Owkoyi: Repain

Utility

Owkoyi is a neurotoxin. Rather than blocking pain receptors like most other painkillers, owkoyi temporarily reroutes the pain along different routes than normal portions of the brain partitioned for pain. Rather than not feeling pain at all, users experience a variety of sensations. Some feel a sweet taste in their mouth, while others feel warm. Still others hear otherworldly music, which is sometimes put to memory and then to paper. Each reaction is unique to the individual consumer, but the consumer will always have the same reaction. Surprisingly, the only effect that changes with larger quantities above the standard dose is addictiveness.

While painkillers exist and do get used, owkoyi is often preferred by some because they can still keep track of the amount of pain they feel. In the previous example, a super sweet taste means a lot of pain or mental stress, information that couldn't be acquired from mere painkillers.

Access & Availability

Owkoyi is available at apothecaries, houses of sight, or any other medical supply. While not as life-threatening as its urkelian cousin, owkoyi is still addictive. Several nations and a few principalities have banned it on that account. Where it's not banned, though, it is a very common drug.

Complexity

The plant family that houses urkelia produces slight variants of a specific chemical. Among several larger differences, urkelia uses iron in its chemicals, while the Keyrityi cousin uses nickel and the Tuhran cousin uses zinc. Keyrityi substance when left untreated is poisonous, but by swapping nickel with iron, the relaxing effect of urkelia is reproduced. Once the chemical could be synthesized, neither the plants nor the old setup process were needed for production.

Discovery

Owkoyi's predecessor was a very specific plant in Retrougo called the urkelia, which was not only poisonous to the Kauaru and cripplingly addictive to humans but also impossible to mass produce. Alchemists across Wouraiya struggled to find an easily-accessible replacement. After great deliberation, they found a proper supplement from mashing the domesticable Keyrityi cousin to the urkelia together with iron filings, then boiling the full concoction in a tub of oil.