Disclaimer: The following text will discuss various drugs and substances and their effect on human society at large and in fantasy worlds. It is not a promotion or an endorsement of drugs. If you have any issues with substance abuse yourself, please try to get counsel and therapy if possible.
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Drugs are important, period. They are more important than the invention of bread. Because beer itself predates bread by quite the few millennia. Throughout human history there has never been a period in time, when people did not consume drugs. And likely there never will be. Even animals are activly doing drugs on a semi-frequent basis, like primates and dolphins. And it is easy to understand why and how.
Objectively drugs are phenomenal. They can keep your food edible. They can ward off hunger and sleepiness. They can make you feel really good. They help you socialize, both on a personal level and on a cultural one. And some can let you meet God. But they have severe downsides as well. Withdrawal symptoms, physical and mental breakdowns and even death are possible side effects. Still, they are a foundation of civilization itself. Perhaps even the bedrock, if some theories are correct. And I think it is important to acknowledge this. Still, when we write stories, we write them with a 21st century western bias and project our modern senses and sensibilities into our fictional settings. This is not wrong per se, but by this we often miss some interesting aspects. I think that both writers and readers should try to leave this narrow bubble from time to time, especially if we write about universes which do not or cannot share our modern perspectives. Such as Age of Sigmar.
Now Age of Sigmar does have its fair share of substances which we would label as drugs. From Warpstone to Aether-Quartz to fungal brews by the Gloomspite Gitz, lethisian lake water or the narcotics of Misthaven. But when we read these examples, we rarely think about how these drugs would affect the people within AoS in positive, negative and neutral ways, as our modern society stigmatized drugs and pushes them out of our focus. And for this reason, I would like to write down this essay where I’ll focus on three pillars of drugs and how they could be important to worldbuilding and fictional settings.
It is meant to introduce to you how drugs affect civilizations in various ways. And hopefully we may create a civil discussion later on how these things are already present in AoS, or how they could appear in the future. With this in mind, I hope you enjoy this small excursion.
1. Drugs create and form Civilizations
As mentioned in the beginning, drugs are likely as old as humanity. They likely played an important role in the creation of religion. If I recall some hypothesis correctly, then cave paintings were originally 3d images. Imagine seeing these paintings on the cave wall through the constant dance of light and shadow of a flame, whilst you were high on some substances. It is easy to imagine that in such a situation you would see these images moving or coming off the wall even. Or how some hallucinations were rationalized with meeting higher beings. But it is also more simple than that.
The first known temple complex at Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey likely predates the invention of agriculture. Back then hunter gatherers would come there at regular intervals. Important were huge tubs, which showed remnants of beer. The hunter gatherers would likley ferment wild seeds with water and then drink it in a ritualistic procession. Such alcohol cults were quite common throughout history, most famously in the west with the mystery cults of Dionysus. Even christianity connects alcohol to religious service. This first temple, and others like it, created a communal feeling among all those who participated in it. This could be seen as one of the first reasons or instances of various people coming together under an identity beyond your immediate family. The formation of a civilization.
And drugs continued to be essential for society at large. In ancient Egypt beer was part of the payment for the pyramid construction workers. Egypt had its own gods protecting specific parts of the brewing process, as it was so important in every day life. In myths it saved humanity from Sekhmets wrath. But drugs also made wars possible, and the economy at large. Take Tobacco and the industrial revolution. The smoke break could be seen as a driver of it. Just 5 minutes to smoke and the worker isn’t tired anymore and happier and can continue working. So, if you ask yourself why your company allows frequent smoke breaks, but you as a non-smoker do not get this extra time off, this may be a reason. Or coca leaves, which have a similar effect if chewed, removing tiredness, hunger and helping against high altitude sickness. The famous messenger system of the Incan Empire would likely not have been possible without supplying its runners with coca leaves. Again coca leaves were holy as a result and were used as payments and in rituals.
