d60 poisons, curated and distilled

Original table: https://www.reddit.com/r/BehindTheTables/comments/637bvs/the_great_big_random_d100_list_of_poisons_dd5e/

I went through this big 72-page d100 list of poisons and kept the ones that caught my attention. Then I proceeded to rename them to taste, remove and add various ingredients and effects, mix-and-match some of them together, and include a few new entries of my own. The whole thing has been compressed into a single-page d60 table and all the mechanical tidbits have been removed to make it system-agnostic.

It's available here in PDF form, or below if you're lazy.

For ease of use, I've sorted all the results into 10 extremely vague and arbitrary categories (so one can roll 1d10+1d6, rather than an imaginary d60). Feel free to suggest any changes there.

d	Name	Ingredients/Appearance	Effects
1. Alchemical poisons
1	Clockmaker's end	Greasy black oil from the depths of the earth, distilled.	Takes a few weeks to kick in, then wreaks havoc on the body. Starts with shaky fingers, ends with death.
2	Curse-of-iron	Quicksilver, lignite, pyrite.	Makes the target magnetic, exerting a slight but dangerous pull on blades and metal arrow-tips, for a day.
3	Deathwish	Onyx, slime ooze, dragonfire, and a big piece of your own skin.	Alchemical suicide poison. Dissolves body from the inside, then makes it explode violently. Shatters the soul.
4	Dragonspit	Draconic maw-gland, compressed inside a vial.	Explodes into invisible gas with a foul odor. Reduces target to a crawling walk. Causes crippling internal burns.
5	Mindfire	Bone powder, burning ice, ammonia, dove feathers.	Grants temporary vitality, then causes equal or greater pain and bleeding, and may madden the mind.
6	Thief's bane	Basilisk saliva and glue.	Poison made to coat a couple dozen pieces of furniture. Numbs the arm when touched.
2. Anaesthetic poisons
1	Coffin-bait	Red syrupy potion created by a dungeon-sized mimic as a lure.	Victim goes comatose, appears clearly dead for a few days. May heal one's wounds instead.
2	Dream-of-thirst	Tentacle Thornbush spores. Rot from dehydrated corpses fertilizing it.	Traps one in a dream-hallucination for a minute if not reapplied. Flickers of lucidity - one can act, but not move.
3	Madness eater	Slimy lichen boiled into a purple mist.	Calms the mind, then causes a feeling of ravenous hunger for a few hours.
4	Propaganda dust	Avocado tree bark powder, alcohol, a very clever rat's brain. Burn it.	Lowers intelligence for a few weeks. Add spices and flower to mask the scent.
5	Toadtongue juice	Helltoad skin-slime and spike-frog mud. Boil until glassy and viscous.	Target becomes lethargic, slow to act, and suffers mild hallucinations for a day.
6	Tortoise-tail	A blue fern. Gains its property if masticated by a Spiked Behemoth.	Slow-acting anaesthetic. Without countermeasures, target will fall in a coma-like sleep within an hour.
3. Arcane poisons
1	Arcane guillotine	Flower that blooms once a year, picked that day. Add honey.	If ingested, victim turns into dullahan at midnight. Cured by a sticky cliffside tree's sap.
2	Cerberus draught	Blood of a demon, a madman and a holy man.	Reverses victim's personality traits and beliefs, though rarely one's moral compass.
3	Cockatrice's hiss	Knock-off Medusa's kiss, made with cockatrice liver.	Petrifies a single body part for an hour. Cured with tears or acid.
4	Cryptsap	Bogwater, zombie pus, ghoul blood. Boil in long-dead troll's skull.	Turns target undead for a day and a night.
5	Medusa's kiss	Medusa tears.	Slowly petrifies the victim. Stopped by another's tears of despair, or acid.
6	Wispcurse	A clay pot containing liquefied wisps. Hair-raising static charge.	Target courses with luminous lightning, suffering constant electric shocks and ghastly visions.
4. Body-altering poisons
1	Bogbile	Infernal bogwater and white tarragon distilled into a gel.	Victim grows a dozen inch-wide itching pustules, which explode painfully when the victim's flesh is struck.
2	Bugbear oil	Goblin and dire beast's limbs left to age in a charred oaken barrel.	Victim quickly grows thick, flammable body hair or fur.
3	Buzzkill	Royal jelly and venom from the somewhat exotic southern red bee.	Turns a hand painfully puffy and swollen, unable to hold anything.
4	Hag-wart	Witch's sweat, deviltongue mushroom.	Covers the face in a dozen luminescent warts, unless washed off early. Victim must fight urge to pop them.
5	Icebrine	Distilled permafrost, often made into deadly rhum.	Increase sensitivity to cold and freezes target from the inside. Cured by diet of firecorns.
6	Veinbreaker	Red glass, an opaque gemstone, dissolved in lye water.	A dozen blood needles protrude from skin, breaking painfully with physical activity. Can be removed with care.
5. Inconvenient poisons
1	Goblin pollen	Chili tree leaves, peppers, goblin saliva.	Horrible allergy-like symptoms. Sneezing and watery eyes for a few hours.
2	Legion's lament	Powdered black pearl, drake spleen, boot that's seen 20 years of war.	Diluted to turn a whole group lethargic, irritable, and thrice as hungry and thirsty, lowering morale and speed.
3	Ogre-foot	Fungus growing on an ogre's back. Mash to paste, apply to target.	Harmless fungi colonizes target, who now carries a horrid smell. Takes a few days to thoroughly scrape it off.
