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.

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 in a mortar so it is in a mixable form. Undried herbs when crushed will yield a pulp, 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 make sure to close them before shaking.

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 and a local Ranger can find them for you. A single dose lasts 5 minutes.

You need one part of herb to 19 parts alchohol, which currently is obtainable by purchase from an alchemy shop, Barber Shop, on Shard's New South Bridge The process takes as fast as you can stuff the ingredients in and close the jar. Tinctures are intended for external use only, and are poisonous when ingested although that method of use has the most healing power. Tinctures don't heal slight bleeders.

If you close your jar and open it and nothing happens, it means your herb is bugged and you'll need to find a different one. Known bugged herbs: store-bought cebi (dry, powdered), store-bought plovik (dry, powdered), foraged plovik (dry, powdered), foraged muljin (dry, powdered), foraged sufil (dry, powdered). Haven't check all herbs in all forms yet, once I get everything a complete bug report will be made.

Recipes

Recipe for making homemade Dracon Crystals

NAME OF HERB: Draconaeia Blossoms
WHEN FORAGEABLE: Spring, Summer, Autumn
HOW TO MAKE:

• forage up the blossoms, each blossom is only one part
• combine blossoms until you get greater than two parts. Use count to see how many parts your blossom is.
• crush the Draconaeia Blossoms in your mortar (CRUSH blossoms In my Mortar WITH my Pestle)
• the oil will be 2 less than the amount of parts you combined the blossoms to, so this recipe is more efficient when made in bulk. Previously dry parts could not be combined into stacks of more than 16, but they can now be combined into much larger stacks.
• then take the oil from the mortar then put it in a pyramid leave it in the sun to make Crystals. The crystals will be one half the parts of the oil when done.
• 16 parts of blossoms, becomes 14 parts of oil, becomes 7 parts of crystals.
  

HINTS/TIPS did you know yelith root is better dried?

Recipe for making Lujeakave Elixir
INGREDIENTS: Equal parts Catalyst, Ithor potion, Ojhenik potion
PROCESS:

• Ithor Potion and Ojhenik Potion must be purchased from an Herbalist
• Put catalyst and potions in a mixing container
• Mix and you're done
• Will require a fairly large container considering the size of each ingredient. Mixing jars tend to be too small although there are tricks to making it all fit depending on how you put them in the jar.

Recipe for making Aevaes Solution
INGREDIENTS: Equal parts Dracon Powder, Sufil Sap or Paste, Eghmok Potion
PROCESS:

• Put powder and potions in a mixing container
• Mix and you're done

Recipe for making Aloe Balm
INGREDIENTS: Equal parts Seolarn Pulp, Aloe Pulp, Almond Oil
PROCESS:

• Forage up Aloe Leaf, each leaf is 1 part
• Forage up Almonds, each almond is 1 part
• Forage up Seolarn Weed, each weed is 2 parts
• Crush each ingredient to a pulp
• Almonds produce Oil when crushed, however, it will always be 1 part less than the original ingredient (Example: 4 parts Almond make 3 parts Almond Oil)
• Place crushed ingredients in container and mix.

Useful Commands

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

Tools

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