System Mechanics: Alchemical Essences:

As all things in Alchemy require the combination of different essences--focused traits comprising all matter on a symbolic level--intelligent alchemists research what essences are gained from using different materials in their concoctions.  Some may distill and store different essences for some time until they find a recipe using them, whereas others may immediately start to experiment with them.  Below are the twenty different essences.

Firazgo: The essence of heat, passion, rage, envy and fire.

Soti: The essence of soil, dirt, plants, taste and life.

Aquile: The essence of water, flowing movement, story, peace and purification.

Vettir:  The essence of wind, flight, ghosting, sight and air.

Fnor:  The essence of logic, void, cold, sleep and ice.

Joteg:  The essence of inspiration, light, language, lightning and electricity.

Iktul:  The essence of edge, metal, greed, jealousy and currency.

Kour:  The essence of solidity, hardship, discipline, will and stone

Sang:  The essence of sacrifice, organs, fungus, disease and blood.

Nau:  The essence of defense, cloth, shells, beauty and bone.

Lin:  The essence of decreasing, ruin, time, dust and sand.

Exeb:  The essence of joining, shadow, sloth, ink and slime.

Morte:  The essence of separating, fear, loss, poison and death.

Keli:  The essence of instinct, offense, lust, gluttony and animals.

Wezen:  The essence of  learning, enhancement, mind, tools and the celestial.

Urdig:  The essence of transfer, mutation, magic, transformation and chaos.

Jabnil:  The essence of machines, devices, pride, construction and order.

Tren:  The essence of trapping, storing, control, stasis and the infernal.

Rul:  The essence of gravity, dimensions, exploration, scale and space.

Higil:  The essence of vibration, destruction, soul, sound and music.

Every single item in MaL can be broken down into these twenty essences for the sake of alchemical experiments, each having a composition of up to three essences.  However, as the symbolic meaning of each item is different for each character and thus made of a different combination of essences when distilled as alchemy is as much protoscience as it is philosophy.  A rose may be made out of Soti for almost every character due to being a plant, but it may also be Nau for beauty, Lin for its wilting, Higil for the soulful intent with which one gives or receives it, Aquile for the story of love, and Firazgo for passion.  Obviously Soti fits with almost every character, but which of the other five essences would a character see a rose as being as well?  Nau and Lin for the frailty of beauty over time?  Higil and Aquile for a romantic courtship?  Firazgo for the fervor for which one felt when thinking of one's love?  The possibilities are endless, but a system is in place to determine which are the most likely.  In the case of the pen and paper version of the game, as long as a player is consistent and gives good reason their character should see an item as having specific essences, then a good GM can decide easily whether to approve it or not, as delving into the personality and symbolic attachment of a character to certain items builds up roleplay.  The same goes for NPCs that the GM might creatre.  In the case of the computer version of the game, however, the character's generation from the system will create their symbolic attachments.

Given the sixteen options from the Meyers-Briggs personality types, there are additional changes from what is considered to be the character's species symbolism.  Being that there are nine core races to start with, and at least eight social classes (vagrant, lower-class, middle-class, merchant-class, military-class, upper-class, nobility, and royalty), at least six home classifications (wilderness, nomad, rural, suburban, metropolitan, and private island), at least thirteen home biome types (hot desert, cold desert, tundra, swamp, plains, prairies, savanna, wastes, meadows, badlands, jungle, coniferous forest, and deciduous forest), and at least nine past-related traits (both parents still alive, one parent dead, both parents dead, first love, love lost, tragic other loss, special abilities at a young age, first friend after a long time without any, and triumph in a hobby or profession), then even if only one option for each classification is used--and multiple could be--then the number of possibilities for generation are at minimum 163,296 possibilities on unique symbolism, as well as the obvious expansion that will happen as new races are added, more precise biome definition is sorted out, and further past-related traits are decided upon.  First the system would start with what the default is for a species, and then deviate from that to alter specific clusters of items and then specific ones.  A very complex system, but one that would run completely in the background.