[Mkguild] House Broken Part 3

[Hallan Mirayas]

> Also I would think it would be slightly more devastating (as well as
> practical) to slip the king plain old poison while you're at it. ;)

Just an FYI regarding poison, from "On Thud and Blunder" (http://www.sfwa.o=
rg/writing/thud.htm), an excellent medieval writing resource site that Mich=
ael Bard pointed out on the Wiki:
"We have less scope where poisons are concerned, common though they are
in fiction. Medieval and Renaissance princes lived in terror of these,
but the fact is that prior to modern chemistry, there were virtually no
quick-acting toxins you could slip to somebody unbeknownst, or on the
point of a weapon. Curare is about all that comes to mind, and that's
South American. Indeed, I've seen a couple of Renaissance recipes for
poisons to feed dinner guests, and the main question about them is how
anybody ever imagined anybody else could ever gag down enough of that
awful stuff to suffer serious damage.



Arsenic was about the deadliest substance readily available, with a
few competitors like hemlock, toadstools, and ground glass. The problem
was usually to disguise the taste. In any event, while a person could
occasionally be given a lethal dose, he would hardly drop dead at once.
He'd be a considerable and messy time about his demise. I rather
imagine that quite a few deaths which were attributed to deliberate
poisoning were actually caused by botulism or the like."
Hallan

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