Fantasy Drug Name Generator

Fictional drugs are named the same way real ones are: there is the formal name (laudanum, aqua vitae, tincture of opium) and there is the street name (black drop, poppy milk, snow). The formal names sound like an apothecary or alchemist wrote them, often in dog-Latin: Elixir Noctis, Spiritus Umbrae, Oleum Sanguis. The street names are short, concrete and slightly wrong, usually a single word for a colour, texture, effect or feeling: Chalk, Rust, Hush, Glow, Drift. The best fantasy substances have both, and the gap between them says something about who uses the drug and who sells it.

Fantasy settings add three more sources. Botanical names borrow real poisons and hallucinogens (belladonna, datura, ergot, mandrake, fly agaric) or invent plausible plants like Nightsap and Ghostcap. Monster-part names (Kraken Ink, Basilisk Milk, Wyrmbile) imply a supply chain of hunters and smugglers. Social names (Widow's Milk, Beggar's Bliss, Docker's Chew, Duke's Weakness) tell you which class of people is hooked, which is worth more to a story than the pharmacology.

A few well-known fictional drugs (skooma, spice melange, death sticks) are included as reference points for tone; the rest are original and range from mild tavern vices to substances that should carry a plot.