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Narc, in 2005: Take a hit, and you'll still feel like you're playing the wrong gameDrugs are considerably more interesting in the Elder Scrolls series. The local poison in Tamriel, Skooma, is essentially heroin, sold as crystals and smoked once heated. If you use it, it'll boost your strength and speed, but totally devastate your intelligence and agility. However, that's not as interesting as the Skooma addicts you find around the place.There's one spot in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion called Bravil that's full of them, all living in a den. Characters live their own lives in Oblivion, and once I decided to follow one of them when he left town. He spent several days walking across the country to another town, where he bought up a massive stash before taking it back to Bravil. It was fascinating.In the previous Elder Scrolls game, nobody would trade with you if you had Skooma on you, hinting at extreme societal prejudice against its users. In the latest iteration, Skyrim, the developers kind of pussied out on Skooma, turning it into a bland substance with no real positive or negative effects and reducing its value to next to nothing. This is partially explained by other characters' complaints that Skooma is watered down in the Skyrim region, but to me it just smacks of avoiding controversy.
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