Alchemy

Alchemy is the craft of real substances: poisons, medicines, painkillers, tonics, incendiaries, and the nostrums sold as cures for everything. It is a discipline of the Trade skill (see Skill Mastery, Alchemist Discipline).

Alchemy is mundane. It spends no magan and uses no form or command. Its products are real substances: permanent, unaffected by Magical Impermanence, and beyond the reach of dispelling.

Quick Reference

Concoction	Category	What it does	When	Delivery	Price
Aconite	Poison	Primal damage, then Tainted	Damage (Immediate); Condition (Delayed)	Ingested, Wound	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Alum	Medicine (counter-vial)	Ends one Bleeding	Immediate	Contact	1 ss
Ambergris	Nostrum (legendary)	Fortified T3	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Aqua fortis	Poison	Sea damage; eats metal, limestone, marble	Immediate	Contact, thrown	1 sc
Aqua vitae	Anodyne	Dulls pain; may make you drunk	Delayed; Exploration, Travel	Ingested	1 ss / 1 gs
Arsenic	Poison	Tainted; no healing while Tainted	Delayed	Ingested	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Belladonna	Poison	Disoriented, then Tainted	Delayed	Ingested, Contact	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Bezoar	Nostrum (effective)	Each shaving lowers Tainted 1 tier	Immediate	Ingested	10 gs a stone
Blood draughts	Nostrum (legendary)	Wake the dying; the dead speak; revival; healing	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Cantharides	Poison	Primal damage, then Tainted	Damage (Immediate); Condition (Delayed)	Ingested, Contact	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Chalk-water	Medicine (counter-vial)	Ends one Corroding from acid	Immediate	Contact	1 sp
Coffee	Tonic	Lowers Exhausted; sharp-eyed; crash after	Delayed; Exploration, Travel	Ingested	1 ss
Comfrey poultice	Medicine	Bruised to the Bone heals in 1 day	Immediate	Contact	1 ss
Dwale	Anodyne	Drowsy or asleep, for surgery	Delayed; Exploration, Travel	Ingested, Inhaled	1 sp / 1 sc / 1 gs
Embalmer's salt	Medicine (counter-vial)	Ends one Decaying	Immediate	Contact	1 sc
Hellebore, white	Poison	Primal damage, then Exhausted	Damage (Immediate); Condition (Delayed)	Wound, Ingested	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Hemlock	Poison	Impaired	Delayed	Ingested, Wound	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Henbane	Poison	Disoriented T2 and Invigorated; one trial	Delayed	Ingested, Inhaled, Contact	1 sp / 1 sc / 1 gs
Hippomanes	Nostrum (legendary)	Charmed by the first creature seen, maybe forever	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Honey dressing	Medicine	Wound resists infection; +2 health per rest	Immediate	Contact	1 sp
Leech's eyesalve	Medicine	Lowers Infected 1 tier	Immediate	Contact	1 ss
Mandrake	Anodyne	Sharper mind, clumsier body; may Disorient	Delayed; Exploration, Travel	Ingested, Contact	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Moly	Nostrum (legendary)	Warded T3	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Mumia	Nostrum (legendary)	Heals and clears Injuries	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Oil of vitriol	Poison	Sea damage; eats cloth, leather, wood, flesh	Immediate	Contact, thrown	1 sc
Opium	Anodyne	Kills pain; deep sleep; may cause a stupor	Delayed; Exploration, Travel	Ingested, Contact	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Quicklime	Poison	Blinding cloud; Sea damage	Immediate	Thrown	1 ss
Serpentine	Incendiary	Grenade: Fire damage, Deafened. Petard: breaches gates	One phase after it's lit	Thrown or placed	1 sc a grenade
Snowdrop	Nostrum (effective)	Ends one nightshade dose	Immediate	Ingested	1 ss
Stag's heart bone	Nostrum (legendary)	Inspired T3	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Sublimate	Poison	Stone damage, then Tainted	Damage (Immediate); Condition (Delayed)	Ingested, Contact	1 sc / 2 gs / 8 gs
Theriac	Nostrum (legendary)	Ends Tainted; immunity as it ages	Immediate	Ingested	Not sold
Valerian	Tonic	Calm; better rest; slows you	Delayed; Exploration, Travel	Ingested	1 sp
Verdigris	Poison	Tainted	Delayed	Ingested, Contact	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs
Vinegar	Medicine (counter-vial)	Ends one Corroding from lime or lye	Immediate	Contact	1 sp
Vinegar sponge	Tonic	Rouses from a stupor for 1 AP	Immediate	Inhaled	1 sp
Viper wine	Nostrum (effective)	Ends one Withering	Immediate	Ingested	2 sp a vial
Warming cordial	Medicine (counter-vial)	Ends one Freezing	Immediate	Ingested	1 sc
Wildfire	Incendiary	Fire damage and Burning; soaks arrows or quarrels	Immediate	Thrown, arrows or quarrels	1 ss a pot; 2 sp an arrow or quarrel
Willow bark	Medicine	Dulls mild pain	Immediate; Exploration, Travel	Ingested	1 sp
Wine or vinegar wash	Medicine	Dominance on the next Infected trial	Immediate	Contact	1 sp
Yew	Poison	Primal damage and Tainted, a round later	Delayed	Ingested, Wound	1 ss / 1 gs / 4 gs

