey (avoiding both brine-apples and the sea) to break completely.

Anyone who's been using brine-apple juice exclusively for their drinking needs for a week or more will find that fresh water tastes horrible for the same period of time, requiring tests of fortitude and willpower just to swallow or keep down afterward.  This quirk only applies to fairly pure water, so "apple tars" who find themselves ashore will tend to order teas, coffee, and particularly alcoholic drinks to quench their thirsts.   

Design Commentary:  If you're planning a realistically awful nautical campaign these things are probably way too much of an easy button.  If you'd prefer to emphasize the swashbuckling, derring-do, and exploratory themes instead, a ship carrying brine-apples can realistically ignore the worst of the provisioning issues real-world ships suffered from historically.

Seven Days At Sea: Buoyant Barbs, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Buoyant Barbs

Description:  An unwieldy harpoon head made of lusterless gray metal, with prominent barbs and pierced with a sturdy ring for a tethering rope or chain.  Like many magic items, it will subtly re-size itself to fit the shaft of most javelins, spears, or even short polearms as well as actual harpoons made for human-sized creatures.  Divinatory spells and mystical senses will detect an aura of transformation magic.  More advanced techniques will reveal the powers below.

Powers:  Any creature carrying a Buoyant Barb cannot be fully submerged by any non-magical force.  Some part of its body will always remain above water (or whatever liquid they may find themselves in) although this doesn't grant certain immunity to drowning (your head could still go under) nor does it help with other issues like hypothermia, salt dehydration, etc.

A damaging attack from a Buoyant Barb (whether attached to a proper shaft, or via an improvised attack using the barb as a clumsy dagger at -10% chance to hit) will magically lodge the barb in its target until all damage from the wound is healed (by any means, natural or magical) or the magic of the barb is dispelled by some means.  Any creature with one or more barbs lodged in it counts as "carrying" the item, and will therefore be unable to fully submerge, voluntarily or otherwise.

An unattended Buoyant Barb will itself float and cannot be forced below the surface without potent magic.

If a barb is somehow brought below the surface (most likely through magical means) its enchantment fails and the items rusts into powder within hours. 

Possible origins:  The method for enchanting Buoyant Barbs is ancient and well-known among almost all seafaring cultures, and the knowledge has even spread to fishing communities on rivers and freshwater lakes.  The process is still time-consuming and physically demanding, requiring cold-forging from a mystic alloy of various metals and alchemical reagents.  Despite this, it's common to find these items for sale (or as found loot) in lots of 1d4 individual barbs.  Ironically most accomplished artificers refuse to bother with such "trivial" magic, preferring to leave such work to hedge wizards and village wise folk.

Complications:  Intelligent aquatic creatures will often be hostile to anyone who uses Buoyant Barbs as a weapon, especially if they leave a wounded creature alive but "trapped" on the surface till they heal.  Exceptions might be made if the victim is an traditional enemy of the creature in question (eg mermen versus kraken) but in general sea-dwellers will at least attempt to confiscate and destroy any barbs they encounter, and will only use one themselves in the most dire of circumstances. 

Design Commentary:  Buoyant Barbs are obviously most useful for fighting sea monsters (who won't be able to retreat below water once struck with one) but it's also not unheard of for cautious seafarers to carry a barb (with or without a shaft) as a charm against drowning.  They can also serve as flotation devices in a pinch, and you can expect players to get creative about other uses, eg letting animal companions or pack animals swim long distances safely by strapping a barb to them so they can't sink.

A creature wounded by a barb will "shed" it when the wound heals, which often leaves unattended barbs floating on the surface afterward.  While finding one adrift at sea is vanishingly unlikely, they wash ashore eventually.  Beachcombers may turn one up now and then, particularly in regions with active whaling or aquatic monster-hunting industries.  More than one dockside bar has been regaled with stories of a marooned or shipwrecked sailor swimming to civilization after finding a "lucky charm" on their island prison. 

