Overview
Alchemy is a complex technology with many uses, including but by no means limited to: transmutation of lead into gold (and vice versa); creation of special materials like arsenic and Angel's Stone; instant conversion of ash to potash; improved flower fertilizer; the fusing or shattering of gems; and transformation of glower colors.
There are three steps to alchemy:
- In an Alembic, the production of distilled spirits from wine or beer.
- In an Assimilation Bath, the combination of distilled spirits and other ingredients to produce more than 20 known basic tinctures.
- At an Alchemy Bench, the combination of basic tinctures into alchemical compounds.
Distillation
Spirits are distilled at an alembic, which requires the Distillation skill to operate. See Distillation for more information on the use of an Alembic.
Alchemy requires Grain Spirits, of purity Water or better (i.e. anything but Earth).
Basic Tinctures
The basic tinctures are produced in an Assimilation Bath, which requires the Alchemical Maceration skill to operate. A basic tincture is made from four components: spirits, and ingredients of sun, moon, and stars. The formulae for the basic tinctures were discovered on ancient tablets found buried beneath trees. It is known that there are many more tinctures than those listed here; however, the means of producing them is as yet unknown.
To make a basic tincture, simply load the appropriate ingredients, along with 7 grain spirits of water (or better), into an assimilation bath. Each batch of ingredients produces 50 tincture.
| Sun | Stars | Moon | |
| -15 Af -15 | 4 Slaves Bread | 7 Copper Ore | 2 White Sand |
| -2 Bn 6 | 3 Camel Milk | 6 Lithium Ore | 7 Charcoal |
| -9 Bt 17 | 3 Sand Spore | 6 Iron Ore | 6 Silt |
| -13 Cn 2 | 7 Eye of Osiris | 1 Copper Ore | 5 Gypsum |
| 1 Cp 10 | 7 Abdju | 1 Lead Ore | 4 Saltpeter |
| -4 Di 20 | 2 Toad Skin | 7 Iron Ore | 4 Coal |
| -15 Dm -1 | 1 Salt Water Fungus | 7 Gold Ore | 5 Bauxite |
| 7 Ek 19 | 6 Eye of Osiris | 4 Lithium Ore | 3 Charcoal |
| 5 Fa 19 | 6 Cabbage | 7 Aluminum Ore | 2 Bauxite |
| -14 Fd 3 | 1 Dead Tongue | 7 Lead Ore | 2 Lime |
| -1 Fy 6 | 5 Salt Water Fungus | 1 Aluminum Ore | 4 Potash |
| -12 Gb 20 | 4 Abdju | 7 Red Sand | 2 Petroleum |
| -13 Gs -9 | 3 Leeks | 2 Red Sand | 3 Petroleum |
| -10 Gu 5 | 7 Phagrus | 3 Zinc Ore | 3 Crushed Egg Shells |
| 3 Hp 16 | 3 Garlic | 5 Copper Ore | 7 Potash |
| -3 Hr 11 | 7 Perch | 2 Lead Ore | 1 Potash |
| -14 Hy 7 | 4 Carp | 1 Red Sand | 5 Crushed Egg Shells |
| 3 Ib 19 | 5 Hairy Tooth | 7 Red Sand | 3 Saltpeter |
| -20 Ig -13 | 2 Heart of Ash | 1 Red Sand | 3 Gypsum |
| -15 Ot -6 | 4 Hairy Tooth | 4 Copper Ore | 6 Sulfur |
| -17 Pn -10 | 1 Carp | 4 Zinc Ore | 2 Saltpeter |
| -10 Pz -7 | 6 Colt's Foot | 1 Tin Ore | 2 Petroleum |
| -9 Qr 1 | 6 Camel Meat | 3 Gold Ore | 1 Petroleum |
| -6 Rd 20 | 6 Phagrus | 4 Lithium Ore | 6 Charcoal |
| -20 Rv 6 | 5 Dung Rot | 1 Aluminum Ore | 5 Gypsum |
Base tincture quick print chart.
