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Fumeology
Fumeology is the art of smoking herbs in a hookah. A character may gain up to two permanent Perception points through fumeology.
(See also The Art of the Pipe for creating hookahs.)
Fumeology For Parties
So you're at a party, and there are people sitting around a hookah. What do you need to know to join in? Just this:
We smoke because it gives eventual permanent gains in Perception points. (See Increasing Skill Level below.)
If you're at a party and click on a hookah and see the option to smoke, go for it! There's no need to go learn a skill or technology or anything, and it won't effect your stats the way eating food does. You can keep smoking until you gain a skill point, at which point you should find a hookah with different herbs.
Don't clean the hookah bowl until the herb is used up. Usually the host will take care of filling and lighting it.
Keep track of which herbs or herb combinations have given you a skill point, as you will never gain another point from smoking them.
And that's what you need to know to smoke at a party. Have fun!
Source
Fumeology is learned as you gain skill points from smoking. Fumeology will be added to your skill list (just above the other skills) when you increase your skill from 0 to 1.
Use
One or multiple types of herbs may be loaded into a Hookah. Each lighting provides a number of tokes based on Hookah quality, no matter how many herbs are added. You need one deben of Charcoal to light a Hookah, and one Water in Jugs to clean the Hookah. The Hookah must be cleaned after each smoking session before you can add new herbs. The timer between tokes is based on Constitution and is 45 seconds with 0 Constitution.
A Hookah can be loaded with herbs, lit, and cleaned only by the owner. The owner can also pick it up, and it can be stashed in a chest like any other object. Just drop it again to use it. If it still had an herb in it when picked up, you can continue smoking that herb when you drop it. Anyone may smoke from a hookah once it is lit.
Increasing Skill Level
Points seem to be given randomly as you smoke an herb. Some people will get points within the first few tokes, while for others it may take longer.
At 49 Fumeology skill, one receives a permanent increase to their perception. At 243 Fumeology skill, one receives a second permanent increase to their perception.
You can only gain one point for a particular herb or combination of herbs, so it is useful to keep track of which herbs have given you skill points. Then you can keep from wasting time and herbs on smoking that will not give you another point. (See the herb tables for tables you can copy and use as checklists.)
It appears that you can (eventually) get a skill point from every herb smoked singly. Which combinations of herbs give a point may be character-dependent, so don't assume that you will gain skill from a mixture that gave your neighbor a point.
When you do get a point, it will say:
| Fumeology points | Text |
|---|---|
| 0 - 7 | "You puff gently on the Hookah." |
| 8 - 21 | "You draw smoothly on the Hookah, and smile." |
| 22 - 49 | "You inhale the smoke of the Hookah, relax, and exhale to the sky." |
| 50 - 128 | "The Hookah smoke fills your lungs. You notice the beauty of your surroundings, the soft sounds, the breeze." |
| 129 - 192 | "You drink in the smoke. You notice the simple beauty of the Hookah bowl, and marvel at its clarity." |
| 193 - 256 | "The smoke meets your lips like a first kiss. You caress the Hookah back." |
| 257 | "A soft, white cat brushes against your leg. You pick it up to stroke it but - what is this? - There is no cat, just the wisps of gentle smoke." |
| 258 - 349 | "You inhale the warm smoke. Peace, harmony." |
| 350 | "You inhale the warm smoke. A fleeting glimpse of a farmer growing crops, while beetles scamper around. What could it mean?" |
| 351 - ??? | "A gentle wisdom comes over you as the smoke trails from your mouth." |
Followed by a description of the herb. "The smoke is <type> and <flavor>, with an aroma of <aroma>.", where type is :
- "Clean" for 1 herb,
- "Interesting" for 2 herbs combo,
- "Complex" for 3 herbs combo.
It is possible to get a point in Fumeology, but not see a message about flavor/aroma. To avoid wasting additional herbs, check your score while you're smoking. You might have gotten a "stealth" point! It's not clear if this is a bug or not, but that's how it works!
It appears that when using multiple herbs, certain herbs with similar traits (aroma, flavor) increases your chance of gaining a point. Testing this using the single herb table, I paired up the aromas and used different flavors, that seemed not to counter each other. For example, Sweet wouldn't go with Bitter, but could go with Mellow. It also seems that each flavor has a opposite, but this needs more testing. Whenever I did get a point from two herbs using this method, I would then add another herb using the same aroma and a different flavor, which was successful sometimes. So based upon the chance of getting a point from any combo of herbs, the chances will greatly increase when finding herbs that are attractive to each other.