4	Orator morator	Idiot's spit, turtle egg, live swamp slug. Mix an hour in pure silence.	Mouth goes tingly and numb. Ten minutes to an hour. Speech awkward and difficult, magic words included.
5	Ormina's blessing	Dripping fang given to lepers by a talking statue, for a service.	For a week, target can barely speak and frequently coughs up large clouds of dark grey smoke instead.
6	Skin slime	Peaceful, fugitive ochre ooze. Grows on cave mycelium. Apply to skin.	Urge to drop everything to scratch the itch. Increasingly hard to ignore. Indulging gives a moment's peace.
6. Madness-inducing poisons
1	Brimstone juice	Dried, crushed puku-puku, a pink and bitter fruit.	Victim hallucinates fiery demons, followed by a hangover.
2	Diplomat's draught	Honey mead from a dryad's tree's beehive. Drop of troll blood.	Target considers all arguments to be in good faith for an hour.
3	Dreamsong	Soak a harpy feather in a mad artist's tears. Then stab with the tip.	Target travels a random direction for a day following an imaginary melody, unable to speak or hear others.
4	Goblin snot	Goblin bile, rotten fruit, cursed water.	Causes berserk rage and nausea for a few minutes.
5	Hauntsmirch	Creature's blood used as a source, then bathed in a hag's guts.	All creatures appears as visions of the source creature. Can be unsettling to terrifying, depending on source.
6	Viper-whisper	Pollen released by viper weed, a red tube-plant, upon contact.	Induces hysteria and sensory deprivation for an hour.
7. Mind-affecting poisons
1	Ghostpain	Ectoplasm, mimic glue, perfectly ordinary water.	Nocebo poison. Only hurts if the victim is convinced it's real. Can nearly kill.
2	Jolt-and-bolt	The yolk of an electric lizard's egg.	Horrible tingling sensation, though not painful. Target can't do much but move, and feels the urge to run.
3	Rainbow raindrop	Potent distilled spirits and a mushroom of every color.	Causes either pleasant euphoria and slow-down, or paranoia, hallucinations and confusion.
4	Saint-scruple	Beladonna oil, silver dust, powdered pearl. Heat over a brazier, bless.	Induces crushing guilt and insomnia for a day and a night.
5	Scent of humors	Unfunny jester's crushed skull, set aflame with swamp gas, bottled.	Gaseous poison which sends victims keeling over in screaming laughter for a minute.
6	Wightmaker powder	Lapis lazuli, ground into powder, mixed with zombie dust and blood.	Target wanders aimlessly like an euphoric shambling corpse for a day and a night.
8. Nature-based poisons
1	Coldsweat extract	Made from three plants found behind the iciest waterfalls.	Target sweats bullets, eliminating all toxins, but feverishly drifts in and out of consciousness for a day.
2	Parasite mite	Eggs from stagnant waters of the deepest jungle ravines. Ingested.	Target coughs up a live mite each day, then vomits out a swarm of mites after a week. Can be lethal.
3	Stinger song	Wasp pheromones, powdered ginger, infatuated lover's blood.	Draws curious wasps to target for a day. Victim should avoid sudden movements. Can be washed with soap.
4	Stirge nectar	Rotting quince fruit and stagnant swampwater.	Ingested. Causes nausea for a day. Vomit attracts flocks of stirges.
5	Sunbite	Sand viper's venom fermented in oil.	Causes dehydratation.
6	Troglodyte-throat	Troglodyte glands, fermented. Apply to skin.	Target gains a toxic breath for a day. They are not immune to it. Likely to poison anyone they talk to.
9. Sensory-affecting poisons
1	Druid's glare	Boiled cave mushrooms, an oily black liquid.	Target can see in the dark as the world brightens for a dozen minutes. Then all goes blinding-white for an hour.
2	Eyesmoke	Ogre's eye, kept in an opaque bottle in a cave's depths for a week.	Thin smoke spreads inside target's eyes for a few days. Bright light appears dim, dim light appears dark.
3	Morlock dust	Glowing mushroom spores, naturally contracted in some caves.	Makes target sensitive to light, as if they'd lived their whole life in the depths, for a day.
4	Screaming spit	Mandrake root, mandrake leaf, just grind the whole mandrake, really.	Easily diluted. Deafens for a day.
5	Wanderlost	A stout clover-like plant. Easy to take a wrong turn looking for it.	Destroys victim's sense of direction, doubling their chance to get lost.
6	Witchpyre sap	Milk-like substance exuded by a False Willow when touched.	Makes skin burning hot. Clothing and armor become unbearable. Must re-hydrate with a gallon of water.
10. Voodoo poisons
1	Devil's dew	Dew from hell-roses, collected in a dark metal vial blessed by Chaos.	Body is shaky and thoughts muddled for a week. Inflicting or receiving violence clears symtoms for a minute.
2	Killseed	A seed, given sentience by a shaman.	Ingested seed begins to grow and tear the target apart from inside. High alcohol doses can destroy it.
3	Lover's balm	Gremlinroot, hornet wax, drop of devout priest's blood.	Apply to your lips and kiss your target. Neither of you can lie for an hour. A seer may gift it, if you have a lover.
4	Mindfold	Beholder vitreous humour.	Stops the victim's ability to cast spells while their eyes are open.
5	Voodoo gash	Large tuft of target's hair, tainted mud. Apply to skin.	Small arm sprouts from one's wound, claws at the host. Can be restrained. If ripped off, wound healing slows.
6	Weirdwater	Blue water, found in deep cave pools surrounded by glowing fungi.	Causes one's arm to try and strangle them for a minute.

