Alchemy craft

The general term in DragonRealms for improving the quality of a substance, or changing one substance into another. The most commonly known process makes herbs more potent or changes them into potions, salves, tea, or other forms. Other processes also exist to create non-herbal substances such as poisons or tea.

Herbal Alchemy

There are three basic steps to creating herbal potions.

1. Gather ingredients
2. Prepare ingredients
3. Mix ingredients

Ingredients

Basic herbal alchemy requires three ingredients: an herb, a catalyst, and water. The basic mix is done in a 1:1:1 ratio, or equal parts of each. Adding more catalyst is ok, since the unused portion will be left as a remainder. Potions can be successfully mixed at other ratios of herb to water but at present there is no benefit to doing so.

For water locations, visit Kythryn's Journal.

Pieces vs. Parts

A piece of a substance is an individual inventory item, listed separately when you look into your container.

In the dark gem pouch you see some georin grass, some georin grass, and some georin grass.

In the above example, there are three pieces of georin grass in the pouch.

Parts measure the quantity inside a single piece, and this is what is important for alchemy. Use the COUNT command to tell how many parts are in a given piece of something:

>count geor grass in my dar pouch
There's five parts left of the georin grass.

Many basic alchemy ingredients are foraged in small pieces with only one or two parts. And very frequently it is necessary to change the size of your herb and catalyst pieces so they are the same. You can COMBINE two smaller pieces of a solid substance into a larger one, and BREAK them to make them smaller. Liquids such as water are combined and broken via the POUR verb.

Preparation

The more Foraging skill you know, the more potent your herbs will be. Potency is also improved if the herb was foraged carefully or precisely. For the most potent herbs, you need a skilled forager to gather them precisely.

Most experienced alchemists agree that all herbs are made even more potent by drying them. This can be done either by using a Wayerd pyramid or by having a Ranger perform the proper Beseech. So the second step to making a good potion is to dry your herbs, although it is not required. In many cases, the simple dried herb is more potent than the herb will be in potion form, so you can stop right there. The herbs that are improved by making into potion are georin, eghmok, nilos, blocil, and hulnik.[1] Catalysts are also generally improved by drying, although the effect of this is more subtle.

The next step if you are going to continue and make the potion is to crush the herb using a mortar and pestle so it is in a mixable form. Undried herbs will yield a pulp when crushed, and dried herbs a powder or paste. You must also crush your catalyst for the same reason.

Next gather some water from a convenient spot, and you're ready to mix.

Mixing

Count out your ingredients carefully into equal-sized pieces, and place them all together in your mixing vessel. There is no size limit on potions, larger potions require more skill to mix together, Rangers are better than all other classes at mixing. Your potion will not combine if there are any extra or foreign ingredients in the vessel. Note that a wax label counts as an item inside a container so your mixing vessel won't work if it has a label on it. The only thing inside your vessel should be one piece of the crushed herb, one piece of the crushed catalyst, and one piece of water (see Pieces vs. Parts above).

The size of your completed potion will be the same as the part count of the individual ingredients. If your ingredients have five parts each, your finished potion will have five parts. As noted above, if you start with a larger chunk of catalyst than your water and herb, only the required amount will be used with the rest left over.

Many different containers can be used as a mixing vessel if you don't have a proper mixing bowl. Empty gem pouches and treasure boxes are popular choices. Just MIX container WITH mixing stick or close the container and SHAKE.

Injuries to the hands, arms, eyes, and head can interfere with Alchemy so heal up if you are having trouble.

Tinctures

Tincture jars are a way to make dried herbs even more potent, precise dried herbs are best. A single dose lasts 5 minutes.

You need one part of herb to four parts alcohol, which currently is obtainable by purchase from some alchemy shops.

The process take an anlas, and involves shaking the jar once every ten roisaen. Tinctures are intended for external use only, and are poisonous when ingested although that method of use has the most healing power.

Known Alchemy Recipes

• Aloe Balm
• Dracon crystals/oil
• Lujeakave Elixir
• Aevaes Solution
• Jalbreth balm

Useful Commands

• BREAK
• CRUSH
• COMBINE
• COUNT
• MIX
• POUR
• SHAKE

Tools

• Wayerd pyramid
• Unlonchai bucket
• Stove
• Mortar and pestle
• Mixing bowl and mixing stick, or other vessel (pouch, box, etc)
• Vial or Jar to hold water
• Tincture jar

Bugs

Note: Currently being beta tested in Platinum.

