Lead Designer

thelittledarkone

Editor

thelittledarkone

Producer

thelittledarkone

Art Director

thelittledarkone

Product Manager:

thelittledarkone

Cover Illustrator:

Ray Lederer

Additional Graphic Design:

GMBinder
Jared Ondricek (/u/flamableconcrete)-Watercolor Stains

Disclaimer

This is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

Additional Credits

Thanks to the Artists, Writers and Contributers in the TTRPG Fantasy community, you make working with this content a real pleasure. And thanks to WotC for making a great game.

Inspired and Apapted from the works of:
/u/Crumy_Taleteller click here for the original

The Art of Alchemy:

From the following guidelines one will gather the knowledge of how to construct the finest potions and deadliest of poisons. As you develop your notes of various ingredients keep track of similar effects in a journal. You will find that the process of discovery is often one walked alone, however, as with the wizard's pursuit of magical knowledge, the alchemist's pursuit of scientific knowledge can often be shared and passed from teacher to student.

Foraging for Ingredients:

As players travel between locations they can decided to move at a Slow Pace, searching for ingredients as they do so. When a player decides to search for ingredients have them make a Forage check. If they succeed on foraging, then they can add one ingredients of that terrain to their inventory. Roll a d20 to determine the results of the discovered ingredient.

If a fresh cadaver or mineral is discovered, the player then rolls on the organic or mineral table. Alternatively, if a special ingredient is discovered, the GM must choose the most appropriate ingredient for the character to find given the location.

Alternatively if a player is looking for a specific ingredient then they can decide to carouse various shops and vendors. The prices for which are listed next to each ingredient.

Harvesting a Kill:

After players kill a creature, or if they discover a fresh kill along their travels, a character may attempt a harvest check on the creature to attempt to harvest useful parts of the creature for later use in brewing alchemical supplies. If the check is passed the character can roll on the organic ingredient table to determine what part they were able to harvest.

If a special ingredient is rolled, the GM must choose the most appropriate special ingredient that the dead creature may yield (including a mineral if appropriate). If nothing is appropriate from the mineral or special ingredients list, the character should roll again twice on the organic table and ignore special.

Alternatively a character may keep small or tiny animal specimens in captivity within their workshops or laboratories in order to harvest the creatures parts as the need arises. Doing this eliminates the need for rolling on a harvest check but the GM decides how the character is able to come into possession of such creatures as well as keep such creatures in captivity.

Alchemical Note - Cooking

Some Ingredients list 'Cooking' as the first effect. This means that they do not have catalytic properties and are instead used in cooking food as their primary purpose and not alchemy.

Alchemical Notes - Ingredient List

As a Dungeon Master I would recommend not letting your players read the effects of all the ingredients. Let them discover these as they adventure and reward the dedicated note taker who maps and builds potions from the various discoveries they have made. You can also supply mentors, tomes of recipes, or laboratories with specific ingredients thrown about to help develop your players lexicon of potions.

Alchemical Notes - Recipe List

As a Dungeon Master I would recommend insisting that the budding alchemist notes down any discovered recipes in the alchemy journal in the exact same way as a Wizard would note the spells in his spellbook. This helps the players to get used to looking at the alchemy side of the game as an important mechanic like spellcasting and will encourage more engagement between players during downtime.

Alchemical Notes - Bookkeeping

It is recommended that as a Dungeon Master you start enforcing a stricter book keeping approach to the game if you are going to allow production of potions during down time. Remember that, although one can brew thousands of healing potions, they still must acquire the necessary ingredients, vials and solvents which all have a cost (in time or money) as well as a weight.
Start enforcing encumbrance to stop characters carrying 50 potions each and insure that the alchemist accounts for how he is acquiring all of the materials to mass produce whatever he wishes to brew.

Alchemical Altar: (200 GP)

For the practiced alchemist one might seek out an Alchemical Altar to help hone their skills and develop more advanced potions. Alchemical Altars are made up of a number of useful tools. The devices provided at an Alchemical Altar are the Alembic, Aludel, Athanor, Crucible, Cupels, Retort, and of course your common mortar & pestle.

Each device provides new alchemical methods that alter the process of either the discovery of new recipes or the mass brewing of multiple potions.

