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Alchemy

Alchemists

An Alchemist is anyone who knows how to produce an alchemical preparation. You will have a number of “potions slots” which you can use to produce potions you know between adventures. A Class C or D potion takes 1 potion slot to mix, while a class A or B potion takes 2 potion slots to create.

In addition to these potion slots, you can mix 1 potion of the appropriate level for each potion you know how to make (i.e., if you know how to mix 3 class D potions, then you can mix 3 class D potions between adventures in addition to those produced from your “potion slots”).

Potion Groups

Many years of research have resulted in most commonly known potions being divided by learned alchemists into four groups. The main thing informing these groupings are the effects of being addicted to them, at least at the initial stages of addiction, but some alchemists claim that there are other similarities, in fields ranging from things as tangible as taste to the nebulous as the “feeling” of brewing them. The commonly accepted groups are as follows:

Inflammation

  • Burst of Might
  • Leeching Touch
  • Resist Fatigue
  • Potion of Might
  • Time Skip
  • Swamp Breath
  • Tendon Withering
  • Grenade
  • Eye of the Storm
  • Steel Rot

Passion

  • Rage
  • Nightsight
  • Paranoia's Embrace
  • The Veil
  • Dumb Drunk
  • Soul Strength
  • Limb Drop
  • Hideous Mauling

Suspension

  • Stoneskin
  • Plug the flow of Life
  • Restoration Of Flesh
  • Deathcap
  • Restructuring of Flesh
  • Iron Shoes
  • Life Flow
  • Smelling Salts of Ultimate Power
  • Sticky Sap
  • Armour Oil

Dissolution

  • Sleep of Death
  • Death Ward
  • Withering
  • Revenant
  • Monstrous Aura
  • Mesmeretic Visage
  • Smoke Bomb

Artefact Potions

It is possible to craft unique potions from unique ingredients. The rules for this follow the standard rules for crafting an artefact. The potion will be a unique potion which will be used up when consumed (or potentially a small number of potions). Because these potions are unique, skills which rely on an in depth knowledge of their creation or application do not work (e.g., Advanced Application). As a general rule, an artefact potion will have an extremely powerful effect, but will also likely come with side-effects due to its unrefined nature.

The Potions

Class D

Rage

  • Potion: Gain +1 damage on your next two blows. (This does not stack with other sources of +1 damage except strengthen).
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: Gain +1 on your next 4 blows

Burst of Might

  • Potion: Call a ZERO STRIKEDOWN on your next blow.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: Call a ZERO STRIKEDOWN on your next two blows.

Stoneskin

  • Potion: Gain 2 points of temporary natural armour.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: Gain 4 points of natural armour.

Plug the flow of life

This potion can be bought (or prepared) in two different versions. Either as a set of three diluted potions (version #1) or a single more potent potion (version #2).

Version #1 (set of 3 potions)

  • Potion: HEAL ZERO
  • Paste: HEAL ZERO by blow
  • Advanced Application: HEAL ONE

Version #2 (single potion)

  • Potion: HEAL ONE
  • Paste: HEAL ONE by blow
  • Advanced Application: HEAL TWO

This halts a dying character’s death count. Can be applied as an alchemical paste. This is bought either as a set of 3 HEAL ZERO potions or a single HEAL ONE potion. Only an alchemist who knows how to prepare the potion can dilute a HEAL ONE potion into a set of 3 HEAL ZERO potions.

Sleep of death

  • Potion: The drinker falls into a deep sleep indistinguishable from death. They will awaken in 4 hours and not prior.
  • Paste: The target grow slowly more fatigued over the course of several hours, eventually falling into an incredibly deep sleep from which almost nothing will rouse them.
  • Advanced Application: Control of the period of sleep from between 10 minutes to 12 hours with the option of adding a trigger which will wake the target.

Nightsight

After about 30 seconds, the drinker’s sight grows sharper, with a coloured border seeming to surround the edges of things. For the next five minutes, the drinker can see well enough to operate if their vision is obscured by darkness, snowstorms, smoke or a myriad of other obstructions. This prevents the BLIND call from affecting them.

  • Potion: Gain IMMUNITY to BLIND
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: Following the encounter the potion was used, resist the next BLIND call you take.

