The Dragon Tablets – Iteration Three: The Craft of Alchemy

Alchemy by Ennoea

The Herb Lore skill doesn’t exist in The Dragon Tablets. It has been subsumed by Alchemy. This has the following consequences:

·      We can use the Naturalist skill to find ingredients to our alchemical elixirs and the ingredient cost will therefore be half what it otherwise would have been.

·      Alchemy still is Alchemy and doesn’t have any of the limitations of Herb Lore.

·      Alchemical formularies work as they always have done.

The Poisons skill exists, but Alchemy can be used to make poisonous elixirs as with any other elixir.

Details of how to use Alchemy will be referencing GURPS Magic, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers, the Dungeon Brewmasters article from Pyramid #3/82 Magical Creations, and the Magnum Opus article from Pyramid #3/109 Thaumatology V. Using Alchemy will work as explained in Magic chapter 28, with the following exceptions:

·      Conventional techniques and quick techniques are Average.

·      A formulary for an elixir costs five times the ingredient cost of that elixir.

·      All elixirs are BRYWed (BRYW is pronounced brew)

·      Stable, unstable, and field-expedient elixirs are explained in Dungeon Brewmasters.

·      Instant Brewing works as written in Dungeon Brewmasters.

·      Fast Brewing allows a Quick Gadgeteer to spend 5 minutes per week needed for a standard elixir to brew an unstable elixir. For those who desire more of a Dungeon Brewmasters feel, the time needed can be changed to 1d x 5 minutes regardless of how long the standard elixir takes with modifiers to the Alchemy roll as listed in that article instead of the ones in Magic.

·      Short-term Brewing allows any alchemist to spend hours instead of weeks at 1% of the ingredient costs to brew a stable, but field-expedient, short-term elixir with a duration in minutes instead of hours with a retail price of 1% of the standard retail price. Elixirs with a duration not measured in hours cannot be short-term brewed.

·      Action Brewing, called standard brewing in Dungeon Brewmasters, produces a stable, but field-expedient elixir in a day, using the bonuses to the Alchemy roll from that article for going slower.

·      The quick techniques work for the short-term elixirs too.

·      Inventing new short-term elixirs do not require the Inventing New Elixirs rules nor will it help with inventing new standard elixirs.

·      A backpack Alchemy lab follow the rules in Dungeon Fantasy, but uses the cost and size of a portable alchemy kits in Magnum Opus.

·      A professional-grade lab uses the rules for a small alchemy lab from Magnum Opus, but only requires 100 square feet.

·      A large alchemy lab from Magnum Opus has its space and weight cut in half.

·      An alchemist is generally a Comfortable, Status 1 individual.

How to BRYW

To BRYW we need to go through the parts of James Amaral’s article Magnum Opus from Thaumatology V we haven’t already covered above.

Alchemy 101 and Alchemical Associations work as written, though some terms and concepts have been moved around or changed a little. So to list how the concepts work in The Dragon Tablets:

·         Bluening: Water, mind/mental, adaptation, growth.

·         Reddening: Fire, heart/emotional, creation, maturity.

·         Yellowing: Earth, body/physical, decay, resilience.

·         Whitening: Air, spirit/spiritual, avoidance, action.

Natural Reagents work as written. Specific Reagents are needed from above $200, but otherwise work as written. The Price of Greatness work as written and their value doesn’t take into consideration what might happen to that value in a specific market because of changing supply or demand. Any alchemist with a lab can distill water (+0/+0/+0/+0) without cost or skill roll.

One week of BRYWing is 40 hours of work for the alchemist. An elixir can be unsupervised for 16 hours after 8 hours of work and up to 80 hours once per week. There has to be at least 40 hours of work between 80-hour periods of absence. Any unsupervised time doesn’t count as brewing time.

The result of the BRYW depends on the results of the Alchemy roll according to Results in Dungeon Brewmasters.

Primal Matter

We are using the term Primal matter instead of the term prima materia used in the article. And they are the easiest way to BRYW elixirs. But natural reagents can be used too. We have changed the names of the Primal matter for The Dragon Tablets.

  

·         Kastella [castella(n)]: +1/+0/+0/+0

·         Tulitus [tuli(p) + (lo)tus]: +0/+1/+0/+0

·         Madotus [mad + (l)otus]: +0/+0/+1/+0

·         Henki [Hen(ry) + ki(lo)]: +0/+0/+0/+1

·         Sokeroida [seek + (and)roid + (academi)a]: -1/+0/+0/+0

·         Solulima [sol + ul(t)ima]: +0/-1/+0/+0

·         Loka [loca(tion)]: +0/+0/-1/+0

·         Kuluttaa [cool + otter]: +0/+0/+0/-1

The pronunciation of these words are written within brackets. The plus sign separates standard English words. And anything within parenthesis shouldn’t be pronounced. What you have left is the pronunciation of the Primal matter.

The Essence of Creation work as written, but the affliction associated with each essence has changed.

Essence of…	Affliction
Kastella	Hallucinating
Tulitus	Ecstasy
Madotus	Retching
Henki	Seizure
Sokeroida	Unconsciousness
Solulima	Agony
Loka	Paralysis
Kuluttaa	Choking

To get Primal matter, Essential water, Essential fire, Essential earth, and Essential air are needed. When elementals die, or are killed, this is what they leave behind. Magic can turn a regular element into its Essential counterpart or create it out of nothing, but such matter is temporary and cannot be used to create Primal matter. For that, only the real thing is good enough. Use the SM of the elemental and read the longest dimension as lbs instead of yards and multiply it with 20 to figure out how much Essential matter you will get your hands on from any given elemental.

Let’s consider the small water elemental from Magic. It is SM -1. The longest dimension for SM -1 is 1.5 yards. Multiplying that by 20, we get 30 lbs of Essential water from its body.

Any alchemist knows how to turn Essential matter into Primal matter or Primal matter into Essential matter with a successful Alchemy roll in one week. The process is a 2:1 transformation in both directions. So you can turn 2 lbs of one into 1 lb of the other.

A great alchemist can “reverse engineer” elixirs and reagents into Primal matter in two weeks with an Alchemy -5 roll. The BRYW for the elixir/reagent will determine how much Primal matter you get. If the elixir has a BRYW of +2/+1/+2/-2, you will get 2 parts kastella, 1 part tulitus, 2 parts madotus, and two parts kuluttaa. Or in total seven parts. This transformation is also a 2:1 transformation as above so if you have 14 lbs of the above elixir, you transform that into seven lbs of Primal matter, or more precisely 2 lbs of madotus, 1 lb of tulitus, 2 lbs of kuluttaa, and 2 lbs of kastella.