Alchemy 101
A novices guide to being an Alchemist in
Greece.
By Natolie
So, you want to be an
alchemist…
If you’re not considering being an
alchemist, why ARE you reading this guide? An alchemist is perhaps the most
expensive profession to join, in terms of dinars.
And
early on, one of the weakest…
So…why would you want to be an alchemist? Because we rock at foraging! Well…outside of that. It’s a profession for the inner pyromaniac! Again, beyond that?
In H&X it’s one of the two
‘magical’ professions, the other profession being Priests. Alchemists have at
this time, 95 formulas at their disposal some of these are not for combat
however. And while they may not be as weapon savvy as…pretty much any of the
other professions, the formulas can make up for a lot.
But if you want to
swing a sword like a warrior, go be a warrior.
And, if you have any questions that
this document doesn’t clear up, DIR MENTOR
and RING BELL
to talk to a Mentor.
I AM assuming you know some of the
basic commands, how to talk, handle items, and move from room to room, and also
using the DIR and HELP
commands. GET a PAMPHLET
from the rack in the Shaded Garden when you first enter Athens. Reading through
that should help give you some ideas of the basic stuff.
However,
some of this later on is reiteration (and personalization) of that crinkled
scroll that should be in your hand when you come out of the Mangler.
Mangler AKA, Character Generation
Think of it not as patronization,
gentle reader, just me being thorough in making sure you know the whole part
and package of the whole Alchemy deal. At least, this person’s slant on it,
none of this is intended as “YOU MUST DO THUS!” But more of a “this is one way
of going about it.”
Okay,
enough with the intro, into the meat of the document.
For gods, Apollo and
Demeter seem to be the deities of choice. I personally follow Apollo.
Apollo isn’t as big
into the alchemical teachings as Demeter is, but he teaches them. However, he’s
willing to teach mechanical stuff more than she is, and he’s more comfortable
with weapons. He doesn’t like acrobatics though.
Demeter teaches
alchemy very well, but the sideline stuff, she isn’t too keen on, and she
definitely doesn’t like combat, offense, or defense.
Persephone is also
favorably inclined toward alchemy. In fact in some ways more than Apollo, but
she is rather negative toward the weapon skills, nor does she really like
mechanical skills. Her real forte is the arcane skills.
For races…you have three to pick from,
Human, Giant or Centaur.
Humans are pretty all around good. No
bonuses, and no penalties in their stats or skills learning.
Giants are stronger than, but not as
coordinated as humans are. I don’t often see Giant alchemists, mainly because
they also have an intelligence penalty. They have bonuses to skills in
physical, and brawling groups, and penalties to their arcane and acrobatics.
I myself am a centaur. Awful
coordination, and slightly stronger than a human, but not as much as a
giant. The big plus of being a centaur
is role-play capability. Skill wise, there’s a weapon bonus, a large acrobatics
penalty, a mixed bag of bonuses and penalties for brawling. In physical,
bonuses for all except for stealth, which is penalized.
Humans seem to be the top choice for
alchemists, with Centaurs as a second. Given that your success/failure for
mixing is also determined by your intelligence, in addition to your alchemy
skills, I’m sure you can see why those choices.
This isn’t that big of an issue
usually, but, more intelligence means less screw ups, and you can mix some
formulas before their actual level with a larger success rate.
To recap: top choices for being an alchemist are human or centaur, I leave the choice up to you.
Well,
I already stated that being an alchemist is a money sucking profession…and that
we’re rather weak when we’re young.
Where does that leave you, if hunting
isn’t your forte?
Errands! Town hall has little errands
you can run for some small change. (Type: DIR
EMPLOYMENT while in the NW quad.)
You GO
STAIR in the town hall and GO ARCH to
the job office and ask for a job. You may have to try a couple times, but when
you get one, you’ll be given a slip of paper, which you must deliver to a shop owner.
They will give you an item to be taken to a second shop owner before you are
paid. All these jobs are within the NW quad and most of the locations can be
found using the DIR command, the errands pay
between 2-6 dinars.
Which is enough to buy some scrolls, or
a sizable portion of the fee for one.
Don’t worry about your debt, you have
that so you have money. You can pay it off when you’re ready, DIR DEBT.
We WILL tackle hunting later! If you didn’t manage
to get a job, you can try skipping on ahead.
You
have a surplus weapon in your knapsack when you arrive in Athens; you can
exchange that for another surplus weapon on the rack in the Shaded Garden up
till around level 3. That light leather that your wearing, however thin it is,
is armor, and with our combat system, you don’t have enough skill to wear
heavier armor effectively. You also have a small shield.
You
don’t need to go rush out and buy THAT kind of equipment.
You’re
okay for armor and weapons for the time being. You’ll want to read more about
armor in the combat section, a few pages down the guide.
For
an alchemist, your greatest asset will be your formulas, and how do you learn
more? You buy scrolls!
Scrolls!
Scrolls!
Alchemists as I stated have 95 formula, a very large portion of those are between the circles of 1 and 10.
You can go to Ismena’s shop in the NW
quad, or you can go to the shop in the SW quad. To get to the SW shop, type DIR CATACOMB, don’t cross the bridge, but rather,
go SOUTH 6 times and then go NW, SW, GO SHOP and NE
into the scroll room. Don’t be afraid to explore, you can always get DIRections back to a more familiar part of the
city, when in doubt DIR MENTOR. Where you
can get some slightly better deals, which when you’re tight on dinar, price
shopping is important.
Type ORDER when
you are in a shop and go from there, the system is pretty self-explanatory. The
whole haggling thing is an art form. To see the in-game documentation on
shopping just type HELP MERCHANT
You’re ‘born’ knowing one formula, the
rose-honey elixir, Formula #1
But, some basic ones to buy beyond that
are…
A
stained green papyrus scroll: The tiny wand formula.