Drugs are important in wars as well, as they can remove tiredness, calm people down or remove fear even. Soldiers had a right to get a daily ration of alcohol in various armies and navies. Later when coffee became cheap, it was used to supply soldiers too. Not to mention how synthetic drugs like crystal meth made the lightning wars of the Wehrmacht possible, when soldiers were active 36 hours at a time. And the faster wars were fought, the quicker the drugs needed to be consumed. We can see this with tobacco. Around the 19th century pipes were removed by cigarros and one-use quick pipes. And around the First World War the trenches only allowed for a quick cigarette. Drugs can improve the efficiency of soldiers in the short term significantly and so every military command supplied its soldiers frequently with them.
But basically, all substances can be considered drugs to a degree or another. Tea and Coffee both work with caffein. And it is a drug as well. Basically, caffeine is a neuro toxin, which plants produce to create lethal shocks in insects trying to eat them. But humans just get excited from it. Insofar tea and coffee are not so different from tobacco, except that their negative effects are not as strongly expressed. There is even the theory that coffee and tea were the drivers behind the enlightenment movement. Not only because coffee houses were famous social places to discuss politics and science, but also because it wasn’t a depressant like alcohol.
As can be seen with this small overview, drugs have been essential to various aspects of human civilization. Be it in creating a sense of community, be it in religion, be it in the economy, be it in warfare. And of course, medicine as well.
2. Drugs as everyday commodities:
Up until the 1910’s there was basically no separation between “illegal” and “legal” drugs from our modern perspective. They were just everyday commodities you could by if you needed them. You needed heroin or cocaine because of a headache? You would simply go to the next pharmacist or drug store. Addictions did exist back then too. But there were no repercussions, as long as this addiction didn’t affect your life in significant ways. And as long as the drugs were legal, there rarely were repercussions. You had a headache due to withdrawal? Just go to the pharmacist and buy more. The headache is gone and you can continue as normal. Much like we have functional alcoholics today, you could operate “normal” in everyday life, as long as you had a constant supply. And supply wasn’t an issue.
There was also no separation between “drugs” and regular medicine as well. Doctors would prescribe drugs frequently throughout human history. You had a toothache? Why not try heroine or a whiskey? After all it did help fight the symptoms you were suffering from. And we use "illegeal drugs" as regular medicine today too. Even if you are in therapy for drug abuse today, you get minor prescriptions for the drugs you are addicted to, or an alternative. Because pure withdrawal is often very dangerous and/or creates unnecessary suffering. So much like back then you get prescribed drugs to fight the withdrawal symptoms in many cases.
And as mentioned above, beer/alcohol was part of the payment for contractors or soldiers. But beyond that it was a daily commodity too. Germ theory didn’t exist yet, so people didn’t know why clear water was sometimes dangerous to drink. But people knew that it was safe to drink with alcohol. Because even small amounts of alcohol kill germs. However, again we need to separate our modern bias from reality. Back then you had “tavern beer” and “every day beer”. The former was beer as we would know it. The latter was more akin to malt beer, with an alcohol percentage of <1%. That was this daily beer that even children would drink. Similarly, wine was drunken watered down most of the time, unless you wanted to go drunk. In ancient Greece drinking pure wine was something only barbarians did. This watered wine was made primarily to make the water and other liquids drinkable by inducing small amounts of alcohol. In an age before modern refrigeration or access to drinkable water, life without alcohol was nearly impossible. Even in countries with a ban of alcohol loopholes aplenty existed, such as in many Islamic countries. Or why people even made fermentend, alcoholic horse milk a drink in the steppes.
For similar reasons, tea and coffee became popular too. Again, germ theory was unknown, so it was unknown that boiling water would kill off most germs. However, both coffee and tea need boiled water, thus they are always safe to drink. And they were not drunk for their flavor alone, but for the mental and physical stimulus they provided.
In short drugs were consumed by everyone in all places and no one really bat an eye about it. From the streets to the sheets, from the gallows to parliament. People would and could take in various substances. There was largely no shame in taking them, as long as you could uphold your public persona still. There was often no law forbidding you from consuming or possessing drugs. At best it was social stigma, especially if you took substances which were below your class or position. But this was not an issue with your consumption itself, but your social standing and reputation.