The Alchemist

Categories and Modifications

There are six categories of concoction and six modification picks:

Categories: Anodyne, Incendiary, Medicine, Nostrum, Poison, Tonic.
Modifications: Concentrated, Corrected, Masked, Potent (comes with Poison), Prolonged, and Thickened and Lingering (one pick teaches both).

At each mastery level from Untrained to Grand Master, choose one category and one modification. You can make concoctions only from categories you have chosen, and apply only modifications you have learned.

Poison is a fixed pair: choosing the Poison category teaches Potent with it. At each level where you don't take Poison, choose one of the other five categories and one of the other five modifications. A Grand Master has all six of each.

The Codex

Recipes are collected in play, from a teacher, a found book, or experiment, and kept in a Codex (see Equipment). Recipes you learned at earlier mastery levels are memorized. You need the Codex to make a recipe learned at your current mastery level, and for anything that needs a crafting trial.

Identification

Identifying a concoction is a use of the Alchemist discipline (see Skill Mastery, Alchemist Discipline). A concoction's DC is its maker's Mastery DC. Identification can also be done in camp as the Sage role.

The Poison Register

Every legal sale of a poison is recorded: the seller writes down who bought it. If a poison turns up in a body, the town knows whose door to knock on, so honest alchemists are careful who they sell to. A buyer who wants no record has to find the black market (see Skill Mastery, Thievery, Demimonde).

Talking About Tier

Two things describe a concoction, and they mean different things:

Tier always belongs to a condition: "Tainted T2" means the dose can push its victim as far as Tainted Tier 2. A concoction with no condition, such as an acid or an incendiary, has no condition tiers.
Social Class places a whole recipe on the Automatic Use table (Skill Mastery, Universal Trade Rules): Peasant, Knight, Burgher, Magnate, Noble, or Royal. A recipe's Social Class comes from its condition tier plus any modifications, and it decides who can make the recipe without a roll and how hard the concoction is to use. Each entry's table gives the Social Class.

So an alchemist says "I'm making hemlock, Impaired T2, Masked," and the table says that's a Magnate recipe.

Some concoctions come in named strengths instead of condition tiers, such as opium's pain relief −1, −2, and −3. Their first, second, and third strengths count as T1, T2, and T3 for batches and materials.

Making a Concoction

A preparation is one dose or batch in progress.

1. Choose

The recipe: a concoction from a category you know. The recipe sets its own duration; only the Prolonged modification makes it last longer.
The condition tier (T1, T2, or T3): how far its condition can go.
Modifications: any the recipe allows and you have learned, each at most once, up to three.

Each entry has a table with the condition tiers down the side and the number of modifications across the top. The cell where they meet gives the days to make one dose and the recipe's Social Class.