Holding Cages (500 GP)

Here you can hold small animals for easy access to organic ingredients. Each animal must be of a size small or lower (unless the GM allows otherwise). An Alchemist has access to any organic material of the animals kept in the cages and each animal killed returns 1d6 different organic components. These animals never return special ingredients and it is up to the character to figure out a way to acquire fresh specimens to store in the cages.

Storage Cases (800 GP)

Similar to the holding cages, these storage cases are used to store and archive various flora biomatter. Ingredients found in the wilderness can be stored safely in these cases and any standard ingredient that would rot or lose it's potency, can be stored in these cases for ten times as long and still be usable in alchemical activities.

Study Desk (150 GP)

This area is where notes and recipes can be better written, filed and organized. An Alchemist that uses this desk during his experiments shortens each attempt to discover a potion or poison recipe by half. The study desk also has multiple draws and storage areas to store miscellaneous supplies, materials, books and papers.

Artifacts & Magic Items:

The history of alchemical artifacts is one of heretic prophecy, discovery, mystery and lost art. Many who understand alchemy withold these teachings for fear their apprentices might begin to wonder or indulge in the ventures of discovering such erroneous treasures.

"The necessity of concealing the Art is one of the chief anxieties of alchemists." Hermes-Thoth

Everfull Urn

Wondrous item, very rare

This ceramic urn appears to be able to hold a gallon of liquid and weighs 15 pounds. Peering into the urn you can see what appears to be an endless pool of water.

You can use an action and name one solvent from the table below to cause the urn to produce the chosen solvent. Afterward, you can produce a number of potions with the provided solvent. The maximum amount of solvent the urn can produce depends on the solvent you named.

Once the urn starts producing a solvent, it can't produce a different one, or more of one that has reached its maximum, until the next dawn.

Alumentum & Nitor Powders

Wondrous item, Uncommon

Alumentum & Nitor powders can be mixed in with any potion or poison to create explosive or gaseous results when the glass is broken. You can choose to toss or throw these Concoctions at your opponents, in which case you treat the potion or poison as an improvised weapon with a range of 20/60 feet. These powders cannot be used to augment blade venoms, bombs, poultices or pastes in any way.

Alumentum: Each creature within 15ft of where the potion burst will need to make a dexterity saving throw or be subjected to the effects of the concoction.

Nitor: Within 20ft of where the potion or poison was released a thick alchemical sphere of fog appears. When a creature enters the fogs area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, they must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save the creature is subjected to the effects of the concoction at it's lowest quality, on a success nothing happens. Creatures that hold their breath or don’t need to breathe are immune to this.

The alchemical fog lasts for the duration of the effects, or until all the maximum amount of the potion or poison is consumed. A wind of moderate or greater speed (at least 10 miles per hour) disperses it.

Restorative Potions

Boost Potions

Wisdom

This effect grants whoever consumes it an increase to their wisdom modifier for 1 minute.

Charisma

This effect grants whoever consumes it an increase to their charisma modifier for 1 minute.

Talent

This effect grants whoever consumes it Advantage on all checks with any one skill or tool for a time.

Martial Skill

This effect grants whoever consumes it Advantage on all attacks made with any one weapon for a time.

Bless

This effect blesses whoever consumes it. See the Bless Spell for details.

Invisibility

This effect grants whoever consumes it or whatever object it is poured upon, invisibility. See the Invisibility spell for details.

Water Breathing

A creature subjected to this effect is granted the ability to breath water. See the Water Breathing spell for details.

Sight

This effect grants different ways to see for 10 minutes to whoever consumes it.

Fire Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to fire damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to fire damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Radiant Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to radiant damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to radiant damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Cold Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to cold damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to cold damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Lightning Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to lightning damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to lightning damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Poison Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to poison damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to poison damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Acid Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to acid damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to acid damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Reflect

This effect makes you reflect magic away from you, granting you advantage on saves against spells and similar effects.

Necrotic Ward

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to necrotic damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or vulnerability to necrotic damage, it positively raises that feature by one step instead of granting resistance.

Poisons

Poisons are made in much the same way as potions, and for many poisons, the ingredients are also the same as their potion counterparts. The difference between poisons and potions is that the Poisoner's Kit is designed to aid the brewer in bringing out the negative qualities of an ingredient. Like two sides of a coin, each ingredient's effect can be used for positive or negative consequences and an alchemist would typically consider a negative effect as a failure in the experiment. For this reason, the art of the poisoner is considered abhorrent to most alchemists and they tend to shun those they dub 'Apothecary'.