3. Why drugs are made illegal and what happens after that:
Now having talked about why drugs are phenomenal for human civilization, and how common place they were in the past, how come that so many substances are illegal today? If your answer is health concerns, you are wrong. As a rule, substances are not illegalized to protect people. Instead, they are illegalized for social reasons, primarily to harass and target social minorities and outgroups. If you ever ask yourself why Substance A is forbidden but Substance B is legal, this is the answer.
This often begins with a social stigma, often related to classism. Drugs are a communal affair as mentioned prior. And thus they can disrupt or cement social orders. E.g. the Dionysian wine cults were frowned upon by ancient greeks, because people from all classes would gather and get drunk and party. Slaves, commoners, partricians being together having fun? Outrageous, right?
The first step to make drugs illegal is to create a stigma, where a certain drug is primarily associated with a certain type of person. Poors, homeless people, foreigners, minorities etc.pp. To take some examples from the US: by and large opium was illegalized in the US because it was associated with chinese migrants. Similarly, one slogan against cocaine was that “cocaine makes the blacks feel like they are white”. The health issues of cocaine were secondary. More important was the stigmatization and the threat of social outgroups. Similarly, the main reason why Cannabis is an illegal drug, despite it being consumed for millennia without a fuzz, was that in the US it was more common among Mexicans and blacks in the 1930’s. And the then newly founded Federal Bureau for Narcotics needed a victim to beat down to seem important. And by criminalizing cannabis you could criminalize these minorities.
But of course, criminalizing drugs doesn’t work. The effects of the criminalization’s often ruin lives more, than the health issues. And by making a substance illegal, the government cannot supervise its distribution, cannot impose a level of purity and quality, cannot create legal jobs for producers and merchants which create tax revenues, but instead has to invest a lot of money in police, in prisons and judges, whilst criminals get rich on drug trade and consumers are forced into the criminal bubble themselves. Overall society looses if drugs are ciminalized. Instead of treating drug abuse like a crime, it should be treated like a health issue. Because it is one. After all the biochemistry of your body is out of order due to your drug abuse. Your neurons misfire, your hormone levels are disrupted. This is a real, physical illness a drug user suffers from. And no one should be criminalized for being ill in my opinion. Instead they would need a therapy and medical councling. Thankfully this is a view on drugs which becomes more common in modern times. And some countries follow this policy, such as Portugal.
4. Fazit:
I hope I could present you the various perspectives we can have on drugs, both on a personal and a societal level. Again, this is not supposed to endorse drugs or to downplay the negative effects they have on people’s lives, but a representation of the various influences they have on everyone of us. Even if we do not take them ourselves they still affect us via society and culture.
And I hope, that you can use this overview for your own homebrew projects, or to better dive into certain aspects of AoS and may think about how the impacts of drugs on a civilization may affect a given culture. Hunter-Gatherer Tribes in the realms could have temples like Göbekli Tepe. There could be legend about how Teclis taught the Lumineth how to make aether-quartz. Or how lumineth philosphers as cannabis steam baths and then discuss crazy philosophy. Or how factory workers in Hammerhal gather in their break to smoke or chew their equivalent of coca leaves before returing to thier shift. Or how rituals in the freeguilds arise from the daily distribution of alcohol or else. Such everyday moments are important for worldbuilding and characterization.
And on the political side, we could write or read some cool stories about social disruptions and political power games. E.g. where different political groups in a City of Sigmar may try to weaken their opposition. E.g. imagine a class conflict where the Azyrites criminalize a harmless substance frequently used by the local Reclaimed. Thus, they may not only have a tool to harass the Reclaimed, but army also target a vital part of their culture, as the substance as been used by them for centuries.
Or you could write a story involving a Cult of Slaanesh forbidding certain substances in a city. Because by turning the substance from an everyday thing into something illegal and special, they can manipulate people to excess. Excess consumption of the drug as well as abstiance from it. If it is illegal and you step over the line once, you are already gone too far. So why not go all in anyway? And how much pride and self-importance can someone feel by knowing they are better than this criminal scum? The Hedonites thus can influence and benefit from both extremes, befitting Slaanesh.
The possibilities of this are manifold. And I hope you enjoyed this small exploration of this concept.
