If you have characters set in a DnD universe, you might be as interested as I was to learn that DnD 2e has four separate magical dusts that make your character sneeze.
Dust of Sneezing and Choking, from the Dungeon Master’s Guide 1st edition, is nasty stuff. It makes everyone in a 20-foot radius of the dust immediately make a saving throw against poison. If you fail, you choke to death. If you make the saving throw, you’re disabled by sneezing for 5d4 rounds. Keep in mind: a 2e round is a full minute of game time, not the 5e 6-second round.
This dust is actually in 5e too, wherein it causes anyone in the area of effect who fails a DC 15 Constitution saving throw to be incapacitated and suffocating, sneezing uncontrollably until they make a saving throw at the end of their turn, someone casts lesser restoration on them, or they lose consciousness.
An interesting thing about this is that while in 2e dust can be blown through a tube to create a cone in front of a character, in 5e you throw a handful of it into the air, including yourself in the 30-foot area of effect.
Also, it looks like this:
The nonfatal version is Dust of Sneezing, which first appeared in DRAGON Magazine 2 and gives you -2 to saving throws and causes sneezing and coughing for 2d4 melee rounds.
Then there’s Dust of Sneezing II from the Book of Marvelous Magic. Everyone in the area of effect must make a saving throw vs spell or start sneezing. They cannot attack or cast spells for one turn or until remove curse is cast.
I think the one with the most fic potential, though, is Allergy Dust, also from the Book of Marvelous Magic. If you fail to make a saving throw vs spell, this dust makes you allergic to a specified creature. The description says typical creatures include basilisks, dragons, and rats, but that any creature of the DM’s choice could be used.
Whenever a victim comes within 50 feet of the specified creature, their eyes water, their nose clogs, and they roll with a 50% chance to start sneezing at the beginning of every turn.
Watery eyes cause a -1 penalty to all attack rolls but hilariously give a +1 bonus on saving throws against eye gaze attacks. Characters who are sneezing cannot attack or cast spells. Symptoms persist until the victim has been at least 50 feet away from their allergenic creature for 1d6 rounds.
The allergy is permanent, the only way to get rid of it being cure disease applied by a caster at or above the 15th level.
Also, the dust is invisible, and characters may be totally unaware of what spell they failed that saving throw against until they get within the area of effect of their specified creature.
It’s like it was made for snzfuckers.
DnD 2e also has a magical dust that creates a cloud of “small, harmless feathers”. I’m sure we could stretch the definition of “harmless”.
