Rules / Crafting & Treasure / Alchemical Concoctions
Alchemical Concoctions
Crafting alchemical concoctions means mixing chemicals, reagents, salves, acids, stimulants, toxins and other natural or refined substances into useful items. They aren't magical: their effects come from volatile reactions, changes in the body and the energy of the creature using or affected by them. Many can rival a spell or magic item, but at a cost: helpful ones often draw on the user's Strain, and harmful or unstable ones may bring side effects, backlash or other drawbacks. They always need physical materials and active preparation; you can't get something from nothing. Where magic items run on bound essence, concoctions work through substances, reactions, and the body or matter they act on.
Item Types
- Elixirs are drinkable liquids.
- Salves are applied to the body, wounds or surfaces.
- Oils are applied to weapons, tools, armor or objects.
- Bombs are thrown or projected mixtures that burst or spread on impact.
- Powders are scattered, sprinkled, blown or inhaled.
- Injectables are delivered by needle, spike, dart or similar.
- Toxins deliver poison afflictions.
An item that fits more than one type uses the type that best matches how it's delivered.
Side Effects
Concoctions often carry a cost. A helpful one may cost the user Strain, impose a short drawback or another listed side effect; a harmful one may risk backlash or instability for the user, the target or the area. If an item applies an affliction, the item says how it's delivered and the affliction says what it does.
Talent and Formulas
Crafting concoctions needs the Alchemical Crafting talent; especially potent ones may need more talents, formulas or special materials, as their entries list. Most concoctions need a formula, listing the ingredients, preparation method, item type, level and special requirements. Unlike many common mundane items, they're too precise and reactive to improvise without one unless a rule says otherwise. The GM may let you study a suitable example item instead, but that usually only lets you attempt the project, with no other benefit. Some simple formulas are widely available; others must be discovered, bought, reverse-engineered or invented.
Formula access: common alchemical formulas are usually for sale in towns, trade posts, military depots or other places such goods are made or sold. Uncommon or rarer ones usually have to be found, bought from a specialist, copied or developed in play. To invent a new item or a variant, the GM sets the time, cost and requirements to develop the formula.
Material Costs
Besides the specific ingredients in its formula, every concoction needs raw materials, reagents, stabilizers and solvents by level: level 1–4: 10 silver; 5–10: 40 silver; 11–16: 160 silver; 17+: 480 silver.
Ingredients
A concoction also needs specific ingredients, the active substances that give it its effect. Common ones can be bought in settlements, gathered in the wild or recovered from creatures and hazards; rare or potent ones may need particular sources, regions, creatures or formulas (GM's call). In a batch, each item needs its own ingredients unless a rule says otherwise.
Every usable ingredient has one source tag and one function tag (Botanical, Medicinal; Mineral, Volatile). A formula normally requires 2 tags, a source tag and a function tag, and may name a specific ingredient instead of or as well as a tag for especially rare, potent or unusual items. The GM decides which ingredients qualify for a tag.
Using ingredients: provide at least 2, one meeting the recipe's source requirement and one meeting its function requirement. To get the recipe's optional benefit, add a third that meets the optional requirement; without it you make the normal version. An ingredient can satisfy any requirement matching one of its tags, but each ingredient counts only once, even if its tags could cover two requirements.
Source Tags
What the ingredient physically is (its substance, not its effect). If it could fit more than one, use the tag that best matches the harvested material itself.
| Source | Examples |
|---|---|
| Botanical | herbs, roots, leaves, flowers, bark |
| Fungal | mushrooms, molds, spores, lichen |
| Mineral | stone dust, clay, ash, sulfur, chalk |
| Metallic | iron filings, copper flakes, silver dust, alchemical alloys |
| Animal | hides, fat, sinew, glands, shell, chitin |
| Venom | poison sacs, stingers, toxic ichor |
| Blood | fresh blood, coagulated blood, treated plasma |
| Bone | bone dust, marrow, teeth, horn, antler |
| Organ | livers, hearts, eyes, glands, brains |
| Resin | sap, gum, pitch, sticky plant excretions |
| Oil | rendered fat, fish oil, seed oil, infused oils and other true oily liquids |
| Slime | ooze, mucus, gel, jelly, adhesive secretions and other gelatinous substances |
| Salt | preserving, alkali and mineral salts |
| Crystal | quartz, emberglass shards, frost crystal, reactive crystal |
Function Tags
What the ingredient is good for.
| Function | Examples |
|---|---|
| Volatile | highly reactive substances, explosive compounds, unstable reagents |
| Corrosive | acids, caustics, etching fluids |
| Toxic | poisonous compounds, blights, tainted residue |
| Medicinal | healing herbs, clotting agents, painkillers, restorative compounds |
| Stimulant | energizing reagents, adrenal compounds, sharpening tonics |
| Sedative | calming herbs, sleep agents, numbing compounds |
| Irritant | smoke agents, choking dusts, eye-burning compounds |
| Preservative | stabilizers, drying agents, anti-spoilage compounds |
Complexity
Each concoction lists a Complexity, which sets its setup time and Craft DC. For a new item or variant, start from the closest existing item: raise its Complexity one step if it uses especially unstable ingredients, makes a large area effect, combines several strong effects or is unusually potent for its level; lower it one step if it has a very narrow use, a very short duration or an especially simple effect for its level.
Saves
An alchemical item's base save DC is 15 + its level unless its entry says otherwise. A Potent item raises its DCs by 2; a Weak one lowers them by 2 (both apply to any Target or Side Effect Save unless the entry says otherwise).
- Target Save: attempted by a creature affected by the item's outward effect. If a damaging concoction lists no specific critical failure for its Target Save, a creature that critically fails takes double damage.
- Side Effect Save: attempted by the user or recipient to resist the item's drawback, backlash or internal strain. When you use a helpful concoction on yourself you must attempt it: on a success you get the normal effect and no side effect; on a failure, the normal effect plus the listed side effect; on a critical failure, the normal effect plus the listed critical side effect.
An item that affects both a target and its user lists both saves separately.
Concoction Traits
- Core: Alchemical (made by alchemy, not magic); Consumable (used up when activated unless a rule says otherwise).
- Delivery and use: Bomb (thrown or projected; bursts, spreads or splashes on impact); Elixir (drinkable); Salve (applied to body, wounds or surfaces); Oil (applied to a weapon, tool, armor or object); Powder (scattered, sprinkled, blown or dispersed); Toxin (delivers a poison affliction); Injectable (needle, spike, dart or similar); Inhaled (breathed in or works through the air); Ingested (must be swallowed); Contact (works through touch or skin); Splash (can affect creatures or objects near the point of impact).
- Effect: Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, Thunder (deal or use that kind of damage or force); Poison (applies or interacts with a poison affliction); Healing (restores HP or supports recovery); Movement (changes Speed, mobility or motion); Smoke (smoke, haze or obscuring fumes); Mental (thoughts, emotions, awareness or perception); Sensory (sight, hearing, smell and similar); Volatile (unstable, explosive or prone to violent reaction); Corrosive (eats surfaces, gear or materials); Stimulant (heightens energy, reflexes, alertness or aggression); Sedative (dulls pain, slows response, calms or induces sleep); Medicinal (recovery, treatment, stabilization or repair); Irritant (stings, chokes, blinds, distracts or inflames).
Poison and Toxins
Poison is an affliction subtype. Toxins are alchemical items that deliver poison afflictions, as an oil, powder, injectable, gas, ingestible or other form. The toxin's entry says how it's delivered; the poison affliction it applies (see Exploration, Afflictions) says what it does.
All 84 concoctions are written out in full in the Concoctions catalog.