Story Event - Blog Posts

It’s a common theme in fantasy, that assassins are fed poison from young age to train them to become immune to poison. This is scientifically not possible, as human antibodies/immune system does not work this way.

This practice is known as “Mithradatism”, named after King Mithradates (King over what is now Turkey), the man perhaps the very source of all the legends. As the story goes, he feared assassination by poison and thus started consuming poison to make himself immune, as well as experimenting with medicines to further improve on it.

In the end, after his defeat King Mithradates tried to commit suicide with his family by poison. However, it was said that while his family died, he himself remaimed alive, and either was killed by his enemies or committed suicide by sword.

Since his survival seemed to prove that “poison immunity training” works, the legend might have spread to nearby regions. It’s also bolstered by the fact that snake handlers in India seem to be less affected by snake venom after working with snakes for so long. Still, even if one can build immunity against one type of poison, it’s not possible to train to be immune to any and all poisons that exist.