This
formula is a mainstay, and a level one formula. You carve a wand and then pour
this slimy green ooze on it, and you’ll be given a hefty round time as it turns
into a tiny wand, this scroll can only be found at the SW Quad Alchemist Shop.
More on this tool later.
A
sticky yellow papyrus scroll: the wand feeding formula. (Level: 2)
The
when the tiny wand runs out of juice, you have to feed it. You simply pour the ooze on the wand to
refill it fully. This formula uses the result of another formula in its
creation. Again, only in the SW Quad
shop
A
yellow scroll: the eyebright and sunflower poultice or a pungent pulpy
mash. (Level: 2)
This is perhaps the first
reagent you’ll learn, and it’s used in many formulas. Foremost of which for you
will be the wand feeder for awhile. A regent is a formula you use in the
creation of other formulas; alone it has no use. You can find this scroll in
nearly any Alchemist shop.
The
red scroll:
Mistletoe powder of Ch’in. (Level: 3)
Brown powder will be your
first explosive. Brown powder can be thrown, or loaded into a warhand and used
as ammunition. More on explosive tools later. It, like the yellow can be found
in many of the Alchemist shops.
The
golden scroll: the greater healing elixir.
While
this scroll is level 4, and perhaps a bit high for you to be considering on
your first day, it’s a good one to want to buy. As with the yellow and red,
it’s a staple of scroll inventories.
All of the above scrolls can be found in the SW Quad alchemist shop. There are shops to buy scrolls in all four of Athens Quadrants.
The NW quad is rather standard in its wares,
as you’ll find out.
NE Quad actually has two shops; one shop is called the poison hovel, housing poison as well as antidote formulas, and its not on in the DIRections for the Quad. It’s also a bit of a beauty shop Formulas that can change someone’s hair or skin or eye color. It also is the home of the scrolls for the detox gels, which I will explain later on in the guide. The regular alchemy shop in the NW quad has a pretty standard set of scrolls.
I don’t often go to the SE quad shop,
but there are perhaps 3 scrolls you can’t get anywhere else but there, Cloak of
Iris, Vine Summoning and Swarm Summoning, all for 10th or above.
Outside of Athens, scrolls are sold up
in Midgard, which are only sold there, most of them are for circles 10 and
above. Down in Piraeus, all of which are repeats of stuff sold in NW quad.
Lastly one up in Thebes, which has a very nice selection of formulas only sold
there in addition to some of the more standard ones, which are for sale for
higher prices, on fancier materials.
Up in Thebes is the final scroll I’d
suggest for buying for your basic scrolls, if you can get someone to give you a
ride up there.
A
cyan parchment scroll: the barkskin formula (level 1, 5 dinars)
This
little baby will help your defense. At the cost of some of your coordination,
but the price I recall is more than made up.
You can also check at Tyche’s shrine
for scrolls (DIR SOUTHEAST and then when you
get there, DIR TYCHE).
Armor will set you back further in
dinars than low-level scrolls will, and checking at Tyche’s will serve your
wallet better.
When you’re in the temple, ASK PRIESTESS ABOUT CHARITY to get a rundown on the sections of the temple.
She’ll give you a list of stuff you
could ask after, and then ASK PRIESTESS ABOUT ARMOR,
if you choose to go the armor route.
Types of armor to look for in the bins would be, leather arm or leg greaves, if you’re a centaur, look for some barding, which would also be in the misc. item bin.
Scrolls would be found in the MISC
section of the temple, when you ask the Priestess about charity, in the alchemy
bin. But most of them would likely be for circle 10 and 15.
Going to the temple only works if
you’re young and rather broke, and you can an item only about once a day.
And remember, when your older, you can
donate to Tyche’s shrine for young folks.
Over time, you’ll have critters drop
scrolls as treasure. Usually these are scrolls to remove death curses for
departing Hades. But sometimes you’ll get others…sun infused water, poison of
Atropos and the antidote of Clotho, tannin (dye color fixer) and the bottled
smoke, those are likely the ones you’ll also find in Tyche’s bin.
Also, gold water is for Alchemists. So
hold onto that.
When
you get your hands on a scroll, you can do a few things with it. You can READ it, which will passively give you the
information on the scroll.
Hopefully it will look something like
this:
>read
scroll
You
examine the green papyrus scroll. It is
written in a very archaic form of the Old Kingdom Egyptian hieroglyphs. You know this to be the formula for the tiny
wand formula.
It
is not being studied.
This
formula is for Alchemists who are circle 1 or higher in the Official Al Khemi
Council Ranking System.
If that bit in the middle is different
about someone else studying this scroll, you can’t study it. One person per
scroll, period.
You
can STUDY the scroll. This will start the
learning process.
You do not learn scrolls in one study,
and if you do not get a round time when you study, you are NOT learning the
scroll. Study your scrolls once every 5-8 minutes to actually learn it.
Depending on your level, and the level of the scroll, it could take as few as 2
studies to learn the scroll, if it’s below you. Or, depending how high above
you, could take, a great many studies.
If you have more than one scroll, rather than waiting around to study one of the multiple that you have, until you learn it, going at it one at a time. Study one of the scrolls and then put it away, get out another one, study it, and so forth. When you’ve finished studying all those scrolls, you just wait out the time, and then study them all again. You can study as many scrolls at a time as you can carry.
Once you know the formula the scroll
will crumble to dust and you know it for life, and through any trips through
Hades you may make. So, no, you don’t have to re-learn any scrolls if you die.
You can now find the formula by
checking with the FORMULA verb (also check FORMULA HELP for other details on using the
formula verb). This is essentially your spell book.
