Now this question is sorta within TES lore but also a question sorta connected to all manor of fantasy worlds and games.

I was just reading a fan-fic that mentioned the character carrying a health potion and I wondered, how would this potion actually work in real life (well as real as the fantasy world)?.

In the games you take a potion and are hit with an immediate effect whether it be resistance to something or a healing effect. So how does this work? I'd assume that within the world, outside of the game, a potion would be fast acting, effecting certain parts of the body, especially key parts of the brain, to cause this effect to occur. Say for a healing potion it could cause the body to rapidly close wounds, clot blood, possibly releasing endorphin into your system to lessen the feeling of dread or weakness.

To me that sounds rather reasonable, at least for healing though i'm not sure about other effects.

I've just always been interested in herblore and alchemy and never really thought of this until reading the fan-fic haha.

How do others think it might work within the world and outside of the games, and how might characters take advantage of the uses. Soldiers carrying bottles around with them? Mages and alchemists being hired to make potions for the different military forces? I don't think there is much detail in terms of this subject.

Fantasy medication.

I would attribute to something of a menthol / vick's vapor-rub effect. Like how that wonderful (or ickish) scent flows through a person clears the sinuses right up. I'd say potions work the same way, and probably the way you described. Where poison in fantasy tends to like corrosive acid, already burning away on touch, soothing ointments probably work the opposite. Improving the bodie's feng shui in awesome ways.

Diamonds turn people invisible. Frostdaemon flesh restores magicka. Oh the wonderful wonders :>

I think that if a soldier has to carry potions into battle instead of relying on a healer, that it would be similar to http://www.antiquescientifica.com/mis_id_CW_docs_medical_case.jpg, but in a compact form. Maybe attached to a belt.

Potions are essentially supposed to act as portable restoration mages, and tend to be made by mages. So I feel it makes sense that the effects would be nigh instantaneous.

Who needs surgeons when you have a health potion?

The potions taking an immediate effect is something I would stack up to gameplay element. It would probably take a longer time to take effect in real life, probably work similar to stimpacks in hardcoe mode of FNV if Skyrim had it.

Its just an interesting concept I'd never really pondered before.

In the Witcher game series potions made through alchemy have key effects and it seems a less open art while in TES potion making seems to be something anyone can do with the proper knowledge and possible training.


I think the heal over time potions are more "realistic" in terms of doing the job over time. It wouldn't be possible for something, as soon as it touches your lips, to start working.


Another thing to think about is that potions, in a real battle, wouldn't be used during the fighting. You couldn't simply ask your opponent to hold on a sec while you down this healing potion. So I assume the effect could be even more varied than we might think as the usage would be during periods of rest, or in the case of resistance or amplification potions, during times right before a fight.

Even if it was overtime it would still be kind of immediate. Considering your wounds are regenerating at a ridiculous pace.

I imagine light wounds would close nearly instantly, but deeper ones would still take time to heal, days even. Even with healing magic it has been shown many places in game that there are people suffering with severe wounds that need long amounts of attention from a trained healer sometimes without results, like the injured suffering inside the temple in Whiterun.

Which would you rather do, figure out how to insert dopamine and norepinephrine into your brain in the right areas via surgery, or just take an antidepressant? Therein lies your answer.

Not everyone has the aptitude nor the want to study magic (which in TES is a science, insomuch as there can be a "science" in a series that relies on mytheopeic forces so much; magic is the usage of magicka-in-light-and-life-energies to cause a fundimental change in the earthbones; this of course, disregards the Thu'um, Sword-Singing, Kiai, et. all, but whatever), but crushing strawberries together and blueberries as to hit their magichemical reactions via reaching the core of the concept of their existence to create a physical change? That's easy (despite it sounding harder).

It's odd when magic is the science, right? Faster regens. Cures for diseases, where sickness overlaps with curses and divine/arcane maladies.


http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/208/b/e/Genetic___Ragnarok_Online_by_Andy_Valentine.jpg
Hyperdermic crossbows o_o