System Mechanics: Alchemy

Alchemy was once a protoscience, the precursor to chemistry and medicine and heavily focused on the symbolism and philosophy of transmutation.  Among its many aims was the creation of the so called Philosopher's Stone to transmute base metals into gold, Homunculus servants, and the Elixir of Life, which was intended to bestow youth and immortality to the one that drank it.  Due to the effects of many alchemical creations being vastly different from the items used to create them, some surmise that alchemy should be grouped with magic in classification, but despite its oddities, alchemy within Myths and Legends is not magic.  In MaL, intentionally cast magic is a result of willpower and other means, sometimes physical ingredients, sometimes incantations, sometimes gestures, sometimes other parts to a spell's ritual.  Alchemy, on the other hand, is purely physical and philosophical, regardless of the willpower behind the act.  If an alchemical potion is properly prepared it is like following a cookbook recipe, and should result in the same finished product regardless of who made it, so long as the conditions used to make it use the same or similar enough essences for less fragile and less volatile creations.  Every alchemical creation requires several steps to create it, and any changes in the process stages or ingredients will affect the final creation.  These different stages will usually require special equipment in addition to the ingredients needed.  Alchemical concoctions cannot be created by those that do not believe what they are creating is possible to make, regardless of their intelligence and knowledge of how it worked for someone else.  Additionally, the symbolic meaning of ingredients varies according to the meaning to the alchemist and may not be the same as what is needed as another alchemist.

Ability: Alchemy (1 FP Minimum): Create an alchemical concoction. Uses 1 FP for mixing together components out of combat, 2 FP if during combat.  If a character knows a specific concoction they are aiming to create and has the materials required, they can make it with certainty.  If they do not know what the mixture creates, and are experimenting, the results may be unexpected.  Learning a specific concoction the first time takes one extra FP due to the need to focus to remember all the steps needed to make it again.  No prerequisite abilities are needed to use this ability.  Requires a brewing cauldron or stand, glass containers, water, and the ingredients being used.  If the ingredients need to be crushed into powder and are not yet, a mortar and pestle is recommended to have as well.  Something that should be kept in mind is to remain a distance away from anything the alchemy-user doesn't want damaged, as creating some concoctions may create explosions, smoke or other affects.

Item: Alchemist's Lab Journal (Blank, 12 Copper; Filled, Varies):  A book used for storing alchemical recipes, notes, theories and the like in a portable and organized fashion.  These are typically written in code either by the author of the journal, or due to some magical or other unusual means to render the texts indecipherable.

Item: Brewing Cauldron (2 Gold):  A large metal pot intended for cooking or boiling over a fire, the brewing cauldron differs from a normal one in that it is specifically design not to corrode or oxidize in the interior space, so as to prevent any potential deviation from the alchemical concoction's directions.  As these same type of cauldrons have also used for brewing beers and other alcoholic beverages for longer in public than alchemy has used them, they typically are referred to as Brewing Cauldrons specifically, which also makes purchasing of one not that unusual for someone also purchasing potential ingredients for a microbrewery.  Very useful for when an alchemist is doing a project in secret they don't want the general public to know about yet.

Item: Brewing Stand (1 Gold): A Brewing Stand is like a brewing cauldron in that it has also been used for brewing alcoholic beverages, but instead of being a large pot over a fire and mostly stationary, a brewing stand is specially designed to hold vials or beakers over a small fire for portability sake.  As such, they are also less expensive, but fewer are made and so the price is still high for the average investor.

Item: Glass Beaker (5 Copper): Used for alchemical, chemical and other purposes for distilling components or other processes.

Item: Mortar and Pestle (6 Copper):  Used for grinding up ingredients for an alchemical concoction.
 
Item: Vial (2 Copper):  Used for storing alchemical or chemical components that have been distilled in a sterile container that can easily be heated if needed.

For every alchemical concoction, a mixture of different components yields a different result.  Some may induce status effects, some may do nothing discernible to most individuals, and some may prove dangerous to the alchemist and others involved.  The mixing of the examples of the twelve classical elements and other symbolic essences in different proportions is thought by most to be the hardest part of choosing ingredients as the quality and quantity can vary so much and variations as well that the task of classification and categorization is daunting to most by itself, let alone the process of preparing them properly.  Thankfully, a number of alchemists throughout history have classified many of the different components distilled from alchemy into reproducible means with the mass and nuanced clarifications available, so some more wealthy alchemists may purchase either the older works themselves or a copy of them, in order to get a head-start on the process.