Some
wolf blood, a pome of rowan…pinch of this, dash of that…the meat and potatoes
of the profession: Mixing formulas.
So, how do you go about doing it?
Well, first you have to know which
formula you want to make, checking with that handy dandy FORMULA verb to see what you know. Type FORMULA #, where # is the number of the formula
you want more information on how to make.
You’ll get a detail like this (using
the result of the above scroll):
>form
87
You
think back on the preparations for the formula classified by the Official
Council at Al Khemi as "#87"....
Formula
# 87 - A bottle of slimy green ooze, the tiny wand formula.
It
uses 2 parts of a bottle of cool water and 4 parts of a dark green cucumber.
It uses your skills in conjuration to create and is circle 1.
You
feel you have a good chance of successfully creating it. *
It is described thusly by your peers:
""The tiny wand creation formula changes a carved wand into a magical tool. The wand will call forth living blobs to attack your enemies. To target your enemies simply SHAKE MY WAND AT <target>. And you will direct a blob at them.
Beware though,
for if your target is too skilled for you, the blob may turn upon you. For it will always seek a target to feed
upon.
To
make a wand first create a bottle of slimy green ooze. Then forage for a stick.
Holding
your stick in your hand, and a knife, CUT the stick. This will trim it down to a size you can work with.
Holding
your short stick, now CARVE your stick until you achieve a rough wand. At this point you're ready for the final
step.
Now pour your ooze over your wand to imbue it with magic."”
*This line is subject to
change depending on the formula’s level, and your level and your skills, so
keep an eye on it. It can read as “difficult for you to create” “fifty-fifty
chance” and then the above good chance.
Well, you see the instructions for carving a wand above, I prefer to do that before mixing, so I have it ready when I’m done. When you’re first level, that will be pretty hard to do successfully. You have to use a stick of a specific type of wood: Cypress, maple, walnut, bamboo. Heavy sticks will not work. The first two types can be found in the Palace Gardens. You can probably ask an older player to take pity on you and carve you the wand. A knife is required to pull off carving, last I knew, fingernails weren’t the best of tools to lay into wood.
As it says, CUT
STICK first and then, you should CARVE STICK a couple times. Shortly you’ll end up
with a crude wand, CARVE WAND once more, it needs to be a rough wand.
So, you see the ingredients needed
above, cucumbers and water. One of these can be obtained by foraging, the
cucumbers.
Places to forage, typically the Palace
Gardens is a good spot, and safe, in the middle of town. (DIR CATACOMBS, you have to pass through the
gardens to get to the catacombs). Outside the Peiraic Gate (DIR PEI and GO GATE,
go one west will get you into terrain you can forage from) But this area isn’t
safe. So if you see a boa constrictor slither into the room, I’d go the other
direction, however, it’s the only place local for you to find cucumbers, so go
for it.
Type HELP FORAGE for a bit of information on this command.
FORAGE AREA simply gives
you a vague terrain type. All rooms of this terrain type have the same things
in it. You could find Deciduous Forest outside Athens, and a room up in Midgard
would have the same list.
FORAGE LIST tells you ALL
the things you can find in that room its at least a full page of STUFF. And
bear in mind, pretty much all of it is used.
Lastly you can FORAGE
<item> you may need to fumble around on what gets you what. But in
this case, cucumbers are pretty basic.
Okay, so you forage up your cucumbers,
if, by some chance, you loose track of how many you have, you can use the MEASURE verb. Which works on more things than just
Alchemical supplies. Play around and measure things, from people, to food, to
critters.
When you measure an
item it should look something like this (mind you, when you’re level 1 you will
only forage things one at a time):
>mea
cuc
You
would guess that there's 25 parts in a dark green cucumber.
It can hold a total of 300.
Don’t worry about getting stung if you
go hunting for honey, that goes away when you attain your second level and gain
more foraging skill, just don’t do it so many times that you kill yourself with
bee stings.
Also with more foraging skill you will get more “parts per grab”. Which means each time you forage for an item (make a grab) you’ll get a number of parts, also your total will get bigger, as my above demonstration shows.
When you get both of your hands full
with items of the SAME type, you can COMBINE
them, into one handful, which is how you fill up your total, and when a formula
calls for more than one piece of something, how you hold all the parts.
For this formula you need to get
some water (Go back inside the city. If you’re elsewhere in the city DIR PEI to orient yourself, and then go EAST 15 times, go around the middle of town on
Metis Circle (S, SE, SE, E, E, NE, NE, N)
and then go EAST, another 15 times, you
should end up at the Diochares Gate. There should be a fountain in the room
description. If you then type GET WATER, get
and COMBINE your water as many times as you
like, you only get it one at a time.
For this next part, you want to go back
to somewhere safe (The Diochares Gate is safe), where you won’t have critters
meander in and attack you. Have a seat, which I have noticed gives you slightly
reduced round times on mixing.
And holding one component in one hand,
and the other component in your other hand. Type COMBINE
or MIX.
Yes, I know that’s an awful round time.
But that’s part of the profession. There are things later in your career that
will make it much more tolerable, and hey, you do get experience for mixing.
Not much sometimes, but you do learn from it.
So, when your round time is done, and
you have (hopefully, if you didn’t make a mistake in mixing) a slimy green ooze
within your grasp. Go ahead and MEASURE it.
Your should see something like this:
>mea
ooze
>A
bottle of slimy green ooze is only one in number, and that's all it can hold.
It
has a potency of 30.
Potency is, as the name suggests,
how effective it is, can mean things like, how long it will last, how much it
will effect, how much it will hurt, etc.
However,
wand oozes are an exception, as I’ll explain in the tool section.