Sticky Sap

A sticky paste which when applied to a weapon makes it easier to knock a weapon from your opponents hands. If drunk, tremendously uncomfortable for several days, but not actually dangerous unless drunk in quantities sufficient to block internal organs.

  • Potion: N/A
  • Paste: Gain 1 use of DISARM
  • Advanced Application: Gain 2 uses of DISARM

Paranoia’s Embrace

A poison which causes the victim to be beset by shadows which move from the corners of their eyes.

  • Potion: Drinker is affected by the poison as described above.
  • Paste: Gain 1 use of POISON
  • Advanced Application: Alchemist may specify the nature of shadows, and describe a loose theme for the nature of the paranoia.

Leeching Touch

  • Potion: The next time you successfully strike a foe, you will regain body hits equal to the damage you dealt.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: The effect applies to your next 2 strikes.

Class C

Resist Fatigue

  • Potion: 30 seconds of STRENGTHEN
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: 60 seconds of STRENGTHEN

Armour Oil

  • Potion: N/A
  • Paste: RENEW 12 on a suit of armour it has been applied to.
  • Advanced Application: Provides a RENEW 24 which may exceed the usual maximum hits or takes the suit of armour up to twice its maximum hits, whichever is lower. Any hits exceeding the usual maximum will be lost at the end of the encounter and cannot be restored through the usual methods.

Potion of Might

  • Potion: Gain one use of DOUBLE STRIKEDOWN during the encounter.
  • Paste: Gain TRIPLE STRIKEDOWN on your next blow.
  • Advanced Application: Gain two uses of the call.

Restoration of the Flesh

  • Potion: HEAL 4
  • Paste: HEAL 4
  • Advanced Application: HEAL 8

Death Ward

  • Potion: For the rest of the encounter you will not bleed out when reduced to zero hits.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: At the time of application the alchemist can choose one of the following two effects, the potion can either last for 2 encounters or on the first occasion the target is reduced to zero hits they will be affected by a HEAL 1 in addition to the usual effects.

The Veil

  • Potion: Drinker has powerful visions, that often feature portentous imagery.
  • Paste: Gain 1 use of POISON. The victim will have vivid dreams when they next sleep which will likely feature portentous imagery.
  • Advanced Application: The alchemist may apply some broad theme to the visions.

Smoke bomb

  • Bomb: When thrown at the ground, allows you to call MASS BLIND 5. This affects you as well as everyone else.
  • Paste: You may call BLIND 5 on your next blow.
  • Advanced Application: Call increases to MASS BLIND 10/BLIND 10 respectively.

Grenado

A small thrown bomb that explodes, damaging those nearby and blasting them from their feet.

  • Bomb: Use a throwing weapon to represent this, and call BLAST SINGLE if you hit (or you may take a blast single yourself and call the effects as normal if you detonate it at your feet).
  • Paste: You may call BLAST SINGLE with your next hit.
  • Advanced Application: You may instead call BLAST DOUBLE.

Note, if you miss when throwing the Grenado phys rep, then the Grenado is not used up.

Deathcap

  • Potion: The drinker will become seriously ill for a short period after drinking this concoction (lose all dodges and become weakened), but will usually recover very quickly.
  • Paste: You may call FEAR on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: When applying the potion the alchemist may vary the symptoms (just dodges or just weakened) and the duration (between 1 encounter and 7 days). When using a paste they get 2 uses of FEAR.

Withering

  • Potion: The drinker will become slowly weaker, with a moderate chance of death. A strong and healthy individual will probably recover eventually, although their chances are improved by the ministrations of an Alchemist or Surgeon.
  • Paste: Gain 1 use of POISON (victim develops the same effects as if having drunk the potion shortly after)
  • Advanced Application: The alchemist can specify a progression for the potion, running its course anywhere between 3 hours and 5 days. The poison can either be made less deadly (definite survival for all but the most sickly of victims) or more deadly (although a strong and healthy individual will probably still survive).

Dumb Drunk

  • Potion: The drinker becomes more gullible and credulous, they are much more likely to believe what they are told. The effects only last for an hour or two.
  • Paste: Gain 1 use of POISON (victim develops the same effects as if having drunk the potion shortly after)
  • Advanced Application: The alchemist can choose to limit the credulousness of the target to a limited set of themes which must be specified in advance.