Reducing Agent
Mix Reducing Agent: requires 400 Water in Jugs, 1 Cobra Venom, and 1 Lime; yields 400 Reducing Agent.Reducing Agent is made and used in an Alchemy Bench to reduce tinctures in the flask. In order to use the reducing agent, there are two functions: Sprinkle it on top or inject it from the bottom.
When sprinkling it on the top, one of each tincture is removed from the flask. e.g. You have: Di(3) DiIb(47) Ib(3) left in the flask and want to move it along to completion more quickly. Sprinkling reducing agent on the top will leave you with: Di(2) DiIb(46) Ib(2)
When injecting it from the bottom, there is a 50 percent chance of removing one of the two tinctures in positions A and B of a chain. These positions are dependent on the length of the compound, assuming that compounds are represented as a zero indexed array (As in C or Java) the positions of A and B are thus:
| Position | Rule (C / Java syntax) | Rule (spreadsheet syntax) |
| A | length / 2 | trunc(length / 2) |
| B | (length / 2) + (length % 2) * ((length + 1) / 2) - 1 | trunc(length / 2) + (trunc(length, 2) * trunc((length + 1) / 2)) - 1 |
This has rule has been tested on compounds up to 9 tinctures long> It appears to work for longer chains, however we have limited data on reductions on this length of compound.
| Length | Position A | Position B | |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 1 | 0 | 01 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 012 |
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 0123 |
| 5 | 2 | 4 | 01234 |
| 6 | 3 | 2 | 012345 |
| 7 | 3 | 6 | 0123456 |
| 8 | 4 | 3 | 01234567 |
| 9 | 4 | 8 | 012345678 |
Example: Reducing DiIbRvOtHpHrRv (length 7)
| Index | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Tincture | Di | Ib | Rv | Ot | Hp | Hr | Rv |
| Positions | A | B |
Possible results:
- DiIbRvHpHrRv (50%)
- DiIbRvOtHpHr (50%)
Complex Tinctures
The most complex part of alchemy is the production of tincture compounds at an alchemy bench. When you start, you'll probably want to sticky the alchemy bench window, and click on Mix, and sticky that window as well. You're going to need to click on both of those a lot.
The most basic operation is adding a tincture, which can be done by clicking a tincture from the Mix window. This brings up a window to ask how many of them you want to throw in, which will usually be one. When you add a tincture to the bench, it appears in the box at the bottom of the alchemy bench window with a pair of numbers. You can add several different tinctures to the bench in this manner.
Each basic tincture comes with a pair of numbers, for example -2 Bn 6. Two different compounds can react if there is a number from each, such that the sum of the two numbers is at most 1 in norm, i.e., is 1, 0, or -1. For example, -2 Bn 6 can react with -15 Ot -6 because 6+(-6) = 0. However, -2 Bn 6 cannot react with -20 Rv 6 because (-20)+(-2) = -22, (-2)+6 = 4, (-20)+6 = -14, and 6+6 = 12, none of which are sufficiently close to zero.
When two compounds react, the numbers that reacted with each other will disappear, and the new compound will then have the other two numbers. For example, in the case above, mix -2 Bn 6 with -15 Ot -6 to get -15 BnOt -2. The 6 and -6 vanish, leaving the -2 from the Bn and the -15 from the Ot. The smaller number always goes on the left in any compound.
Note also that sometimes there is more than one possible reaction, in which case the one to react happens randomly. For example, -6 HpOt 3 can react with -2 Bn 6 to form either -6 BnHpOt 6 or -2 BnHpOt 3. Which one will actually appear is chosen at random, and can vary from one try to the next.
When two compounds react, they are concatenated, with the one lower in lexicographic order on the left. In other words, they are stuck to each other, with the one that comes first alphabetically on the left. For example, when Bn reacts with Ot, you always get BnOt, and never OtBn. The same applies to larger compounds. For example, react BnOt with HpHr to get BnOtHpHr. Another example would be reacting BnOt with Bn to get BnBnOt.