Things a random encounter can do (+ table-making advice)

Purpose of an encounter

In OSR systems, the classic random encounter turns time into a resource: every turn spent in the dungeon (or every day in the wilderness) means a chance of a confrontation, which would drain party resources and potentially kill PCs.

But an encounter can accomplish various other things... (In fact, this is vital in systems like D&D 5E where encounters are no longer resource drains by default and must justify their own existence, lest they become yet another annoying old artifact to be tossed away.)

Some of these include:

1. Present a potential challenge or opportunity (the most common one)
2. Creating cohesion in your setting by acknowledging, tying together, or foreshadowing disparate aspects of your world to make it more cohesive.
• For example, if you've slotted someone's crystal-man dungeon into your hex map, then the encounters in the region around it could involve crystal-men, since they're a thing now.
3. Introduce plot hooks and underline ongoing event
• For example, soldiers coming back from The War That's Going On Right Now carrying whatever they've pillaged.
4. Include some local color
• For example, merchants and performers on the road, heading to the nearby town's Summer Festival.
5. Emphasize setting themes or make its lore accessible
• For example, in a world with an underlying theme of corruption and sin, this could mean flagellants, pious men and women on a pilgrimage seeking redemption, or holy knights looking to cleanse the land. An opportunity to explain the state of the world or its history.
6. Present tough decisions: a one-time chance for a trade, a dangerous but rewarding choice, or (parsimoniously, for the right kind of groups) a moral quandary.
• For example: traveling plague doctors will pay very well to have a strong test subject drink their latest experimental plaguewarding potion, but there kiiiind of is a small chance it'd kill you. Will you volunteer? And will you let them test it on that chained-up man, who claims he was sold to the doctors by his family?
7. Establish a new concept or mechanic
• For example: in a world where runestones exist and can be bought, the PCs may encounter a runemancer willing to explain and demonstrate how rune magic works. Alternatively, this can be as simple as saying "hey guys, this faction/this type of monster exists". A good opportunity to gauge the players' reactions, in any case.

etc. Other reasons can include "I've got a specific mental image in mind that I want to bring to life" or "I just freakin' love dragons, man."

It's good to know what you're trying to do with an encounter result, and to remember the various way that powerful tool can be used.

Quality and quantity

You don't need three different dinosaur types or four kinds of evil humanoids unless you've got a good reason (for example, four important factions at war in a location, or four evil humanoids with a degree of importance in your setting). In my experience, an ordinary encounter table can get away with approximately six results, doubly so if they are supplemented by subtables for variety (e.g. "what the monster wants", "what's the monster doing", etc).

So, focus on one result and try to make it interesting and re-usable: the same barbarians can serve a dozen times if they're back with loot on the first encounter, having an internal feud on the second, running from a monster on the third, etc. In fact, running into the same barbarians multiple times builds consistency, establishing them in your players' minds, and allowing your players to apply their increasing knowledge of the monster/NPC with every new encounter.

For one-time encounters/events (like "Glorb the wizard is about to get killed by his apprentice") you should probably have one or two replacements ready for after it's used up (although the idea of a wizard regularly hiring apprentices that inevitably try to kill him on the road sounds hilarious, if you can keep it fresh...)

Odds and variety

In my opinion, it's better not to reuse that same old "d100 swamp encounters" table you grabbed off your favorite system for every swamp in your game. What makes this swamp special? Give it its own encounter table and tailor the results for it, even if it means going down to just d10 results.

Weighted tables are cool in theory, but it's important not to put mundane stuff at the forefront and hide your really interesting results behind a low-chance (<5%) roll. Your players aren't going to make fifty treks through the same area unless it's a megadungeon, they might not even make five, so design for good sessions instead of designing for satisfyingly pseudo-realistic numbers. In fact, a campaign starring three separate encounters with a dragon may grow a lot more interesting for it.*

* Unless these dragons can't always be avoided or escaped, in which case, uh, don't do that.