Herbalism

Alchemical items, sometimes called compounds or admixtures, represent the pinnacle of old world chemistry mixed with a tiny bit of occult knowledge. The products are considered everyday items with no magical properties, useful for bypassing magical defenses or circumstances where magical healing won't work. Alchemicals are produced by characters with the Alchemy skills and production points.

Alchemicals can generate a wide variety of game effects, duplicating some spells. Characters who are immune to spells are still affected by alchemical items, only effects that specifically stop alchemical items or the call caused by an alchemical item will prevent them from working.

Many harmful alchemicals are poisons, though not all. Beneficial alchemicals can cure poison, restore spent power points, and heal wounds. Notably the only way to remove the Diseased, Exhausted and Lycanthropy conditions are alchemical items.

There are three primary subcategories of alchemical items: blade alchemicals, ingested alchemicals, and thrown alchemicals.

• Blade alchemicals are compounds applied to weapons to enhance their combat capabilities.
• Ingested alchemicals can be both helpful or harmful depending on the specific item.
• Thrown alchemicals are mixtures of chemicals that react when exposed to air, throwing a vial with these chemicals in them (represented with a tag bag) can be done as an attack.

Potions provide the effects of a spell to anyone who drinks them. They provide their own power and do not require an incantation.

A potion is used by role-playing drinking it, or by concealing it in food like an ingested alchemical. When someone consumes the potion they are affected by the spell as if it had been cast upon them. The user counts as the person casting the spell for the purposes of voluntarily dispelling it.

Oils are like potions, but for spells that are applied to objects or areas instead of characters. To apply an oil, role-play applying it to the affected area.

No skill is needed to identify a potion (or oil). Any character is capable of understanding the effects a potion will have.

After using a potion or an oil, the character does not have to destroy the consumable slip right away. A player may wait for the next convenient moment to do so, if for example they drink a potion in the middle of a combat. You do not have to actually take the top off of the container the potion is in while you roleplay drinking it. You should still destroy the consumable slip at your earliest convenience.

When administering a potion to a character who has the Helpless condition, you must have the first aid skill.

Potions are created using production points and the brew potion skill.

Characters may also role-play putting the chemicals into something a character will later eat or drink. If a character does this they must then put a green sticker somewhere on the container the food or drink is contained in (this could be the bottom of a plate or a mug for example). The green dot allows characters with the herbalism skill to inspect the food and if they notice the green dot they will know 'something' is off, but not necessarily what. Should a person ingest the food or drink they should then be notified of exactly what was put in the food. Their character will not be aware of this, only the player gets to know. When this is done with a large container, such as a pot of soup, only one person is affected per dose of ingested alchemical used. The first person to consume the food (or drink) is affected, and so on, until all doses have been used. It is acceptable to voluntarily take a harmful effect if a character consumes the food after all doses have been applied, so long as there is no mechnaical advantage in doing so.

Some consumable plants can be found in play. There are currently no methods for player characters to create these plants. Consumable plants are sometimes placed around the campsite to be discovered by a player lucky or skilled enough to notice them. The plant will have an item number that explains what it does. Characters with identify magic or herbalism can look up what the plant does.

If a gamemaster has you put out a plant to be found, be sure to remember where you put it. At the end of the shift you'll need to go verify that someone found it. If no one found it, pick it up and bring it back in to logs, we do not wish to leave props behind to get lost and our hosts don't want us leaving behind things that won't biodegrade on their site. These items should only go out for one shift at a time (so there's never a situation where the person who put a plant out has to avoid finding it).

A character earns the Savant title after obtaining all 20 production points and learning the following skills:

• Alchemy Mastery
• Brew Potion
• Scribe Scroll
• Estimate Value
• First Aid
• Herbalism
• Read Magic
• At least one language that was not inherited at the character's creation.
  • Note that every character gains the Common language at creation, even if you choose to roleplay that you don't know it, so does not count towards this title.

Savants gain 5 production points that break cap. When producing potions or scrolls Savants, instead of being limited to only spells they know, may also copy potions and scrolls they have on hand to determine which they can make. This cannot be used to copy scarce items.

Only Savants can use an Alchemist's Laboratory.