Seven Days At Sea: Smugglers' Oars, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Smugglers' Oars

Description:  One or more pairs on oars suitable for use on a ship's boat, made of a smooth, dark wood of unknown origin.  They are strangely difficult to look directly at and always feel cool to the touch, even under a blazing tropical sun.  Mystical senses reveals a subtle aura of deceptive magic.  More advanced auguries reveal a strong bond between the oars in a given set (which could be as many as twelve, although a single pair is most common) which could be used to trace the location of any that are missing.

Powers:  When an appropriate number of Smugglers' Oars are used to row a small watercraft of any kind, the boat, its contents and crew are undetectable to outside observers.  It leaves no wake and causes no disturbance in the water, counts as invisible and inaudible, and even water-dwelling creatures that might track by scent or sound cannot perceive them.  Creatures that are directly affected by the boat or its crew (for ex, in the case of a collision, attacks, or spellcasting) are exempt from this stealth effect for ten combat rounds afterward, although any initial attacks would be treated as coming from an invisible enemy.  The boat takes 1d6 rounds to become invisible after rowing starts, and the effect lasts only as long as rowing continues.

This magic only functions if the boat is being rowed entirely by a single set of Smugglers' Oars, with small rowboats needing only a single pair while the largest launches or longboats might require as many as a dozen oars.  When found randomly, 75% of the time a set of two oars will be encountered.  The remainder of the time, a set of 1d6 pairs of oars (so 2-12 total) will be found.  GMs may wish to complicate things further by having some oars from a larger set missing, which will require effort to track down.  A larger set can be "broken down" to row multiple smaller craft, but sets cannot be combined to row a larger craft. 

Possible Origins:  Smugglers' Oars are generally crafted on commission from scoundrels, spies, assassins and (unsurprisingly) smugglers.  The magic required is relatively straightforward, but the rare extraplanar wood required to make even a single pair of oars is very expensive.  Enchanting larger sets to equip bigger craft is prohibitively costly, although these costs can be ameliorated by questing to acquire the ingredients for the project.   

Complications:  The primary danger in using Smugglers' Oars is the risk of collision with other water traffic due to being unseen and unheard.  This is rarely an issue when (say) landing illegal cargo on a lonely seashore, but presents difficulties in a busy harbor or canal network.  The sudden appearance or disappearance of a boatload of people and cargo in front of witnesses is also likely to evoke comment.  Many customs agents and naval crew are familiar with the existence of Smugglers' Oars and will treat anyone owning them as criminals by default.  

Design Commentary:  Light sources carried by the boat will be invisible to outside observers as long as the stealth effect is operating.  This not only helps with landings during the dark of the moon, it offers possibilities for exploring the waters of the Underdark in relative safety.  

Seven Days At Sea: Ring of the Sea-Spouse, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Ring of the Sea-Spouse

Description:  A plain-looking gold ring.  The inside of the band is inscribed with a dozen alternating stylized images of a humanoid and a fish.  Basic magical detection will reveal a strong aura of transformative magic, with more exhaustive research or more powerful spells revealing a fairly accurate description of the powers below.  An extremely difficult lore check or very potent magic will also reveal the complications.

Powers:  Any air-breathing creature that dies from drowning while wearing this ring will immediately return to life at full health and be transformed (along with its gear and clothing) into an odd-looking fish with facial features vaguely similar to its former body.  The fish form has roughly the same size and weight as its previous body and retains its mental characteristics and memories, although it cannot speak and may be briefly disoriented.  Physical statistics and basic abilities will be based on the new piscine body.

This transformation lasts until the fish "drowns" in air, at which point it returns to life again and transforms back to its original form, coughing up the ring as it does so.  If the fish-form dies by any other means it remains dead, and anyone cutting open its body will find the Ring of the Sea-Spouse in its guts.

Only death by drowning triggers these transformations, not other forms of suffocation.  For example, the ring won't help if you go to the gallows or drop dead from smoke inhalation.    

Possible Origins:  Legends suggest that this ring may have been a gift of some deity to a former paramour.  If so that deity was less than eternally faithful, since at least a half a dozen of these rings are known to exist.  It's also possible that some mortal artificer knows the secret of crafting them and has deliberately spread the legend to improve the perceived worth of their wares.

