Alchemy

Alchemy is the ancient art of transforming mundane or common items into uncommon or rare items with a few tools and your skills alone!

With the correct tools, ingredients and sufficient practice, an Alchemist can make powders for use by mages, oils for use on arrowheads to change their properties, oils for use in cooking to make food with magical or healing properties, and even more mysterious items can be produced when you master the skill of Alchemy….

An Alchemist is always brought into the world with the most basic of Alchemical tools - the mortar and pestle. This tool is used to grind up gemstones to make powdered gems, which in turn can be used by mages or sold to archmages.

To attempt to grind a gemstone to powder, double-click on the mortar and pestle and then click on the gemstone you wish to grind. If you are successful, you will have a jar of powdered gemstone ready to be used or sold.

But remember - not all gemstones can be ground successfully….

Note - some Alchemists have had success in using their mortal and pestle to create ground pepper and cinnamon for the use of cooks.

More advanced Alchemy usually requires the use of a tool called the alembic. This is the Alchemical tool of distillation and purification but you must purchase this tool. These are generally sold at non-starter towns.

Be aware as you venture into more advanced practices of Alchemy that your skill will determine your success. It takes considerable skill the higher you venture into the art in order to achieve reliable results with little waste.

In order to use your alembic, you need to purchase potions from a mage shop or other source. Then you double-click the alembic then click on the potion you wish to distill. The result will be an infusion - a strong distillation of the potion, which is an intermediate step to your finished product.

The infusion you make depends on the properties of the potion you base the infusion on:

Brimstone	Acid Infusion
Cobalt	Lightening Infusion
Colcothar	Frost Infusion
Gypsum	Mana Infusion
Quicksilver	Bloodseeker Infusion
Realgar	Victual Infusion
Turpeth	Fire Infusion
Vitriol	Health Infusion

The infusion itself is not useful except as a step in the process of a final product.

From an infusion, you can create either an oil or a draught depending on the infusion and the secondary ingredient (or carrier) you mix with it.

One carrier ingredient is Aqua Incanta. This is sold in most mage shops in Dereth but can also be found on corpses. Aqua Incanta can be used with every infusion to create the corresponding oil. These oils are used by cooks and fletchers to imbue their products with special qualities.

To combine Aqua Incanta with an infusion, you double-click on the infusion you wish to combine, then click on the Aqua Incanta. If you are successful, you will see an oil in your pack.

The other carrier ingredient is Neutral Balm. Like Aqua Incanta, this is sold in most mage shops in Dereth, and can also be found on corpses. This is used with the Health and Mana infusions to produce draughts but, unlike the making of oils, this practice also takes something of the Alchemist's vital forces to include in the draught.

These draughts are used by cooks to empower their food creations with additional properties.

To use Neutral Balm with the infusion, double-click on the infusion you wish to combine it with, then on the Neutral Balm. If you are successful, you will see a draught in your pack. Be careful though - since the draughts take a part of your vital forces, creation of a health draught with a low health may result in your own death in the attempt!

There have been rumors lately of great masters of Alchemy who are able to use their advanced skills to assist in the creation of weapons. It is rumored they have rediscovered the practice of metallurgy to assist with the making of atlan weapons and have applied their skills to the making of the long sought composite bows and crossbows.

As Alchemy is studied and trained, more of it's lost arts may come to be rediscovered by the very advanced practitioners of it's mysteries.

~Rayven