Social Class	Use DC	Trade Mastery Required
Peasant	4	Untrained
Knight	8	Basic
Burgher	10	Skilled
Magnate	14	Expert
Noble	18	Master
Royal	21	Grand Master

Making concoctions needs at least Untrained Trade (Alchemist) mastery.

If the recipe's Social Class is at or below your Trade (Alchemist) mastery, you make it without a roll.
If it is above your mastery, you can still attempt it. Make a crafting trial (Intelligence tier die + Trade mastery die) at the halfway point of the work, against 2 + (the recipe's Use DC − your Mastery DC). Your Mastery DC is your mastery level + your Intelligence tier (see Mastery System).
Example: a Skilled alchemist with Intelligence tier 4 (d6) has Mastery DC 8. She attempts a Magnate recipe (Use DC 14). The trial DC is 2 + (14 − 8) = 8.
Past Royal, a recipe has no Use DC on the table. Each step past Royal adds 3 to Royal's 21.
Example: a Grand Master with Intelligence tier 7 (d12) has Mastery DC 14. She attempts aconite, Tainted T3, with three modifications (Royal + 2). Its DC is 21 + 3 + 3 = 27, so the trial DC is 2 + (27 − 14) = 15.
A natural minimum fails the trial, and you also suffer the concoction's effects: opium knocks you out, a helpful concoction's effect is wasted on you, and a damaging one deals your own dice to you. Incendiaries can kill their maker this way: a Serpentine natural minimum is the workshop exploding.
On a failure, choose Abandon or Commit (see Spoiled Batches).

3. Time and Batches

One dose takes the days shown in the entry's table.
A batch takes half again as long (multiply by 1.5, rounding up).

Condition tier (or strength)	Batch size
T1 (first strength)	Up to 10 doses
T2 (second strength)	Up to 5 doses
T3 (third strength)	Always a single dose, but it takes a batch's time

Concoctions with no condition tiers, such as acids and incendiaries, make batches of up to 10.

4. What the Maker's Skill Fixes

When the work is finished, the maker's skill is fixed on every dose:

The dose's DC = the maker's Mastery DC. Every trial to resist the dose, and every Identification of it, is against this DC.
Damage = the maker's Trade mastery die + Intelligence tier die. Making it with Dominance steps both dice up (see Mastery System).

Where You Work

Each entry's Workspace row names what its recipe needs, and a laboratory can make anything a field kit can. The GM approves the workspace.

Laboratory: a furnace, stills, glassware, and crucibles, for anything distilled, sublimated, melted, or long-aged. A laboratory is a building (see Strongholds). Until characters own one, they rent or arrange access to an existing laboratory or apothecary's shop. You can have as many preparations underway as your mastery level or the laboratory's stills allow, whichever is lower. The GM sets how many stills a laboratory has.
Field kit: the alchemist's portable gear (see Equipment, Alchemist's Gear), for any recipe that needs no furnace. You can have one preparation underway at a time. It advances one day each evening you take the Sage role in camp (see General Rules, Camping Roles).

Vessels

Liquids need a glass or pewter vial (see Equipment). Acids need glass. Vials are reusable unless broken or thrown.
Dry doses, such as powders, bark, and dried herbs, are dispensed in a paper twist, the apothecary's chartula, at no cost.
Thrown vessels, such as wildfire pots and grenades, are clay, at 1 cf, included in the materials.

Price

What a PC Alchemist Pays

The alchemist pays only for materials, plus their own time. Their skill makes a better dose at no extra cost.

Rarity	Materials per dose (T1)
Common	¼ sp
Uncommon	1 sp
Imported	5 sp
Exotic	priced individually

A T2 dose needs three times the materials, and a T3 dose six times. Rarity is regional, except Exotic: a substance is Common where it grows or is made, and Uncommon or Imported farther away. Each entry's Rarity row says where, unless the GM decides otherwise.