Grab that wand that you hopefully
carved, or had carved for you, and POUR the
ooze on it. POUR OOZE ON WAND.
Again, I know this is an absolutely
awful round time, but the end result is worth it.
If you’ve learned the yellow scroll,
and the yellow papyrus scroll, I’d consider making up a batch of wand feeder.
You need to make up some of Formula #3, as part of making the ooze. The sticky
ooze is used when your tiny wand runs empty. When you make the wand, it’s full
so you don’t need to worry right away, but you will find yourself running out
of power quite quickly.
You POUR
the sticky ooze on a tiny wand that you have already created.
Alchemist
is probably starting to seem like the ultimate couch potato profession by this
point. I can sympathize. What luck though; we can get you along into combat in
this section!
If
you haven’t already, why not mix up a few of that minor healing elixir, you’re
born knowing this formula.
All right, so, hopefully
you have:
A
wand (or a few), you’ve tapped 4 or so times
Some
wand feeder
Some
minor healing elixirs
A
melee weapon
Now
it’s time for the big lecture on some of the finer points of combat, other than
wand shaking.
Combat
is circle based. Meaning that you don’t want to stray from the critters of your
circle. You can get an idea of their difficulty by MEASURE
<critter>. You’ll want to stick with ones that measure equal and
worthy, stay away from dangerous and butt kickers.
Defense depends on either your dodging, or your armor
(which is based on athletics skill.) To use dodging, you pretty much don’t wear
armor, if you do wear armor, you’re using your athletics skill.
Type
SKILL to see how you can look over your
skills. If you’re going to wear armor, I’ve found it better to wear more pieces
of lighter armor, than one piece of heavier armor. You don’t want armor that’s
too heavy, it will hinder you too much and you’ll get hit for more, check your INFO to see if your armor is hindering you. I’d
definitely say go with armor as an alchemist rather than rely upon your dodge
Offense
is based on your circle, with your skill in the type of weapon you’re using
helping you to hit harder.
Every
time you make an offensive move, be it swinging a weapon, or shaking a wand,
you change your STANCE for the duration of
the roundtime. When your stance goes up, your defense goes down, making you
easier to hit.
So,
if you wait to make a move until AFTER you’ve been attacked, your defenses will
be higher while theirs will be lowered. While that might not be the biggest
issue when you’re shaking wands, your stance does go up, making you vulnerable
when you shake it.
If
you’d like to find out how you handle a weapon, take yours out. Keeping in mind
what I just said about stances, wait for the critter to attack and SWING <critter>.
There
are other attacks to use, but why spoil your fun. You can try checking HELP COMBAT, and HELP
BRAWLING, for more combat information.
You
may also wish to know the RETREAT command.
If you find yourself overwhelmed, and getting hurt, use it.
Now,
as to why you carry the minor healing elixirs. Which are MINOR for a reason
they only heal you if you’re slightly, or on the minor end of moderately
injured. Check your HEALTH to check, and
learn where on your health bar, those areas are for you.
For
anything more, you need a greater healing elixir.
DRINK one of those if you
find yourself going down in health…and get out of combat. No shame in leaving a
fight.
If
you find any of this confusing, don’t be afraid to ask for help! Go ahead and DIR MENTOR and RING
the bell!
So,
you go down to the catacombs, DIR CATACOMB
and hunt rats.
Be
careful for rat fiends and skeletons, which will kick the stuffing out of you,
you’re only first circle after all. The skeletons are for 3rd and 4th
circle and I don’t even know what the rat fiends are. So you arrive in the
hunting ground…take off your shield, adding a measure of defense, perhaps it
hinders you though (Check your INFO to see
if your armor hinders you when you remove your shield, if it does, wear it.)
and get out your snazzy new wand.
Now,
when you find yourself a critter type SHAKE MY WAND
AT <critter> (as per the formula instructions)
Now,
if the critter is too far above your current level…that glob of ooze will come ZINGING
back to bite you.
Hopefully
it won’t.
Now
if it doesn’t, GREAT. This time, SHAKE MY WAND
will do, you’ll shake it at the same critter, rather than any new critters of
the same type that have maybe entered the room.
Repeat
that SHAKE MY WAND until you kill the
critter.
If
your hunting rats, put your wand away, wear your shield, get out your blade
(Scimitar, longsword or dagger) and SKIN RAT,
do it quickly, the rat corpses decay away into nothing rather quickly. When you
get more than one rat skin, hold one in each hand and BUNDLE,
so you can sell the bundle at the furrier later. It will take a few rat skins
to get enough to be worth some money.
Don’t
forget to SEARCH RAT, if only to make them
go away. Also when you hunt things that carry treasure, you’ll need to SEARCH the bodies to find it, otherwise it decays
away with the corpse. You don’t need your hands free to search.
You’ll
also encounter bullies down there, I don’t believe they’re too hard, but be
careful. They’ll toss sacks down, open these and get the goodies inside. Or
drop boxes, which you’ll need to have opened for you, and run away. You’ll
occasionally kill them as well, so you’ll have to SEARCH
BULLY to get the stuff off their corpse.
Continue
hunting, checking your EXP on occasion to see how close you are to circling.
Collecting pelts, dropped treasure and whatnot, you’ll get a taste for what
will earn you money and what won’t when you’ve hunted for awhile and tried and
failed to pawn stuff. Bear in mind, some stuff, like copper bangles, bronze
disk earrings you’ll have better luck selling them at the gem shop.
If
the shop won’t buy it, don’t just drop it in on the floor, DISCARD <item> and keep Athens clean. Also,
discard the sacks that critters drop after you’ve cleaned them out. It keeps
you from being confused on which sacks you’ve emptied and which you haven’t.