Steel Rot

  • Potion: When applied to a small item (an item which could be held in the palm of a hand) the item will dissolve completely.
  • Paste: Gain 1 use of SHATTER on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: As a potion, the size of the objects dissolvable increases to one which you can comfortably contain in two hands. As a paste you gain the use of SHATTER on your next 2 strikes.

Class B

Soul Strength

  • Potion: Strengthened for 1 encounter
  • Paste: Gain the call STRENGTHEN on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: When delivered by potion the target is both STRENGTHENED and gains +1 damage for the next 30 seconds (this +1 does not stack with any other sources of +1 other than strengthened). When used as a paste you gain STRENGTHEN on your next 2 strikes.

Restructuring of the Flesh

  • Potion: HEAL FULL
  • Paste: Gain HEAL FULL on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: When delivered by potion the target is increased to twice their maximum body hits. These additional hits will be lost at the end of the encounter and the target will only benefit from healing once their body hits have dropped below their usual maximum. When delivered by paste you gain HEAL FULL on your next two strikes.

Revenant

  • Potion: 5 seconds after beginning your death count you will be restored to full health. This happens the first time you are dropped to 0 HP in the encounter you drank the potion, regardless of if you received healing in the interim 5 seconds.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: You will be restored to full health the first 2 times you begin your death count in an encounter.

Monstrous Aura

  • Potion: Drinker gains 1 use of MASS FEAR during the encounter.
  • Paste: Gain FEAR on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: You gain 2 uses of MASS FEAR or FEAR on your next to strikes respectively.

Time Skip

  • Potion: For 5 seconds after drinking the potion you may call dodge to any dodgable effect as per the skirmisher agility class feature.
  • Paste: The target dodges all of your blows for 5 seconds, you MUST call ZERO (with no effect calls) for any strike you make against the target in the next 5 seconds.
  • Advanced Application: The duration of the potion increases to 10 seconds.

Hideous Mauling

  • Potion: You may call QUAD REND on a single attack during the encounter.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: You gain two uses of QUAD REND during the encounter.

Iron Shoes

  • Potion: You may call IMMUNE to strikedown for an encounter.
  • Paste: N/A
  • Advanced Application: In addition to being IMMUNE to strikedown the target gains two resists which can be used against disarms, shatters, and rends.

Swamp Breath

  • Potion: The drinker loses sensation in their limbs, losing motor control shortly after. If not treated the drinker will start to have difficulty breathing, and will die shortly after. Diagnosis in the final stages is easy due to the signature swamp smell on the patient’s breath, but at this stage the condition is all but impossible to treat.
  • Paste: Gain POISON on your next strike. Target will develop the symptoms above shortly after.
  • Advanced Application: The alchemist may choose to exaggerate or mask the symptoms. When doing so the poison becomes equivalently more or less deadly. Many poisoners choose to mask the symptoms because even with the lessened efficacy the delay in correct treatment is often enough to get the job done. Equally, when away from competent physicians the easier to identify symptoms may be less of an issue and the enhanced potency desirable.

Mesmeretic Visage

When drunk this potion causes a temporary change in the drinkers appearance. Their eyes turn completely black, their skin pales, and they develop a presence that is difficult to ignore. The downside is that this seriously impairs their vision for almost 24 hours after taking it (Blind effects are doubled and GMs might induce further penalties for travelling at night or in dark places). When prepared as an alchemical paste the effects on vision are far more acute, briefly blinding the victim.

  • Potion: Gain 1 use of “Just hear me out” during the encounter as per the Fast Talk skill but take double effect from blind for 24hrs.
  • Paste: Gain BLIND 15 on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: Either gain 2 uses of Just hear me out (potion) or gain BLIND 15 on your next 2 strikes (paste).

Class A

Life Flow

  • Potion: For 1 encounter, regain 1 HP for every full 5 seconds you are not hit in combat. The effect ends when you are reduced to 0 hits
  • Paste: You may call HEAL SINGLE by blow for 30 seconds. You may not make other calls with a coated weapon during that time.
  • Advanced Application: The target regains 2hp every 5 seconds.