Many pairs of tinctures cannot be reacted with each other immediately because the numbers don't match. To deal with this, you can use reducing agent. Inject reducing agent from the bottom (do not sprinkle it on top) to make one tincture vanish from a compound. For example, if you want to make -2 Bn 6 react with -20 Rv 6 to make BnRv, you could react -2 Bn 6 with -6 Rd 20 to make -2 BnRd 20, then react this with -20 Rv 6 to make -2 BnRdRv 6. Use the reducing agent to eliminate the Rd to leave -2 BnRv 6, the desired compound.
Reducing agent chooses the element to remove at random, except that in a compound of three or more tinctures, it will not reduce the one on the far left. For example, in the above case, the reducing agent could have reduced BnRdRv to give BnRd or BnRv, and chooses which one you get at random. It cannot reduce the Bn to give RdRv, however. In a compound of two tinctures, reducing agent can remove either of the compounds. For example, if you add reducing agent to BnOt as above, you could get Bn or you could get Ot.
If you have two of the same compound, they will stack to give the same numbers. If it is two single tinctures, they always stack to give the original numbers. For example, if as above we use reducing agent to get -15 Bn -2, and then mix in another -2 Bn 6, you will always get -2 Bn 6 (2), and never -15 Bn -2 (2).
Compounds of multiple tinctures have no such canonical pair of numbers, so they can stack to give either of the previous pairs of numbers. For example, if as above, we make -2 BnHpOt 3, and then make a -6 BnHpOt 6, they will stack to give the same numbers. However, they could stack to give either -2 BnHpOt 3 (2) or -6 BnHpOt 6 (2).
Once you have made the compound you want, you can filter the precipitate to remove the compound and then use it. For a new compound, if you have the scrying skill, you can scry it on the alchemy bench to find out if it does anything. If you don't have scrying, you can give it to someone else to scry it. It is recommended that you report the results of any new compound on the tincture tracker:
http://neologic.net/tt/index.php
Now the trick is to find an efficient way to make the compound you want. The way to start for most compounds is to pick a tincture in the compound to serve as the base. The idea is to then attach other compounds to your base compound to get the numbers you want so that you can attach the other two tinctures, then reduce repeatedly to get just your base tincture, then add the other two tinctures to make your compound.
The tinctures Cn, Fd, and Hy can never be used as a base tincture. If you're trying to make a three tincture compound with the tinctures not in alphabetical order (e.g., BnOtHp), then the last tincture in the compound cannot be used as the base. Other than that, you can use any of the tinctures in the compound as the base.
The main problem is that, once you have the numbers you want, reducing repeatedly won't necessarily give you the single tincture that you're trying to keep. The trick is to find the base and sequence of tinctures that makes you most likely to keep the base when you reduce.
One common trick for this is to make your big compound that gets reduced have the tincture you're using for a base on the far left. This means that you'll only have to do one reduction that could destroy the tincture you're after, so you're likely to keep it rather than to destroy it.
Another trick is to do some reductions before adding in the tincture you want to keep. For example, if you connect the -1 on Dm to the +5 on Gu, you'll need to send the chain through Dm-Cp-Bt-Pn-Hr-Hp-Ot-Gu. Both the Cp and the Bt would go to the left of the Gu if you're using that as your base. However, you can make BtCp, then reduce to get rid of one, then add Pn, then reduce, then add Hr, then reduce, and so forth, and usually be rid of both the Cp and the Bt by the time you add the Gu.
Because the base tincture will sometimes be destroyed in making the compound, it is often good to choose a relatively cheap base tincture if you can--in particular, not Fy or Ek. Still, a 50% chance of having the reaction work with a relatively expensive tincture like Gb is usually better than a 10% chance of it working with a cheap tincture like Pn, as the connecting tinctures that you'll have to use cost something as well. It's often useful to look for ways to make a given compound using different elements as the base tincture, to see which one looks the cheapest and fastest.