Don’t want to forget any treasure!
If
you decide to go fighting a constrictor just outside the gate, and it manages
to catch you in it’s coils type BREAK Constrictor to get out of it’s grasp. One squeeze
and you’ll never want to be there again!
Lastly
if your knapsack, or backpack, or whatever container gets full, you can get
your mule: WHISTLE FOR STEED. Be nice to
your mule. Just open the saddlebag on the beast, plop whatever you want to
store off your person there, and then SLAP MY MULE,
to send it back to the safety of the stables.
Mules
will run from monsters, will not come if you whistle for them while at melee,
and will not come to you when you are indoors, or underground or whatnot. The
catacombs are underground, so you’ll have to go back out the crack to put
anything on your mule.
How
in HADES did I get HERE?!
Hopefully
you will not head to Hades on your first hunting trip. I can’t give away
secrets, and some of you may want to figure out things for yourself. Don’t panic! You can go about it two
ways. You can…attempt to find your way out. Or you can DEPART.
Hades
(the god) has set up puzzles in your path to prevent you from escaping his
domain of the Underworld. There are a few ways out, but they are none of them
easy. Take the time to learn your way out, don’t DEPART
if you don’t have to. You can depart up until your 5th level,
without suffering a death curse, after that…well there’s a variety of curses to
be cursed with, not all of them are curable, and none of them are fun.
One
small step for…
After
a lot of shaking your wand at creatures (hopefully no wrist sprain!). And
perhaps even collecting some dinars. Gods willing, you haven’t died.
You
check that EXP of yours and…golly gee you’ve
managed to earn those 1000 points, now it’s telling you to HELP TRAIN!
So…go
forage yourself up some laurel leaves for your offering.
Following
the HELP TRAIN instructions, find the temple
of your god. All of the gods have a shrine in the Palace, and Apollo has a
temple in the NW quad you can get DIRections
for.
OFFER LAUREL LEAVES
DONATE 1
DINAR (donate a dinar value of your
current level)
And PRAY!
The
angels sing, stars dance…the ray of light shines down.
Welcome to level 2.
You have to make some
choices now.
The
numbers under Cost to Train, inside the parenthesis is the training point cost.
The number alone is what we start with. Ranks per level is, which skills go up
how much per level as an Alchemist.
|
Skill |
Point Cost to Train |
Ranks Per Level |
Skill |
Point Cost to Train |
Ranks Per Level |
Brawling Skills |
Alchemy Skills |
||||
|
Punching |
0 (10) |
0.5 |
Healing |
5 ( 5) |
3 |
|
Kicking |
0 (10) |
0.5 |
Explosives |
5 ( 5) |
3 |
|
Throwing |
1 (10) |
0.5 |
Alterations |
5 ( 5) |
3 |
|
Grappling |
0 (10) |
0.5 |
Conjurations |
5 ( 5) |
3 |
Weapon Skills |
Magic Skills |
||||
|
One-Handed |
1 ( 8) |
1 |
Spiritual |
0 (12) |
0.2 |
|
Two-Handed |
1 ( 8) |
1 |
Mental |
0 (12) |
0.2 |
|
Ranged |
1 ( 7) |
1.5 |
Alteration |
0 (12) |
0.2 |
|
Improvised |
1 (10) |
0.5 |
Relics |
0 (12) |
0.2 |
Acrobatics Skills |
Mechanical Skills |
||||
|
Dodging |
2 ( 8) |
1 |
Locks |
1 ( 8) |
1 |
|
Escaping |
2 ( 8) |
1 |
Traps |
1 ( 8) |
1 |
|
Tumbling |
2 ( 8) |
1 |
Smithing |
2 ( 5) |
3 |
|
Catching |
2 ( 8) |
1 |
Gadgeteering |
3 ( 5) |
2.5 |
Physical Skills |
Arcane
Skills |
||||
|
Health |
* ( 6) |
2.2 |
Lore |
1 ( 5) |
2.5 |
|
Stealth |
0 ( 8) |
1 |
Foraging |
3 ( 5) |
3 |
|
Athletics |
2 ( 8) |
1 |
Art |
0 ( 8) |
1 |
|
Adrenal |
2 ( 8) |
1 |
Perception |
1 ( 6) |
2 |
*Depends on starting
strength as to what your health starts at.
Now,
there are other modifiers as to what goes up how. Your choice of god, and your
race can have a significant impact upon your skills.
My
advice is to train only your alchemy when you level, this will make your mixes
more potent. What this does is, because you’re an alchemist, you can mix up
combat draughts when you get into your teens. Or make use of a real variety of
other tools.
They
won’t have much effectiveness till even later. But if you choose to fight with
weapons, it’s more cost effective in terms of skill points to spend 10 points
on 2 ranks of alterations, rather than 16 points on 2 ranks of the weapon of
your choice.
The
name of the game for training is specialization. But stick with a path of
training. Don’t train like an alchemist who wishes that they could fight as
well as a warrior. It won’t work.
Don’t
worry about training gadgeteering, or foraging, as you can see, they go up at a
respectable rate on their own.
All
the alchemy trainers can be found in the Northwest corner of the training
Palaestra. You can find the Palaestra by typing DIR
TRAINER.
Ask
a trainer about training to see what they train, and how much it will cost you
in terms of dinar and points.
ASK <name> ABOUT TRAINING and then when you decide to train with a trainer you TRAIN WITH <name>
I
won’t tell you what to train, but given that some of our most powerful combat
tools use either explosives, or conjurations, I would suggest those.
You
can double train three of our skills. Or double training two and split the last
two between the other two alchemy skills.
Don’t
worry about training foraging, your natural profession training will be plenty.