Buying From Someone Else

Every entry lists the price of a market dose: the ordinary, unmodified version an apothecary keeps in stock. Market prices include the vial or pot. A market dose's strength is set by its condition tier, not by who made it. Wherever a rule refers to the maker, such as the dose's DC, its damage, or Attrition equal to the maker's mastery level, a market dose uses this table:

Market dose	Dose's DC	Damage	Maker's mastery level
T1, or no condition tiers	6	1d4 + 1d4	3
T2	8	1d6 + 1d6	4
T3	12	1d10 + 1d10	6

Example: a wildfire pot bought in a shop deals 1d4 + 1d4 Fire damage and Burning 3.

Modified doses aren't stocked. They are made to order, priced by their Social Class:

Social Class	Price
Serf	1 sp
Peasant	1 ss
Knight	1 sc
Burgher	1 gs
Magnate	2 gs
Noble	4 gs
Royal	8 gs

Anything past Royal is priced by the GM. A commissioned dose has its maker's DC and damage.

Fakes sell for what the real thing would.

Availability

Concoctions follow the Availability rules (see Equipment, Availability). A concoction's recipe gives its Social Class, and the GM can adjust it for how rare the concoction is in that region.

Items Without Condition Tiers

Items with no condition tiers are Peasant recipes. Their materials are priced like a dose whose condition is at T1, by rarity. A crafted fake takes 1 day.

Spoiled Batches

When a crafting trial fails, choose:

Abandon: stop at once. Half the remaining time and materials are saved. You get nothing.
Commit: finish the batch. You gain Dominance on your next attempt at the same recipe. This doesn't stack. Then the GM rolls 2d6 in secret on the table below and notes the result on the batch. The batch looks ordinary, so whoever uses it, the alchemist or a buyer, gets the result. You can learn what you actually made by identifying it.

2d6	Result	What happens
2–3	Delayed	It works one round later than it would have
4–5	Spoils fast	It works, but only until your next rest; then it's inert
6–7	Inert	It looks and smells right, and does nothing
8–9	Vinegar	Obviously ruined. Everything is lost
10–11	Short yield	Half the batch, rounded down, is inert. A single dose works one tier lower instead; if it can't drop a tier, as with a T1 dose or one with no condition tiers, it's inert
12	Better than intended	It works, and the GM chooses one: a modification the recipe allows, whether or not you've learned it, the dose's DC +1, or the damage dice one step up

Using Concoctions

Delivery

Each recipe lists how it reaches the body:

Contact: on the skin, splashed or smeared.
Ingested: eaten or drunk.
Inhaled: smoke, dust, or a soaked sponge.
Wound: on a blade, arrow, quarrel, or dart. A coating holds one dose and lasts until it's used or wiped off. Coating a weapon takes 1 AP. You can coat several weapons in advance. Wound poisons must reach health: damage absorbed by armor doesn't deliver them.

One dose is one use: one drink, one hit, one projectile.

Delayed

A Delayed concoction takes effect at the end of the creature's turn in the round after it's used. Concentrated removes Delayed.

When only one of a concoction's effects is Delayed, the entry marks that effect, as in "Primal damage; Tainted (Delayed)." Its other effects work immediately.

Duration

Each recipe sets how long a dose works. Instantaneous lasts this round, Short lasts the encounter or scene, and Long lasts half the adventuring day. The Prolonged modification lengthens it by one step.

Resisting

A concoction with condition tiers, such as a poison, is resisted over several rounds. The target makes one Attribute Trial per tier: the first when the concoction takes effect, and the rest at the end of each of its turns. Each failure advances the condition one tier. After the last trial, the condition stays at the tier it reached for the rest of the dose's duration (see Conditions, Lasting sources).

Willing and Unwilling Users

A willing user of a helpful concoction gets its full effect automatically. They roll only against its side effects, using the side effect's own attribute against the dose's DC.
An unwilling target of a helpful concoction makes an Endurance trial against the dose's DC, unless the entry names another attribute. On a success, nothing happens.
Crash: when a helpful concoction ends, its crash lasts as long as the substance did.

Applying and Activating

Taking a dose needs no skill: anyone can drink, eat, or breathe one.

