Utterly Mad

Products
A short list for an almost inconceivably large amount of items. The Syndicate deals in everything, but this'll help others to understand the flavor of their products when it comes to writing them.

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Multhokian Oil-Snake Secretions
The indigenous serpent-like reptiles of the decidedly isolated planet known as Multhok are just one of the many strange life forms found there. A world of savage, all-encompassing jungles and rainforest bristling with all manner of vicious predators and toxic flora and fauna, it's not a land for the faint of heart, but certainly a place for those who wish to make a quick cred. The oil-snake, as it's come to be known by Terran explorers, is one such example of insidious economization.

The ten-foot-long, five-inch-in-diameter reptiles are normally found in the enormous mud-pools of the northernmost jungles, in which they breed and hunt for their preferred prey, the luminous, unnamed crustaceans known to frequent the deeper reaches of the pools. The close-set, smooth scales of the oil-snakes are completely devoid of color, as the canopies of the forest above are too thick to allow any of the planet's sunlight through to their muck-filled home.

But enough about the damned things' eating habits and habitat. The real reason they've been noticed is for their natural defense mechanisms, and the utilities that these provide. The Multhokian oil-snake defends itself from the predators of its locale by secreting a thick, oil-like venom from small pores between their close-set scales. These venoms actually differ somewhat as the mud-pools get further apart and the snakes are somewhat separated, but disturbing hallucinations, extreme panic and unease, and, in rarer strains, mild to extreme pain and severe difficulty breathing are noted.

Now, the thinkers over at the Vesuvian Syndicate saw an opportunity in this natural weapon. They've got a few medium-scale breeding and raising facilities dotted around Multhok, made to raise oil-snakes in captivity and harvest their secretions for use in certain places. The milder venoms, those that cause hallucinations and fear, are processed into a fine vapor and put into use on mining and farming worlds the universe over as crowd deterrents. Hordes of determined protesters and riotous workers are transformed into terrified, shivering piles of human wrecks that scream and sob at the slightest movement in their peripheral vision, making it much easier to get a force of guards with proper breathing equipment to stem the riots.

The increasingly powerful venoms of the isolated oil-snake strains are used even more insidiously, as the stronger oil's combination of hallucinations and terror, pain, and shortness of breath make it a valuable method of interrogation for any government or corporation that's not squeamish about suffering. In some cases, the Syndicate ships the strongest of the secretions for use as chemical weapons; an enemy force collapsing into a suffocating pile of panic and agony is a deal some sides find too good to pass up, no matter the price.

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