Healing:
Home to of course, the healing elixirs. But also, poisons, and antidotes,
scarabs and life draining rings, which I’ll explain in the tool section.
Explosives:
While home to only 5 of all your formulas, they are a potent part of your
arsenal. The name of the section I think is description enough.
Alterations:
Think of this as PHYSICAL alterations, home to your beauty products, which
alter the user physically in appearance. Permanently until they decide to
change again. Combat draughts with alter your combat prowess in different ways,
and skin potions, which alter your skin to take damage, altering you in yet
another way. Sleeping wands and the iron spike.
Conjurations:
Summoning something from nothing. Sort of. Vines, bees, globs of ooze, sleeping
powders, rainbows that raise your combat skill. Home to your tiny wand.
Never triple train. It’s a waste of your hard-earned training points. The
first two trains are at the standard cost of points, but the third one costs
you double the points. You can spend those points on another skill. So while
your skill goes up faster, you’re sacrificing another skill’s chance to go up,
and your overall capability.
As
an example… Depending on your god. If you choose Apollo, every other level,
three out of four of your alchemy skills will go up 4 ranks alone. 3 ranks
because of your profession and .5 because of Apollo, the .5 kicks in every
other level for a full rank. And then you can train the skill twice.
Apollo trains healing a
full point when you level.
“To infinity, and beyond!” Stuff for beyond the basics…
Hopefully
the stuff you managed to muddle your way through to get to this point will get
you to 5th circle without too much trouble, and that’s where I could
leave off. But there’s so much to being an alchemist, I also thought that a
section for “now what?” was in order. Please, read ahead, it’ll help you get a
much better bead on the profession.
“Yes,
I’d like to buy a clue.”
A
clue for what you might ask?
You’ve
gone through the above routines countless times by this point, you’ve circled,
you’ve pawned, you’ve hunted, you’ve trained. And now, you are level 5 for this
part.
If
you haven’t heard of it before, this is that thing I mentioned earlier that
eases your life as an Alchemist.
WHAT?!
I can hear you yelling at me, to cut to the chase, I know it.
The
ability to batch. Yes, that means what you THINK it means. You can make SOME of
your formulas in batches.
SOOO, how do you get this
miraculous ability?
I
can’t tell you. It’s a puzzle quest, the riddle of the Sphinx, three trials,
bring back item to teacher, Fed-Ex kind of quest. That’s where the buying the
clue thing comes in.
The
SE quad alchemist shop sells a slip of paper that’s the clue.
However,
often times someone will help you out…for some of it.
So,
skipping on past the actual acquisition of this lovely ability…
BATCH HELP gives you a
nice outline.
BATCH
(HEALING | EXPLOSIVE | ALTERATION | REAGENT | CONJURATION) (#)
Set yourself to the number of that particular formula type
that you wish to make.
Example: batch explosive 5
So,
whenever you hold the fixings for an explosive formula in your hand, you would
try to create explosives in batches of 5. You just set your batch and combine
as usual. If you don’t have enough components, you’ll be told.
You’ll find yourself
constantly toggling this.
If a formula can not be
batched, it will say so in the formula description.
REAGENTS:
this is something that eludes many alchemists when they’re young, myself
included. If you want to batch a reagent, you have to play with this, they may
USE one of your specific alchemy skills, but they are made as a reagent.
Reagent
formulas include the eyebright and sunflower mash, the wine vinegar, the
sun-infused water, and the tannin formula. But just think: if this formula is
used in the creation of another, it’s a reagent.
If
you type BATCH #, where number is the
formula number, you will get a number of how many of that specific formula you
feel you could comfortably make in a batch. Subtract one for safety as a rule
of thumb. I prefer using this to BATCH
<healing/explosives/reagent/alterations/conjurations> simply
because it takes up less space on my screen. But the result is also I think
more accurate.
A couple answers to odds and ends questions about batch…
If
a formula is batched, no, the resulting concoctions are no less potent.
However a formula that is
batched, the result may not be used by a non-Alchemist. So you have to craft
anything for your non-Chemist friends in singles. Slow, but dems da breaks. To
clear a batch # selection, you set it to 0 and not to 1.
An
Alchemical Armory, Tools of the Trade
So,
if one doesn’t use weapons, what does one use to wreak havoc on the denizens of
ancient Greece, Egypt and Midgard?
Well,
you have an expanding array of choices to pick from actually.
Goldwater and the Three Tiny Wands
We
covered the tiny wand, briefly, and I said we’d cover it in more depth later
on, this is later. This set of weapons uses your Alchemical Conjurations skill.
I
told you to TAP your wand. What this does is
increase it’s potential for damage. But it also sucks more power per shake.
|
Before
Tapping |
After
Tapping |
|
The wand has 130.200
power remaining out of 130.200 maximum. It has a mark 1 ejection
system. It has a class 6 ooze
manifold. It is boosted 0 out of 20
levels. It currently is using 1.0
power per shot. |
The wand has 130.200
power remaining out of 130.200 maximum. It has a mark 1 ejection
system. It has a class 6 ooze
manifold. It is boosted 8 out of 20
levels. It currently is using 3.0
power per shot. |
8 taps boosts it so it
sucks 3 power per shake. Each shake is likely to do more damage, but you will
go through power faster.
This
holds true for all wands. The ejection system and manifold are some way of
telling how strong it is. It’s changed for sleepy wands into a dust launcher
and dust charger.
The
higher level you are, with more conjuration skill, the more power your wand
will have. The numbers will go up when you feed it normally, as will the
ejection system and the manifold.
So,
when you’re young, your wands will not hold as much power, nor will they do as
much damage.
