#if bioware can't make me a tevene pharmacokineticist i should simply become one myself

[kal-sharok]

oh hey fellow alchemists in the fandom!

imo it doesn't even have to be about the excipients (though poison recipes do feature "corrupter agents" that likely modify lyrium in this case) as much as it'd be enough to mess with lyrium to water ratios to get something thicker that can be used to coat blades/super saturated to be mixed into food and drinks. ofc with unprocessed lyrium you wouldn't even need to worry about making concoctions but even if you had access to it, you'd just smite yourself out of existence by being around it, so increasing the amount of the processed one looks like the only way to go.

lyrium potions seem to differ only in volume and not that much in concentration (at least the first three tiers, judging from the game icons). the bigger potions are more effective and expensive bc there's simply more of the stuff to be drunk. they're all being made from the same dangerous, controlled substance but various merchants stock at least one kind of potions, which has to mean they've been standardised. the correct dosage would've had to be determined by trial and error so it's very likely somewhere along the way a failed attempt got tweaked into what is now magebane.

it goes for interactions too! a poison and an antidote (often a different, less damaging poison) compete for the same binding sites, the one that's present more + has higher affinity ultimately wins. the catch however would be figuring out how much "good" lyrium you can administer before its adverse effects kick in :'D

Dragon Age Thoughts: Magebane and Lyrium

I was frustrated that there is so little on Magebane in the actual lore. It is only a poison to coat melee weapons in Origins but I like to think it could be prepared for ingestion as well, sort of like the healing poultice vs healing potion. For example I imagine it being used in food in Tevinter against enemies.

There is a bug in DAO where Magebane can increase mana. I found it interesting that lyrium is used in making Magebane. The way the descriptions of recipe ingredients read for both posions and potions it sounds like different things can be used for concentrator and distillation agents.

I speculate that a lyrium potion and Magebane could reverse effect either way via drug interactions depending on the ingredients used for each.