GLOG: Alchemy Subsystem
Alchemical items are consumable pieces of magic. They allow normally non-magical classes to more easily acquire magical effects, and magical classes to gain a wider utility. They're necessarily also a way to turn coins into power in any system where alchemical items can be crafted. This is a system to craft such items.
All alchemical item crafting requires a recipe, a catalyst and a set of chemist's tools (the equivalent cost of plate armor).
RECIPE
All alchemical items have a unique set of ingredients that correspond to them. Classic items like potions have 3, something less open-ended like a glowstick have 2, something more permanent or impactful might have 6 or higher. If in doubt, 3 is a good number.
Each ingredient is either a component of a magic creature / plant / phenomena -OR- a mundane object with a conditional applied to it. Each ingredient has one characteristic tied to it like a color ("red", "cyan", "crimson"), a texture ("slimy", "crunchy", "jelly"), a taste ("sour", "sweet", "bitter"), or some other category you want to use. Ingredients should take up an inventory slot or be similarly weighty in your system of choice. See the INGREDIENTS TABLE below for examples.
The idea behind a recipe is that it's initially revealed as merely the aspects ("healing potion is red, wet and sour") with the exact ingredients left up in the air. Whenever a PC actually crafts the alchemical item, they lock in the recipe, cementing it as the actual recipe to craft that item again in the future. You can either keep this recipe for just a region or localized area, or you can lock it in setting wise or even cross-game. So long as the ingredients are still available there's no reason to not use it across different games.
The beauty of the aspects system is that they can either be pulled from random tables -OR- you can determine beforehand that you want to have a pattern for a given category of items. All healing/restorative potions in my games have the "red" aspect. All items that produce light have the "shiny" aspect. All ointments that transform you into another creature have the "familiar" aspect. Players will see this pattern and start picking up ingredients that have potential based on past items, which is exactly what this system wants to foster.
INGREDIENTS TABLE
| 1d8 | Name | Possible Aspects |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | blood of an estranged father | red, bitter, oily |
| 2 | dragon scale | red, crunchy, spicy |
| 3 | eye of a rival | squishy, foul |
| 4 | hair of a dead comrade | dry, familiar, bitter |
| 5 | ground goblin teeth | powdery, sickening, gray |
| 6 | orphan's laughter | delicious, bubbly, ephemeral |
| 7 | dagger of a thief | shiny, metallic, faint |
| 8 | the first flower of spring | sweet, green, bouncy |
CATALYST
A catalyst is just a piece of consumed magic used to spark the reaction. You can use 1 MD or 1 spell slot if you have such a dichotomy, or some other item that could be distilled down to "magic dust." Strips of spell scrolls, pages ripped out of a spell book, shards of an elemental's core, a drop of dragon blood, etc could all work as a catalyst. A catalyst also ensures that any given alchemical item has at least one small piece of magic included in its creation and isn't just mundane ingredients.
[Designer's note: Mechanically, it's also a way to limit the number of alchemical items that can be crafted in a short time period to prevent easy mass-crafting.]
SCOPE OF ALCHEMICAL ITEMS
The idea behind the above system is that alchemical items are single-effect, limited duration items. Longer-duration or stronger-potency items require more powerful ingredients. I try to keep every item created to a single sentence description so its easy to understand for anybody new to the item. "Freeze any liquid smaller than a horse", "turn into a crow for 10 minutes" or "painted object turns to iron until next sunrise," etc.