When
you reach 80 ranks in your conjuration skill, you may PULL
the tiny wand and turn it into a tiny rod, which measures something like this,
again, depending on circle and skills.
|
The rod has 173.556 power
remaining out of 187.650 maximum. It has a mark 11 thorn
growth system. It has a class 49
goldwater cell. It is boosted 0 out of 49
levels. It currently is using 1.0
power per shot. |
As
you might be able to guess from the text, they are loaded with gold water.
Depending on your skill, you will get more shots per gold water.
You
LOAD the rod with gold water, rather than
pouring it on. On the plus side, there is no roundtime to loading a rod, so the
carrying around of extra rods isn’t as needed as carrying around spare wands.
Again
at 160 conjurations, you may PULL the rod to
turn it into a tiny helix. Doing yet more damage, it is also loaded with gold
water. Helixes attack multiple times with one shake, producing a lot scroll,
but also a great deal of damage; they also randomly poison with any of the
poisons that alchemists can create.
The helix has 12.25 power remaining out of 978.900
maximum.
It has a mark 19 tentacle culture system.
It has a class 31 gold water powercell.
It is boosted 0 out of 70 levels.
It currently is using 1.0 power per shot.
WARNING,
do not use the above rods or helixes without the skill needed to change it, the
result is lethal.
Sleeping Wands and Spikes
There
are two other types of wands. Both of them are sleeping wands and the
oneiromancer wand uses your Alchemical Alteration skill.
First
at level 8, you get the formula for the Dust of Narcoleptis, this wand uses
your conjurations skill.
And
then at 18, you get the oneiromancer wand formula.
These
you WAVE at the target rather than shake,
like the tiny wand and it’s secondary and tertiary incarnations.
The
former is mixed from poppy and sand, and the wand is the result, the second,
you carve like a tiny wand and pour an ooze over. It is reloaded with the
poison of Narcoleptis (Circle 9).
Sleeping
can be useful on occasion, usually if you take up the tactic of being a
grenadier Alchemist. Wave the wand, putting the target to sleep and then chuck
a bottle of powder at it. A sleeping and prone critter is almost impossible to
miss.
With
more skill in alterations you can attempt to TURN
the oneiromancer wand and turn it into a thick iron spike. In the process of
creation the spike will attempt to suck out about half of your life. You can
then wear it and it will bond to you. You will find that you won’t be able to
remove it until it’s fully fed. Each feeding drains you to nearly no life. So a
full feeding will take you awhile, and a lot of healing elixir. Lucky for you,
it also acts as a small piece of armor. In addition, it also has the ability to
shoot shards of metal when you POINT it at a
target. Fair warning though, that it sucks life to shoot, and it sucks even
more life when you hit for damage.
With yet again more alteration skill you can attempt to TURN the heavy iron spike into a sleek iron
tri-spike. Holds more shots, does more damage, sucks more life.
Vampire
Rings
Now
with all that talk of life draining from you, time to bring up the vamp rings.
They depend upon your Alchemical Healing skill, and come in three strengths.
These rings can be purchased in the SW quad’s alchemy shop, in the main room’s
wares. You cannot wear the least of the rings without at least 5 in your
healing skill.
You
first have to RUB them, to set their
numbers. This will drain some of your life from you, and if you don’t have
enough health, it might kill you. To work it, you then to POINT RING AT <critter>. A fluffy little
mote will go suck some life from a target, and store it in your ring. There is
chance on that first time you use the ring that it’ll try to suck you dry here
if you lack the skill.
The
ring will fill up and hold power from the targets. I find that they don’t do
much in the way of damage, but their payoff is that when you RUB them, you get a small shot of instant healing.
Which can save your life. You can TWIST the
ring to change its material look, and TURN
the ring to change its color. Both are purely cosmetic, they don’t actually
effect how well it does what it does.
War-weapons
This
houses a group of tools that utilize your Alchemical Explosives skill.
Bronze warhands, which are
loaded with brown powder.
Silver war-rats, which are
loaded with grey powder.
Iron warbunnies, which are
loaded with white powder.
Steel warstaffs, which are
loaded with red powder.
Unlike
the wands, these weapons have a static number of charges they can carry; they
do not go up with skill. And their ability to do more damage goes up slower.
However, this does not hinder their ability to be devastating tools.
Warhands
can be used by anyone, of any profession, loaded by anyone. If you TAP them, you’ll notice they morph animal shapes.
As an Alchemist, I’d keep yours on dragon.
|
Single
Skills |
Combo
Skills |
Dragon - Explosives skill
|
Hyena - Gadgets and explosives skills
|
|
Hawk - Ranged skill |
Nightengale - Lore and
arts skills |
|
Eagle - Lore skill |
Lion - Ranged and
smithing skills |
|
Viper - Traps skill |
Gorilla - One handed and
smithing skills |
|
Owl - Relic skill |
Monkey - Traps and
stealth skills. |
|
Bear - Punching skill |
Dove - Relics and lore
skills. |
|
Griffon - Gadgets skill |
|
The
other three war-weapons are designed more for the alchemist alone.
If
you do not have the skill to load them (I’d guess, perhaps 3-5 levels after you
acquire the powder it’s loaded with would be safe), they’ll blow up in your
face leaving you deathly injured. This happens when non-Alchemists try to load
them as well.
When
you load them, you don’t have to pick up the powder, just LOAD <weapon> WITH <color> POWDER.
The
first three can be found in the NW quad Alchemist shop, in the North room.
The
warstaff can be purchased in Alexandria at Masters of Stuff And Things, also
known as Al Khemi (for the record, Al Khemi is like a bulk bin warehouse, you
can get a lot of things in VERY large numbers there.)
But
be warned you will be paying out your ears for these tools (149 dinars for the
warhand, 1299 for the war-rat, 4999 for the warbunny and 21000 for the
warstaff). However, I’ve found my warstaff to be very, very nice.
