Crafting
Alchemy
Alchemy converts the reagents Begging and shopping bring in into something worth drinking. The early potions are convenience; the later ones are the difference between surviving a bad fight and not. Every brew wants an empty bottle, which is a Tinkering problem before it is an Alchemy one.
Potions
What each one actually does, and what it costs to make. Thrown potions are combat-only and target the monster; the rest you drink.
| Skill | Potion | Effect | Use | Reagents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No requirement |  Heal Potion | Restores 15 HP | Drunk | 1x garlic, 1x ginseng, 1x spider silk |
| 50.0 |  Greater Heal Potion | Restores 40 HP | Drunk | 3x garlic, 3x ginseng, 2x mandrake root, 1x spider silk |
| 20.0 |  Cure Potion | Cures poison | Drunk | 1x garlic, 1x ginseng |
| 30.0 |  Poison Potion | Brushed onto your weapon: a chance on every landed hit to poison the target, at a rank your Poisoning skill rolls | Applied to a weapon | 2x nightshade, 1x spider silk |
| 30.0 |  Mana Potion | Restores 30 mana | Drunk | 1x black pearl, 1x spider silk |
| 30.0 |  Refresh Potion | Restores 30 Stamina | Drunk | 1x black pearl, 1x ginseng |
| 60.0 |  Total Refresh Potion | Restores all Stamina | Drunk | 3x black pearl, 3x ginseng, 2x blood moss |
| 40.0 |  Strength Potion | +10 Strength | Drunk | 1x mandrake root, 1x ginseng |
| 75.0 |  Greater Strength Potion | +20 Strength | Drunk | 5x mandrake root, 3x ginseng, 3x blood moss |
| 40.0 |  Agility Potion | +10 Dexterity | Drunk | 1x blood moss, 1x mandrake root |
| 75.0 |  Greater Agility Potion | +20 Dexterity | Drunk | 5x blood moss, 3x mandrake root, 3x black pearl |
| 30.0 |  Explosion Potion | 5–15 damage | Thrown | 1x black pearl, 3x sulfurous ash |
| 80.0 |  Greater Explosion Potion | 30–40 damage | Thrown | 3x black pearl, 10x sulfurous ash |
| 70.0 |  Invisibility Potion | Hides you from what you are fighting | Drunk | 10x blood moss, 10x nightshade |
| 100.0 |  Shrink Potion | — | Used on the companion at your heel | 25x black pearl, 25x blood moss, 25x garlic, 25x ginseng, 25x mandrake root, 25x nightshade, 25x spider silk, 25x sulfurous ash |
How long a buff lasts
- Strength and Agility potions
- 300s
- Drinking a second of the same kind
- Refreshes it — a Greater replaces a regular rather than adding to it
- With Bless up
- They do not add — on the potion's stat only the bigger bonus counts, and Bless still raises the other two
BLESS AND A STAT POTION DO NOT ADD UP. On the potion's own stat only the bigger of the two counts: a Greater Strength Potion (+20) outranks a full-strength Bless (+10) for as long as it lasts, while a Strength Potion (+10) adds nothing on top of it. Bless still raises your other two stats in full, and neither is wasted — when the stronger one runs out, the weaker carries on for whatever time it has left. Bless's +10 is its full strength and it scales with the caster's Magery, so under a weaker Bless even a Strength Potion lifts that stat. Agility potions work the same way on Dexterity.
Every brew wants an empty bottle, and bottles are a Tinkering recipe. Run out of glass and the best reagents in the world sit in your pack.
Every potion trains Alchemy at the same rate per reagent, so there is no secret best recipe to grind. A bigger recipe trains faster per BREW only because it spends more reagents per brew — brew Invisibility instead of Heal and you reach Grandmaster in a tenth of the attempts and on the same pile of reagents. Pick by what you want in your pack, or by how fast you are willing to spend; either way the reagent bill is the same.
Rares
Five yard pieces found only by working this skill. Any work at the skill can turn one up — every swing or craft, success or failure, and the hours you put in while logged out as well. Each stands in your yard or your house, carries its own story on its tooltip, and trades like any other item.
| Piece | Its story |
|---|---|
 The Copper Alembic | A copper still, hammered by hand and bent into more coils than any recipe calls for, which is exactly how its first owner liked it. It has distilled everything from Greater Heals to a brandy still spoken of in Moonglow in low voices. The drip never stops, even when it is empty. |
 Homunculus in a Jar | A tall jar of green brine sealed with wax, and in it a figure no longer than your thumb that is not quite finished. It was meant to be the crowning work of a Moonglow alchemist's career. It waves. It has been waving for fifty years, and nobody has yet worked out whether it means hello. |
 The Philosopher's Pebble | Four generations of alchemists chased the stone that turns lead into gold, and this is what they caught: a warm red pebble that turns lead into slightly heavier lead. Every Moonglow apprentice is shown it on their first day, as an encouragement or as a warning, depending on the teacher. |
 The Oversized Flask | One Greater Heal, brewed at the wrong scale by an apprentice who misread 'a flask the size of a thumb'. It took a wagon to get it out of the workshop. A sip would mend a regiment, and nobody has ever been able to lift it high enough to take one. |
 Keg of Volatile Reagents | The keg an alchemist of Vesper filled on the day she decided to brew Explosion Potions by the barrel instead of the bottle. The keg came through without a scratch. The shop around it has been rebuilt twice since, and each time the keg has been moved a little further down the garden. |