• Alchemy Society Master's responses lack quotation marks and random letters. ("X sighs and says, lease, ask one of the other Society Masters about that." / "X sighs and asks, lease don't waste my time. Tell me the name of the [cuts off here]")
• [Do you really want to destroy the mortar's contents? Tilt it one more time to empty out them out.] - Extra 'out'
• Need 'very easy' difficulty items
• Collected herbs all have the same quality (may be a feature, not bug)
• POURing water does not work. You need to PUT it in the mortar
• PUTting water in the mortar uses all doses instead of one

Note: Fixed.

• No work orders available for very low levels of alchemy (due to lack of very easy crafts?). Also, when you first ask Lanshado for work he says "I am sorry, but we have no work for you today. Please try again later.", when you ask him a second time he says "I am sorry, but you just received a work order. Try again a little later perhaps.".
• Extra space before water when trying to use water when you shouldn't: "You realize the water is not required to continue crafting the X, so you stop"
• When you FILL your mortar with water, it won't add to the salve, but you can take it out of the mortar and put it back in to have it work.
• Can't seem to BREAK apart ingredients. Using more than the required amount also doesn't make 'additional' remedy. You always make the amount you should make with the formula.
• Instructions say remedies can be prepared using a cooking pot and stirring rod to mix. Stirring rods from the forging shop message that they can only be used to mix a crucible, and no other types of stirring rods are available from the alchemists society. Mixing sticks sold as part of "alchemist kits or from the general alchemy shops do not work and cooking pots are not sold by the crafting society.

Note: I don't believe crucible rods and alchemy rods are going to be the same rods. Mixing sticks might not work yet because that portion of alchemy isn't rolled out yet. No cooking pots available so no stirring needed.

• Instructions on how to dry materials don't give instructions under STUDY and instead attempt to have you memorize the design as if it was a regular item being created. Should work more like how study works for making ingots, refining metal, etc.

Note: Fixed.

• Salt sold in alchemist society cannot clean pyramids.

Note: Wire brushes repair pyramids, not salt. Not a bug.

• Terribly made remedies don't have any adjectives like terribly made forged goods (aka: no shattered, etc).
• No options for easy/challenging workorders at even 60 ranks, given the quality of tools, ingredients, and lack of techs make workorders unfinishable yet.
• While crushing, the messaging exists for use of a sieve and smelling, but there aren't corresponding actions that can be taken (nor tools available).
• There is a lack of consistency in noun usage between remedy and remedies (book is remedy, but that doesn't work in other areas like asking about techs, etc...)
• Analyze doesn't yield reliable information for quality of output (may be due to low alchemy ranks) or what steps to do next when messaging occurs.

Note: Kodius said this was typical for all crafting at lower skill ranges.

• Trainer doesn't respond to technique questions well due to lack of techs, weird wording there.
• Trainer doesn't respond about specific techs.
• Apprentice book typos: Foreword - paragraph 1(P1) sentence 6(S6) word 18(W18) "beggins" should be "begging". P4 S1 W9 "waeryd" should be "wayerd". P5 S1 W1 "soluabiliity" should be "solubility". P6 S7 W1 "you" should be "You". Chapter 1, page 1 - P2 S2 W11 "seive" should be "sieve" Note: "sieve" appears to be spelled "seive" throughout the book
• Deeded materials could be more specific. Blocil pulp becomes a "pulp deed" instead of a "blocil deed", for example. The tap shows it as "a deed for some blocil pulp" but still harder to grab out of a container than necessary.
• Deeded materials only show quality and nothing else (no quantity or workability).

Conversions Needed

Please place any items that you believe (1) should have been converted to a different quality (:NOTE: Most older alchemy tools from festivals and regular stores should become store quality, but cambrinth pyramids (for example) should all be masterful auction quality. If you have an item that is not a cambrith pyramid but you believe is still meant to be rare/special/auction/etc, list it below.) or (2) are related to herbs/alchemy that need to be converted to properly work within the system.
NOTE: Items are sometimes not converted until they are used - you might not initially see crafting tool stats on a previously vaulted item. Once it is used, it should convert.

• green linen sack embroidered with a horn-of-plenty: currently produces pre-Alchemy herbs and potions.