Complications:  The "return to life" that triggers when transforming into a fish is "free" for purposes of accruing penalties for being resurrected.  Changing back to your original form by "drowning" as a fish is not, and whatever penalties your game system applies for using an "extra life" should be applied.  If your game system lacks that, I'd recommend permanently reducing the user's Constitution (or similar "how healthy are you" stat) by ten percent, rounding normally.

Design Commentary:  Narrowly applied resurrection effect that's free if you don't mind staying a fish until you find a way to transform back without dying again.  Many systems have polymorphing effects that can accomplish that, and I'd let players go questing for a ritual magic fix to accomplish it in the ones that don't.  Of course, first you have to find a way to communicate that you're actually not a weirdly-familiar fish to your friends, which offers some roleplaying possibilities.

Given the accumulating dangers of returning to one's original form, if a deity did hand these things out they must have had a thing for fish.  

Seven Days At Sea: Storm-Raiser Sail, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

Storm-Raiser Sail

Description:  Plain but well-made canvas sail, woven through with the sapphire-blue hairs of a marid.  Strangely difficult to measure but adjusts itself to fit whatever mast you care attempt to hang it on.  Magical detection is unneeded to tell these sails are enchanted, they throb with elemental power even a mundane can feel - which makes them difficult to disguise as something more innocuous.

Powers:  When a seagoing vessel is rigged with a Storm-Raiser Sail, it will never lack for wind but also draws storms and other foul weather upon itself and its surroundings.  In game terms, treat any locale within 5 miles of the equipped ship as having wind strength one step greater and weather conditions one step worse than normal.  

If your game system lacks fiddly meteorological mechanics (as most thankfully do) abstract these effects by rolling 1d6 at the start of any voyage the ship makes.  Expected travel time is reduced by the die result x10% (ie 10-60%) but the vessel will be confronted by hazardous weather (generally short but intense storms and squalls, but can include hurricanes, waterspouts, and similar extremes) a number of times during the journey equally to one half the die roll, rounding down (ie 0-3 times).  Dealing with these hazards requires appropriate nautical skill tests (or attribute checks, if your game lacks suitable skills or talents) as decided by the GM.  For example, navigating safely through a sudden storm might require an intelligence or navigation roll, shoring up leaks and pumping or bailing water during a hurricane calls for carpentry, shipbuilding, or strength checks, etc.  Generally speaking, the higher the d6 roll was, the more extreme weather will be encountered.  

Failed checks to deal with hazards can result in delays that more than offset the time savings granted by the sails.  Multiple or very severe failures can lead to capsizing, running aground, or sinking outright.

The sail's effect on the weather applies continuously as long as they're rigged on a sailing ship, even if furled or if the ship is docked or at anchor rather than travelling.  Taking the sails down completely will prevent this, but the effects take 1d3 days to wear off before weather returns to normal.

Possible Origins:  Storm-Raiser Sails are most often given as gifts or rewards to sailors who catch the attention of oceanic deities, marid nobility, or magic-using undersea civilizations.  Said "attention" may or may not be wholly positive for the recipient, as the sails bring both great rewards and great risks.  Legends tell of mortal, surface-dwelling mages who learned to craft these sails themselves by capturing marid princesses to harvest their hair.  These legends generally end with various strongholds, kingdoms and even entire land masses being devoured by the raging seas.

Complications:  Aside from the obvious dangers, these sails directly affect the weather in a large area and may distort the climate over a much larger region over time.  Many seafaring cultures have myths about Storm-Raiser Sails and will generally react extremely badly to ships rigged with one that attempt to enter their ports, use busy shipping lanes, or otherwise drag unpredictable and often destructive storms into their territory.  It's also nearly impossible to stay in formation with other ships when using these sails, so leading fleets or traveling in a convoys is right out.

This doesn't stop some people from using them anyway, and (with a good captain and crew) they serve well for high-speed courier work, smuggling, spying operations, and for transporting adventurers on desperate quests to save the world.  Particularly cruel seafarers may foist a set of the sails off on the inexperienced or unwary, and it's not unheard of to try to use such people as catspaws to (for example) unintentionally wreck a trade route or port by unknowingly calling storms to it.

Design Commentary:  Depending on one's ship-handling skills these items might even qualify as cursed rather than beneficial, although there's nothing stopping you from taking them down.  All you have to do is survive the d3 days of lingering aftereffects once you do so.

Seven Days At Sea: Shipwreck Compass, A System-Agnostic Magic Item

 Shipwreck Compass

Description:  A pocket-sized compass made of heavily verdigrised brass.  The pointer needle is rusted, and the face of the compass lacks the usual cardinal direction markings.  Basic magical examination reveals a strong aura of enchantment and divination magic tied to some form of seeking effect.  More advanced techniques will reveal the nature of its powers as below.

Powers:  Once briefly immersed in a body of liquid, the compass needle will infallibly point toward the nearest shipwreck within that body, be it a river, lake, swamp, sea or ocean.  Movement away from the direction indicated may change which shipwreck is nearest, resulting in the needle shifting to a new target.  This effect lasts until the compass is placed within a different body, which resets it to a new wreck.

The Shipwreck Compass will trigger when dipped in any "body" of liquid, including things like a mug of ale, a well, a millpond, or pool of lava (which may well destroy the item in the process, usual saving throws or damage resistances apply).  If there's no shipwreck within the liquid, the needle will spin wildly until reset.  The same "scrambled" result will occur 50% of the time if the compass is immersed near a boundary between two bodies of water, such as the mouth of river or a coastal swamp, and the other 50% of the time the compass will randomly "imprint" on one body or the other.  The compass performs normally even with underground rivers, pools, and seas, although navigating to a distant wreck is likely to be more difficult than on the surface. 

It is also possible to trigger the seeking function by briefly burying the Shipwreck Compass in a dried sea bed or similar geological formation.  The odds of finding a wreck are lower due to passage of time and they may well be buried deep below the surface.

In addition to its obvious utility in locating sunken treasure, the compass may also be helpful for avoiding dangerous reefs and shoals by using it to indicate what direction not to sail in.  This is somewhat unreliable unless one can be certain the nearest wreck lies on or near such a formation though.     

Possible Origins:  The first Shipwreck Compass was likely the product of some unknown mage from an undersea civilization, but land-dwelling artificers have gained access to the rituals and formulas required to create their own.

Complications:  Shipwreck Compasses are highly prized by seafaring treasure hunters, many of whom are noted for unscrupulous behavior.  Fakes are also fairly common on the marketplace, usually employing some form of concealed mechanical gimmickry to point the needle in a set direction.

There is also considerable danger involved in recovering sunken treasure, not least of which being the natives of the undersea world.  Many such creatures regard drowned riches as their own by right, and the use of old wrecks as lures for food, loot or slaves from the world above is not uncommon.

Design Commentary:  Starting a series of "aquatic adventure" themed posts this week with this.  These gadgets do have some utility for other milieus, although you'll want some fireproofing magic if you plan to trawl the Seas of Flame outside the City of Brass.

Gonzo Monsters: Psychedelephant

Psychedelephant

Description:  Imagine an elephant designed by a committee composed of Pablo Amaringo, Scott Draves, Alex Grey and David Normal after they'd been sleep-deprived for a week.  It doesn't look much like that, but it looks even less like anything else.

Abilities:  Psychedelephants have the same game statistics as a middling-sized dragon in your preferred rules systems with a few tweaks.  If your dragons come in rainbow colors use a green one, it's the closest match.  The usual physical attacks become stomps and gores and tosses for the same effects and damage.  The creature flies as well (or as badly) as a dragon would, sometimes accompanied by the prodigious flapping of ears and sometimes simply by virtue of forgetting to obey the laws of gravity.  Any other fancy movement abilities also apply, as do "draconic" senses - and it always has supernaturally keen hearing.  Regardless of the dragon type you're using, psychedelephants have highly variable dimensions that permit them to comfortably squeeze into places one would not expect to find  a more conventional elephant.  Ten foot square rooms, for example. 

Instead of a dragon's breath weapon, a psychedelephant can exhale a cone-shaped spray of vapor that acts as a contact hallucinogen and affects any living creature caught in the area.  Well, unless you're wearing a  sealed space suit or full hazmat gear or something.  Where'd you get that stuff, anyway?  This attack can be used once every d4 rounds and replaces the creature's physical attacks and (if your dragons do that sort of thing) spellcasting.

Creatures that fail to save against or resist the hallucinogen (treat as dragon breath, or poison, whichever is worse in your system) gain the "Tripping Balls" condition for 1d4+1 rounds unless magic or anti-poison effects end the condition early.  Creatures that do save or resist successfully still have to roll once on the Tripping Balls chart on their next turn, but can roll two dice and pick which result to use.

Tripping Balls Chart - roll 1d6 once per round until condition ends

1.  Keeping It Together, Man - Character may act normally this round.

2. Stay Cool, Stay Cool - Character can act normally this round but rolls twice for everything, taking the worst result of the two.

3. Bugsbugsbugsbugsbugs! - Character does nothing but stand there screaming and slapping at themselves this round.  They drop anything they're holding 50% of the time.

4. Mellow Fellow - Character spends the round trying to convince everyone to stop with the negative vibes already.  If they can make a convincing case for it through roleplaying they can test charisma or appropriate socials skills to get end the fight for at least 1d6 rounds.  Time seems to slow down long enough to make a brief monologue about peace, love, and understanding while attempting this.  Elvis Costello may mysteriously play in the background while doing so.

5. I CAN DO MAGIC! - GM chooses the flashiest and/or most powerful spell the character can cast and uses it on a target of their choice - which may or may not actually exist.  If the character can't cast spells they stand there shouting and waving their hands instead.

6. Bad Trip - Character uses the attack, spell, or power of the GM's choice on whatever target the GM chooses - which again, may or may not actually exist.

Behavior:  While hypothetically intelligent and capable of speaking most languages, psychedelephants don't think like mortals do.  They probably don't even think like immortals do.  Predicting their actions is nigh impossible, but they do seem to enjoy using their breath weapon on people to see what happens, especially if those people are currently trying to murder one another.  Best way to model their behavior from round to round is to roll a d20.  The higher the result the more aggressive the psychedelephant will be, while lower results indicate a "playful" mood.  Very low rolls would result in the beastie getting bored and leaving, usually with one last trumpeting blast of hallucinogens.

Possible Origins:  These things definitely come from the Demi-Plane of Bad Trips, which is a cosmological suburb of the Plane of Madness.  Or maybe they're literal pipe dreams puffed into being by trickster gods.  But it's also possible they're just something you imagined after trying the house brew at the Don't Come Inn.  Perhaps they don't exist at all and are just a hiccup in reality's OS.

Treasure:  If you actually manage to kill a psychedelephant without it flying off, the body dissolves into a pile of iridescent powder that, if carefully collected, is worth the same total amount of XP that an equivalent dragon would have earned a party of murder hobos.  Gaining those XP requires partaking of an appropriate proportion of the powder, usually through smoking, snorting, injection, baking into brownies, etc.  If a PC would gain enough XP to increase their level, they will spend that entire level having to test on the Tripping Balls chart once per day at whatever point the GM finds most amusing.  If they'd gain enough XP to gain two levels, they immediately ascend from their mortal form (ie die) and then reincarnate (as per the spell if your rules have such, or GM's choice of species otherwise) on the spot without the levels that triggered the overdose.

Systems that don't use XP (or don't award it for monster kills) will need some hacking so that the powder grants appropriate (or inappropriate) advances to skills, personal abilities, etc.

A psychedelephant that flees (or just wanders off) will generally leave behind 10% of the normal XP value of powder during their parting breath attack.

And because "predictable" is not a word that gets used for these critters, sometimes a slain psychedelephant will instead transform into a marble statue whose worth to the right collector or museum is equivalent to the minimum coinage value of its base dragon's horde.  It probably doesn't weigh more than 5 tons in this form, and is considerably more definite about what size and shape it is than it was when still alive.  Transportation issues may arise.