Poisons need to be consumed for their effects to take hold. They can be used to poison food which can then be eaten but to do so requires a successful DC 12 Poisoner's Kit check. All poison effects only happen if the consumer fails a constitution save.

Poisoner DC - The difficulty to resist your poisons or venoms is determined by your poisoner DC. This equals:
8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence or Wisdom modifier (you choose).

Known Recipes - Poisons from a known recipe can be crafted over the course of an hour of uninterrupted work. During this time, you roll against the poison's brewing DC and produce an amount of poison equal to the number you beat the DC by.

Example: You score an 18 on a poison with a brewing DC of 15, so you create 18-15=3 poison doses.

You must have enough of the relevant vials in order to store the poison doses. Any dose that cannot be stored in its own vial is lost.

Experiments - Experimenting with ingredients can be done during a long rest or downtime, taking a minimum of one hour of time. This is done by using Poisoner's Kit to combine two ingredients with similar effects together and add them to a solvent within a glass vial. You must roll against the DC to see if you are successful, and if you are you may note your discovery down in your journal. A successful process always produces a single dose of poison.

Catalysts - Most poisons require one of the same four catalytic ingredients as potions: Restorative for Deterioration Poisons, Ward for Vulnerability Poisons, Boost for Bane Poisons or Spellwork for Spellwork Poisons. Some, however require the special Plague catalyst for Plague poisons.

Deadly Poison

This effect deals poison damage to the consumer.

Health Bane

This effect reduces the max hp of the consumer for 1 day.

Nether

This effect reduces the spell slots of the consumer by 1d4 until its next long rest.

Deterioration

This effect reduces the available hit dice of the consumer. The dice count as having been spent and return in the same way as other hit dice.

Bane Poisons

Wisdom Bane

This effect lowers the wisdom modifier of whoever consumes it for 1 minute.

Magical Clumsiness

This effect inflicts whoever consumes it Disadvantage on all attacks with spells for a time.

Charisma Bane

This effect lowers the charisma modifier of whoever consumes it for 1 minute.

Martial Clumsiness

This effect inflicts whoever consumes it Disadvantage on all attacks made with any weapon for a time.

Fear

This effect inflicts fear to whoever consumes it. See the Fear spell for details.

Bane

This effect inflicts bane to whoever consumes it. See the Bane spell for details.

Confusion

This effect inflicts Confusion to whoever consumes it. See the Confusion spell for details.

Slow

This effect inflicts slow to whoever consumes it. See the Slow spell for details.

Fire Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it vulnerability to fire damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to fire damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Radiant Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to radiant damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to radiant damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Cold Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to cold damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to cold damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Lightning Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to lightning damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to lightning damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Poison Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to poison damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to poison damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Acid Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to acid damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to acid damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Necrotic Vulnerability

This effect grants whoever consumes it resistance to necrotic damage for a time. If a creature has resistance or immunity to necrotic damage, it negatively lowers that feature by one step instead of inflicting vulnerability.

Magical Vulnerability

This effect makes you attract magical effects, imposing you disadvantage on saves against spells and similar effects.

Plague Poisons

Once consumed, these poisons inflict the creature with plagues. A creature is afflicted by a plague for a time and must take a constitution test every turn to see if it is effected by the plague.

Additionally, if another creature touches the afflicted creature, it too must begin taking tests every turn or be effected also. Once the plagues time is up, it ceases to be active and all effected creatures cease to be effected.

If a creature ends its turn within 5ft of an afflicted creature, it must pass a constitution test with advantage of become afflicted with the plague and start taking tests each turn.

Plague poisons can be thrown like contact venoms with a range 20/40. If you hit your target it must pass a constitution save with advantage or become inflicted with the plague and start taking tests each turn.

Paralyze

This effect confers the paralyzed status upon the afflicted.

Poison

This effect confers the poisoned status upon the afflicted.

Sleep

This effect confers the incapacitated status upon the afflicted.

Laden

A creature subjected to this plague must make a Constitution saving throw or be have the perception that everything has become heavier. Add 100lb to the creature's total encumbrance. This effect can stack with multiple fails.