Anything that must be applied or activated, such as coating a blade with a wound poison, applying a contact poison, lighting and throwing an incendiary or a pot of acid or quicklime, or dosing an effective nostrum, uses the Trade rules for Automatic Use (Skill Mastery, Universal Trade Rules):

If you know the concoction's category and your Trade (Alchemist) mastery reaches its Social Class, you do it without a roll.
Otherwise, make an Off-Label Use roll against the recipe's Use DC (see Making a Concoction, Find the Social Class). On a failure, the dose is wasted.

No Stacking

A concoction doesn't stack with itself. While it is active on you, another dose of the same concoction has no effect. Once it ends, a new dose works normally. Different concoctions do stack.

Typing

Every substance that deals damage has a type, by origin, which is also its damage type. Some entries list a type even though they deal no damage; there, it only describes their origin.

Type	Substances
Fire	Incendiaries
Primal	Plants and animals
Profane	Decay and carrion, such as mumia
Sea	Caustics, such as acids and quicklime
Stone	Minerals and metals, such as arsenic, mercury, and verdigris

Resistance of that type reduces the substance's damage.
Immunity to that type cancels its damage only, never its conditions. A Fae immune to Primal takes no damage from aconite but can still be Tainted by it.
Acids ignore the resistance of the material they eat (see their entries).

Pain Relief

Painkillers let you ignore pain penalties up to the dose's strength: −1, −2, or −3. Pain penalties are the penalties from Injuries and from Bruised to the Bone. Painkillers never restore the use of a broken or missing limb or a lost eye: a broken arm still can't hold a shield.

Pain Traumas are the ones that say "Endurance trial or the AP is spent": Broken Ribs, Cracked Sternum, Internal Injury, Painful Scar, and Skull Fracture. Painkillers can help with those trials as their entries say.

Rousing

Waking someone who is asleep or knocked out costs 1 AP. Someone unconscious at 0 health needs warm blood to wake. A stupor, such as opium at pain relief −3, dwale asleep or deep, or a drunk who has passed out, costs 2 AP, or 1 AP with a vinegar sponge.

Addiction (Optional)

If the GM is using the optional Addicted rule, a frequent user of an Addictive substance makes an Endurance trial against the dose's DC each time they use it (see Conditions, Addicted).

Hazardous

A Hazardous item is dangerous to carry. Fire can set it off, a hard fall can break it, and water can ruin it, as the GM decides. The table shows what each item is at risk from.

Item	At risk from
Acids	Breakage
Serpentine	Fire, damp
Wildfire arrows or quarrels	Fire
Wildfire pot	Fire, breakage

Protection (see Equipment, Alchemist's Gear): a latched case protects against fire and breakage while shut, and drawing from it takes 1 AP; a waxed cloth wrap protects against damp; the field kit's padded places protect against breakage; Corrected Serpentine's corned powder ignores damp.

Modifications

Each modification can be applied at most once per concoction, and a concoction can carry up to three. Each modification moves the recipe up one Social Class. Together they add time: one modification adds 1 day, two add 3 days, three add 7 days. Each entry's table already shows the totals.

Modification	Effect	Needs
Concentrated	Removes Delayed	A Delayed concoction or effect
Corrected	Tames the side effect: Dominance against it for a willing user, or removes a side effect that helps a poisoned target	A side effect
Lingering	Adds one instance of Attrition at the end of the target's next turn, equal to the maker's mastery level. Each entry names its Attrition label	Damage
Masked	Taste and smell are hidden in food or drink, or bitterness is hidden for a willing user	Ingested or Inhaled delivery
Potent	Poisons only. Fail the trial by 5 or more: straight to T2. Natural minimum: straight to T3. It never raises a dose past its own tier, so it needs a T2 or T3 dose.	A poison with a condition at T2 or T3
Prolonged	The duration is one step longer: Instantaneous becomes Short, and Short becomes Long. Long is the limit	A duration
Thickened	Adds a delivery the recipe lacks, such as Wound for an ingested poison, or Contact as a salve. For acid and fire: it clings to the surface	A delivery to add

Each entry lists the modifications it allows. Some entries define a modification for that substance (wildfire's Corrected fuse, Serpentine's Concentrated quick match); there, the entry's definition applies.