Sheet of LSD soaked blotting paper, a nauseous yellow in colour with black symbols. 8.00 x 10.00" subdivided into 0.50" x 0.50" squares or "trips". A rough square approximating to 9 half-inch squares has been torn from one corner of the sheet. Originally manufactured in San Francisco circa 1966 

Rumours have long circulated within the psychedelic underground of a brand of LSD so strong that it provides "the ultimate trip" -an experience so intense that the doors of perception are wedged forever open in the minds of those who dare to attempt the experiment.

Drug Enforcement Agencies became aware of the existence of this brand of acid in the early fall of 1967, following a string of particularly gruesome suicides and murders, all involving young people.
Little is known of the drugs origins or creator, but rumours persist of "the Man in Black" distributing free samples amongst the clubs, bars and Happenings of the San Francisco "scene". Although no samples of the blotter itself were ever recovered, toxicology reports on the victims showed highly elevated levels of LSD within the bloodstream, as well as traces of other substances that could not be identified.

Only two victims of the drug have ever been taken alive, and they were incarcerated in High Security Asylums, where they became the subject of intense medical and Psychiatric study - neither apparently ever "came down" and both committed suicide within a week.

STUDY TIME - At first glance it would appear that a few seconds would be needed to appreciate the fact that one is holding a sheet of genuine 1960s blotter acid. However instead of the Smiley faces or Mickey Mouse cartoons, which decorate individual trips on more conventional samples of the drug, the doses of Black Angel, are decorated with disturbing symbols and archaic runes and hieroglyphs. Amongst these are the Yellow Sign. Anyone with a modicum of Mythos knowledge will recognize the significance of these symbols and will be inexorably drawn to study them and attempt to make sense of them. Time will begin to slip by unnoticed as person in possession of the sheet is taken under its spell.

SANITY LOSS - There are the standard SAN losses for viewing the Yellow Sign for the first time. However the sheet is particularly insidious in its effect on the mind. Even after all these years the drug is as fresh and as potent as its day of manufacture, and unless precautions such as wearing rubber gloves and a filter mask are taken, the drug will be inhaled or absorbed through the skin.

In less than a minute the symbols on the sheet and the drug in the bloodstream begin to interact to form a vicious circle in the mind. The concentration of the owner of the sheet becomes totally focused on the symbols which know seem to glow on the blotter with a strange surreal intensity. As the trip progresses the symbols begin to arrange themselves, seeming to crawl and writhe and form new combinations and patterns on the surface of the blotter. 1D4 SAN loss per five minutes of study and a reducing modifier POW roll every five minutes to attempt to break free of the hold the blotter is exerting on the mind (POW x 3, POW x 2, POW x 1).

Should the hold of the blotter be broken following one of the above rolls, the blotter is released and the victim suffers a nightmare "bad trip" lasting 2 x D20 hours, with a permanent 1D10 SAN loss. Visions of some of the more unpleasant creatures of the mythos are a normal occurrence during this time, and these incur sanity losses in their own right.

For those unfortunate enough to fall totally under the spell of the blotter the overriding compulsion arises to eat one of the squares and immerse oneself totally in the altered state one is entering.
Sanity loss on doing so is a permanent 1D10/1D20, and the victim is trapped forever in a trip, which will last a lifetime. One of the more interesting aspects of this experience is that the victims mind is acting as a gate - his hallucinations are externalized and take on physical form in reality.

SPELLS -The doors of perception have been wrenched permanently open, and it is pretty much left to the fiendish imagination of the keeper what the victim experiences. Perhaps the symbol on the trip the victim ingests holds a clue to what he can expect. Nightly visits from a Byakhee, as a minimum perhaps. The victim may have survived the sanity loss technically "sane" but he will find it impossible to verbalize his experience to anyone else -and sooner or later an externalized vision of a mythos horror will interrupt the conversation permanently. The victim may attempt to negotiate with creatures summoned forth by the cursed acid, but doing so only sinks him deeper into the waking nightmare his life has become -finding a suitable sacrifice for his weekly visit from the Dark Young may well come to occupy his time to the exclusion of all else. Total insanity and hideous death are the ultimate and inevitable fate for anyone who experiments with Black Angel.

As for the blotter - it will vanish from the scene as soon as a square is torn from it and ingested.
It will surface again days weeks or months later looking identical - no matter how many trips are taken from it always retains the same appearance as described above.