Another common problem is having multiple branches that could react. For example, if you mix -2 Bn 6, -6 Ot -15, and 3 Hp 16, depending on which of the possible reactions occur, you could get -2 BnOtHp 3, -2 BnHpOt 3, -6 BnHpOt 6, -15 BnOtHp 16, or -15 BnHpOt 16. If you need one particular set of numbers, it may take multiple tries.
Still, there are some tricks you can use to improve your chances. One is to make it impossible to destroy the pair of numbers you want until the last step. For example, if you want -2 BnOtHp 3, you can react the Bn with the Ot to give -15 BnOt -2 before adding in the Hp. This way, once you add the Hp, you have only two possibilities: -15 BnOtHp 16 or -2 BnOtHp 3. A 1/2 chance is considerably better than 1/3.
Another trick which sometimes works is to bypass the critical reaction entirely, though this isn't always possible. For example, in the above case, if we were going to make -2 BnOtHpHr 11 (or some rearrangement of the tinctures), rather than trying to get -2 BnOtHp 3 before adding the Hr, we could react the Hr with the Hp right away to give 11 HpHr 16. Add in the -15 Ot -6 to get -6 HpHrOt 11, and then add the -2 Bn 6 to get -2 BnHpHrOt 11, without any risk of getting the wrong numbers.
Garan's ladder is a nifty tool to show which tinctures have which numbers, and make it clear which can connect to which others. It's quite useful for following paths around to figure out what numbers you're going to get.
Dm, Fy 1 Cp, Qr
Bn 2 Cn
Hr 3 Fd, Hp, Ib
Di 4
5 Fa, Gu
Rd, Ot 6 Bn, Fy, Rv
Pz 7 Ek, Hy
8
Gs, Bt, Qr 9
Gu, Pn, Pz 10 Cp
11 Hr
Gb 12
Gs, Cn, Ig 13
Fd, Hy 14
Af, Dm, Ot 15
16 Hp
Pn 17 Bt
18
19 Ek, Fa, Ib
Ig, Rv 20 Di, Gb, Rd
There are some finer theoretical points to consider as well. The numbers on the tinctures can be partitioned into the "good" numbers {-1, -2, -3, -4, -6, -10, 10, -12, 16, 17, -20} and the "bad" numbers {1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, -9, 11, -13, -14, -15, -17, 19, 20}. Clearly, no two bad numbers can ever react with each other. It is also straightforward to check that every tincture has at least one bad number. Because any reaction must destroy at least one good number, it is impossible to make a compound with two good numbers. Further, any two compounds with two bad numbers can never react with each other.
The tinctures {Af, Cn, Ek, Fa, Fd, Hy, Qr} each have two bad numbers. Thus, no two compounds that contain them, or ever have contained them, can ever react with each other. Also, if you react a +10 with a -10, you destroy two good numbers in the reaction, leaving a compound with two bad numbers. This compound can never react with a compound containing any of {Cn, Ek, Fa, Fd, Hy, Qr}, which is something to keep in mind if you're trying to make a compound with one of those elements.
Keep in mind that if you're trying to shift a "bad" number around, the only numbers you can move it to are {1, 3, 5, 6, -9, 11, -17, 20}. Good numbers can be shifted to any other possible number. This can sometimes play a major role in trying to figure out which of the two numbers of your base you want to connect to which of the later tinctures to add.
(The Complex Tinctures section was originally posted to the forums by Quizzical.)
For anyone more visually inclined, here is Sord's alchemy graph.
It is simply a different representation of Garan's ladder. Use it to trace paths through the tinctures with the one rule that a path can't enter and leave a tincture on the same colored line. So for example, starting at Hy, follow light blue to Ot. From Ot, the only choice is to follow the red line to Hp since all other lines from Ot are light blue.
See also: