Peppercurrant Addiction

History

Peppercurrant is a stimulant that was developed by the noble house of Attar, one of the founding members of the Abizin Loyalists during the Great War. During the war, demand for the perfumes they produced fell off, and with the cost of maintaining their holding on the rise throughout the war, the lords set their perfumers to focus on developing medicines instead of scents. Peppercurrant was their greatest success: a medication that would keep a man on watch awake all night without impairing his abilities the next morning. Initially, the medicine was only usable by drinking a foul tasting tea, but the perfumers soon found a way of inserting a dose into the center of a dried redcurrant, reasoning that the intense flavour of the berry would mask the taste of the medicine.
"Pepper" could come from one of two sources. Some men taking it experienced a burning sensation when they bit into the berry - an experience not unlike biting into a peppercorn - but this reaction was rare. Most agree that it was more likely a reference to the fact that it makes soldiers intensely awake and aware. Officers often said it would "put some pep in your step" and encouraged soldiers who were having trouble sleeping to take one first thing in the morning.
Later in the war, it started seeing other uses. Instead of taking one Peppercurrant to stave off exhaustion, soldiers would take five or more before going into battle. This supposedly induces an adrenaline rush that makes everything else seem like it moves in slow motion, but it also effected judgement. Stories abounded of units of pepped up soldiers not recognizing their own colours, attacking other Kinilan groups. In extreme cases, sometimes a soldier would just lash out at anyone close at hand.
Officers were concerned by this, and soon the medicine was banned entirely...and en masse a new spectre arose: The Peppercurrant Blues. Originally it was dismissed as a mass protest by soldiers who enjoyed the effects of the drug, and it wasn't until soldiers started dying that anyone realized the truth: having taken so much Peppercurrant, the soldiers could no longer live without it. The ban stayed in place, and healers were brought in to try to manage the health crisis even as reserves were brought up to try to avert the disaster of having so many men pulled out of battle.
But by then it was too late to stop entirely. Peppercurrant became a black market good, first popular among the soldiers and then, to a lesser extent, back home.

Type

Chemical Compound