As
a warning, not quite as severe as the one for the rods and helixes, these
weapons like to backfire if you don’t have quite enough Alchemical Explosives.
It becomes a non-issue after some skill. But you can’t say you weren’t warned.
Scarabs
You’re
little blood-sucking friends.
>formula 71
You think back on the preparations for the
formula classified by the Official Council at Al Khemi as "#71"....
Formula # 71 - A vial of thin red liquid,
the liquid of harvesting.
It uses 2 parts of a vial of zombie blood
and 1 part of a bright red rowan tree pome.
It uses your skills in healing to create
and is circle 10.
You feel you have a good chance of
successfully creating it.
It is described thusly by your peers:
"This potion, when properly applied
to a carved scarab, imbues the gem with the ability to absorb some (though NOT
ALL) of the damage that would otherwise be inflicted on its wearer. The amount of damage it can absorb is based
on the potency of the potion. Once the
scarab is 'filled', the wearer (if he or she is not you) can return it to you
to be drained. Once you RUB the scarab,
all the damage it has absorbed will be transferred to you. If the scarab still exists after the
transfer, you can then return it to its owner to use again. There can only ever be one user per scarab.
"To activate the gem, POUR this
potion on it after you have CUT yourself with something sharp since blood is
required to 'educate' the scarab as to its purpose.
"Appropriate gems for scarabs are:
tourmaline, malachite, aventurine, carnelian, agate, onyx, jade, and
jasper."
You know this formula can NOT be made in
batches.
So
when you get hit, they suck off a portion of the damage. Scarabs are a
fantastic tool for Alchemists, and other professions like them too. This is the
least of the three Harvesting formulas; there are two others, the greater liquid
at 25th, and the master liquid at 40th.
They
suck more damage per hit than the lesser, but because they’re higher level
formulas, their scarabs don’t hold as much.
Higher
potency of the liquid, more damage a scarab can take before filling, they take
20 drops of blood per point of potency.
And
yes, they do break after awhile. So you do have to make new ones.
Drinking
and Drugs…Combat Draughts
Well,
as long as you’re not drinking and driving…
This won’t kick in until
after 10th level, but it deserves a notation.
Now,
when one mixes up a draught, you measure it, and you’ll see that it’s toxic to
anyone but you.
No, this isn’t anything to
do with batching.
If
you want to sell your draughts, you’re going to need to detoxify them. Using
one of the detox gels. That will make them able to be consumed by anyone. They
are still however subject to the batch rules. Detox gels don’t get rid of that.
Most alchemists don’t even bother anymore because detoxing their products is
pretty expensive.
Detoxifying
however does not apply to the Draught of Hestia. Unlike all the other draughts,
which boost offense. Hestia boosts your defense and kills your offensive
capability. It’s great when used with a tiny wand/rod or war-weapon.
Your
skill in alterations determines how well a draught will effect you. The potency
determines how long it will last. Hence it’s not a big deal for non-chemists to
use draughts. They wouldn’t effect very much.
Hermes - currently haste’s you, boosts
your dodging and escape skills.
Athena - boosts one-handed, and
athletics skill.
Nike - boosts your chance of a critical
hit.
Ares - will boost all damage, remove all defense skills.
Hestia - will remove all weapon skills,
and boost dodge, athletics and escaping skills.
What?
You mean there’s MORE?
Isn’t
there always? This is less specific stuff than the tools though.
Most
of your components can be found through foraging. However many of them can not.
You have to dissect some creatures for
components.
This can be achieved by:
Holding a knife or sharp weapon in one
hand, with the other empty and DISSECT
<corpse>.
This is not the same as skinning
either, some creatures can be dissected and skinned, some simply one or the
other.
Some creatures you dissect are: Zombies, Snakes (Cobras, Constrictors), Lynxes, Mermels, Bears (Sun, Red, Brown, and Grizzly’s get you bear fat, Sloth bears get you sloth bear claws, which are for priests). Tigers, Wolves, Lions (again, the result of lion dissection is for priests) and Golems.
You might have to buy some components,
or you may find gems on creatures that can be ground into various kinds of
dust, or carved to suit your purposes.
Grinding requires you to forage up one
of those smooth rocks, and GRIND <gem> WITH
ROCK.
Carving
is with a knife; you CARVE <gem> WITH KNIFE.
Any formula that involves gems though will take place at, or after your 10th
level.
Now since some of your formulas are
poisons, I should tell you how to use them, you won’t initially have the
gadgeteering skill to perform this. To poison a weapon, you hold it in one
hand, and the poison in the other and…
POISON <weapon>
There are a few results you could get,
poorly poisoned, efficiently poisoned or decidedly un-poisonous…lastly, you did
it so badly that you poisoned yourself and not the weapon!
It
will take sometimes a couple levels past what level the poison was for,
sometimes a great deal more than a couple to be able to actually poison the
weapon with the poison. Poisoning is based on your gadgeteering, as well as
your trap skill, and your intelligence.
By
no means is this the end of things, but it should be more than enough to set
you on your way.
Web Resources
A
fantastic all around resource, for a member of any profession, or just for
general matters. She also has a verb list, maps, and for alchemists, a
fantastic scroll list.
Shadows in the Catacomb
http://members.aol.com/sabin4545/private/catacomb/index.html
A
very well laid out display of skill modifiers, training costs, and starting
skills. This is where I got my info for the training tables here.
Epoclaen’s Archives
http://users.nni.com/epoclaen/
Handy
dandy potency calculator, a nifty foraging location finder, and a host of other
goodies, that aren’t devoted to the alchemist. Comes in both flash, and
non-flash flavors.