Smelling Salts of ultimate power

  • Bomb: This may be used one of two ways: you may smash the potion at your feet and call a MASS HEAL 4 (which also affects you), or you may throw the potion calling HEAL 4 at up to five targets within 5 meters of where the potion lands. This effect does NOT count towards the targets' potion addictions thresholds.
  • Paste: Call HEAL 4 on your next blow.
  • Advanced Application: The healing effect increases to HEAL 8.

Eye of the Storm

An alchemical bomb that sends out a wave of lacerating energy, with the person who detonated it safe in the centre.

  • Bomb: You may call MASS REND (unarcable) by throwing the potion on the ground. If drunk the drinker immediately drops to zero hits, but still calls the MASS REND.
  • Paste: Gain QUAD REND on your next strike.
  • Advanced Application: The effects of the bomb are increased to a MASS DOUBLE REND. The effects of the paste increase to allow you QUAD REND on your next 2 strikes.

Limb Drop

  • Potion: Ever larger parts of the drinker fall off.
  • Paste: You gain POISON on your next strike, with the target developing the symptoms above shortly after.
  • Advanced Application: The alchemist may choose a non-deadly end-point for the poison, for example necrotic skin or non-functional legs. It is essentially impossible to make this poison more deadly than it already is.

Tendon Withering

  • Potion: The target must append STRIKEDOWN to the end of all strikes against them.
  • Paste: So long as the target did not dodge the strike (in which case the paste is not wasted) then you may call STRIKEDOWN (against the target) on hit every 15 seconds for the rest of the encounter.
  • Advanced Application: When delivered by potion the target is additionally WEAKENED. When delivered by paste you gain +1 damage against the target (this does not stack with other sources of +1).

Addiction

Use of alchemy carries a risk of addiction. At the end of any adventure in which you have consumed one or more potions, pick one type of potion that you drank (or was otherwise exposed to, e.g. by rubbing armour oil into a broken pauldron or inhaling smoke from a smoke bomb). The GMs will flip a coin. If you lose the flip, you have begun to become (or continue to become) dependant on that potion and others with similar effects. If you already have an addiction and you drank a potion of that group during the adventure, you must choose that group to flip the coin for even if you drank other potions on the adventure. You can only have one alchemical addiction at any one time.

There are three levels of addiction. Potions are divided into four groups. Each group has an associated set of effects for first and second level addictions that are publicly visible. At the first level, you will be under a roleplaying effect that can be suppressed for the rest of an adventure by drinking a potion of the appropriate class, although you may choose the period of relief to be shorter if you wish. Obviously, relieving your addiction by indulging in your addiction carries a risk of worsening your addiction. At second level, you will also have a mechanical effect that can be suppressed in the same way. If you gain a third level of an addiction, you will receive an effect specific to the type of potion that you took that pushed you over the edge, at third level indulging in your addiction will only relieved you of your withdrawal effects for one encounter rather than a full adventure. Please consult with the GM team for your dose of horror. When indulging in a potion you are addicted to, you will have a roleplaying effect gained from consuming that potion, this lasts at least an encounter but may last longer (at the players discretion). You may also gain a mechanical effect (level 2 and higher) which will last until the end of the encounter in which you consumed the potion.

At the end of an adventure, your level of addiction is reduced by one if you drank no potions of the group you were addicted to.

If you end up with a level three addiction, and completely remove it through abstention, you are forever more immune to addictions from that class of potion. Mechanically this means that when choosing which potion you may have become addicted to at the end of an adventure, you only choose between potions from a group you are not immune to.

Alchemists, through their various experiments with alchemy, are slightly more resistant (or possibly susceptible) to the side effects of their potions. Alchemists may always choose which potion class they make a coin flip for, even if this would mean developing a second (or third, or fourth) addiction. This can make it easier for Alchemists to avoid developing debilitating addictions, but also carries a risk of catastrophic multiple debilitating addictions.

Addiction Effect Tables

LevelPotionWithdrawal EffectsIndulgence Effects
InflamationLevel 1You are more impatient than normal - you want to get things done nowYou feel important. You feel confident. You feel like you can succeed, so long as you try.
Level 2You feel like your blood is constantly up, keen and eager. Unless you feel completely safe (which is unlikely while enemies are around), you take a SINGLE THROUGH if you stand still for more than 10 seconds)Everyone seems slow and dim-witted while your mind races. You are full of amazing never-thought-of ideas. Gain a dodge.
Level 3GrenadeYou constantly feel near-painfully cold. You are also incredibly flammable. At GM discretion, anything that might plausibly ignite you does, for damage and effect calls as they see fit. You can ignite parts of your body, doing no harm to yourself, but harming others nearby. Gain 2 uses of REND on a weapon call, and one MASS ZERO STRIKEDOWN for the encounter. As long as you are in the presence of a burning fire, you feel safe and re-assured
PassionLevel 1You are more curious than normal, and want to learn thingsAll your emotions are greatly enhanced: you find pleasure in the smallest things but struggle to bear even the slightest heartbreak.
Level 2Information belong to you. No ones should keep any secrets from you. Any time someone refuses to reveal information you request, you take the effects of an ENRAGE, and will initially target the witholderYou gain genuine excitement from social maneuvering, and have a strong desire to discover new information. You gain 1 use of JUST HEAR ME OUT and 1 use of LOOK BEHIND YOU.
Level 3Soul StrengthYou feel a general hatred for other conscious beings. You would prefer to be alone, or at least not surround by idiots (like you currently are). You are WEAKENED whenever you are attempting to aid someone else.You feel love for your fellow conscious beings and are very happy to be able to spend time with them. You gain +1 damage when attempting to aid someone else.
NightsightYou eyesight has grown dim. You have also developed a great fear of being abandoned. If there is not someone you know within 5 meters of you then you will suffer a panic attack, taking the cower part of the FEAR effect until someone you know comes to help you.Your confidence in your physical abilities is greatly increased, and you are happy to take risks you normally wouldn't. Gain 2 dodges.
SuspensionLevel 1Your body feels slightly numb, and pain seems to affect you lessYour emotions feel distant, and you are able to engage your intellect with needle like clarity unaffected by worldy concerns.
Level 2Your body feels sluggish and cold, making rapid movements takes serious effort. You are down a DODGEYou feel a disengagement with the world. Like none of it concerns you. Gain 2 resists to effect calls delivered by melee weapon.
Level 3Armour OilYou are swinging between bouts of paranoia, narcolepsy, alcoholic cravings, violent aggression, and chronic muscle pains. When not roleplaying one of these effects you are weakened.While applying the armour oil (at least 5 seconds) you are drowsy and virtually comatose, paying no heed to outside experience. When you come round you feel an extraordinary rush of pleasure, more enjoyable than any other experience you have known. You are STRENGTHENED for the duration of the encounter.
Level 3StoneskinYour flesh seems unusually vulnerable and you fear injury from usually risk-free sources. In each encounter the first time you lose a body hit you will take a FEAR.You feel powerful and invulnerable. Gain 2xResists any effect calls.
DissolutionLevel 1You feel extremely wide awake, and have difficulty sleepingYou are relaxed. Everything feels pleasant. Any concerns you may have do not feel pressing for the time being.
Level 2You feel somewhat detached from your body, as if the world is interacting directly with your mind. Your death count is reduced to 45 secondsYou feel powerful while the world seems less substantial. You are filled with confidence in your own capabilities, and do not fear loss or failure. Gain +1 damage (this does not stack with any other source of +1 damage).
Level 3Mesmeretic VisageThe world is full of powerful, intelligent, attractive people. You cannot remember the last time you saw someone you considered weaker, stupider, or less attractive than yourself. You will treat attempts to talk you out of a fight as a JUST HEAR ME OUT regardless of if they used the skill. You will also value the thoughts and opinions of others more highly than you usually would.You feel confident in yourself, certain that everone else is weaker, stupider, and uglier than yourself. Your own confidence in yourself is overwhelming and you may call YOU DARE NOT STRIKE ME at a single target.
Death WardYou suffer occasional bouts of extreme lethargy and more often suffer from tactile hallucinations of blood seeping from an open wound. Your death count is reduced to 45 seconds.You feel euphoric. Tactile sensations are enhanced and feel pleasurable. If reduced to 0 hits you remain conscious and can, with some difficulty, consume a potion.
alchemy.1485778843.txt.gz · Last modified: 2017/01/30 12:20 by dan