items

Random thoughts on alchemy and sandbox campaigns

With the top level worlduilding for the Shattered Empire having reached a pretty concrete and solid stage, I’ve started turning back to thinking about specific details for an actual sandbox campaign set somewhere in this world. And while discussing some ideas, we happened to talk about players spending the money they get from all the dungeon crawling, travelling merchants as random wilderness encounters, and how generic magic weapons are boring compared to setting up your gear to fight a specific monster. It got me thinking about how the Witcher games don’t let you drink potions or put poison on your weapon while a monster is trying to claw your eyes out. You got to do your alchemical preparations before you step into the monster’s lair, perhaps even brewing up some special brews you didn’t normally keep stocked in your inventory.

And that discussion gave me an idea: Let’s have alchemical ingredients that can be used to create potions to help fight specific monsters, but these ingredients are hard to get and can each be used for a number of different potions.

Usually in videogames with crafting systems, you have basic ingredients that you can pick up from defeated enemies or growing in the environment in practically infinite amounts, and special ingredients that are only dropped from a single monster in the whole game to make one specific item, or make you choose one of two possible items that can be made with it. For the record, I hate crafting in videogames. It’s mostly a pointless waste of time that clogs up inventory space to drown you in junk that is worse than stuff you find. And I think one of the main flaws with these mechanics is the way they treat the ingredients.

But let’s approach this differently to make it something that is narratively meaningful and doesn’t turn into a convoluted minigame. The really badic ingredient, which are dirt cheap and just grow everywhere in the environment, are not even worth tracking. They have negligible costs and require no effort to acquire. And to make the special ingredients much more interesting and meaningful, make them both limited and expensive and make them useful for multiple different things. Letting the players fight a monster and take ingredient A from it, which they can turn into item X is really just a different way for giving them item X from the monster’s treasure. But say instead that there are maybe a dozen of the monster in the whole sandbox and the players might end up with anywhere from 0 to 12 of ingredient A, depending on how they explore the world and interact with the creatures, and that each of the ingredients can be used to make item X, Y, or Z. If these items they can make have limited uses that mostly shine in quite specific situations, the players will have to make a choicd if they want to use the three ingredients they have to make one of each item, three of the same item, or two of one and one of another. Since they don’t know what situations they will be dealing in the future, the correct answer is to keep them stored and make whatever item is needed, once they know it is needed. This adds a few additional scenes to adventures in which the PCs are making specific preparations for the adventure ahead, based on the information they have of what they arw getting into. That’s always great to make a world become more alive and present.

But also, you can make these ingredients available in small quantities for high prices at merchants. If it’s travelling merchants, it’s going to be a one-time offer as well. If the objects that can be made are sufficiently strong and have appropriately limited uses before they are used up, then these ingredients might be worth quite a lot to the players. And asking to take a look at the alchemy chest of each merchant they encounter can be a highlight of each shoping trip.

Buying the ingredient isn’t the same as buying the final item. There’s still alchemical work to be done. If it’s something that takes longer, it can be useful to employ an alchemist, especially when this kind of work comes up regularly. Which also costs money. And that alchemist is going to need a lab. Don’t let him do that stuff over a campfire with a little box of alchemy supplies. A proper lab best fits into a permanent base, which can be a much bigger source of expense for the party.

I’ve not done any work yet on either ingredients that could be found on adventures or be one-time offers by travelling merchants, or the kinds of items that could be made with them. But I think it’s a really interesting direction to follow that could potentially add a lot to sandbox campaigns.

Doing Drugs, for Fun and Profit

After having started with metaphysics, philosophy, and the undead, I’m continuing the introduction to Planet Kaendor with drugs. Perhaps a somewhat unconventional way to open with, but perhaps this might be indicative of the kind of setting this world is morphing into.

Skok

Skok is a thick black liquid that looks and smells like burned plum jam and has a faint but burning taste of bitter roots. It’s often mixed with water to make it possible to drink without sticking to your mouth for the next half hour.

Skok keeps people marching when they would otherwise collapse from exhaustion and there are many stories of people crawling half-dead from the wilderness who would never have made it nearly as far without their bottle of skok. The extra boost that it gives the body has to be paid back later though, and the lingering exhaustion can last for weeks.

Drinking skok immediately recovers two points of System Strain, but at the cost of one point of Constitution, which reduces the character’s maximum System Strain by one. Characters who have lost Constitution this way can recover one point of Constitution when resting instead of one point of System Strain (player’s choice).

Characters about to die from suffering System Stain beyond their maximum can save their lives with skok, but their recovery back to full health will take longer.

Blue Juice

Blue juice is really more like a very dark red, though when mixed with goat milk or staining cotton or hemp cloth, it turns into a slightly bluish purple color giving it its name. Blue juice comes from the tiny fruit of a swamp plant and tastes like unripe berries which is quite revolting to drink, which is why it’s often mixed with goat milk and a bit of kesk honey. It’s quite a potent painkiller and in larger amounts causes severe drowsiness to the point of making people nod off while having severe injuries getting treated.

Characters drinking a good amount of blue juice roll twice for all Mental saving throws to resist manipulation for the next hour (6 turns), but also treat any skill checks as untrained, suffering the usual -1 penalty to the roll instead of their skill level. At the end of the duration, the characters have to succeed on a Physical saving throw or fall asleep, though they can be woken up by others as usual.

Trade Goods as Treasure

This is one of these “I made this, so I might as well share it” things.

In my setting, travelling merchants are supposed to be a really big deal. And I also enjoy the players having to deal with encumbrance. Making exotic goods into a type of treasure that can be found is the sensible thing to do.

In my encumbrance system, weights are rounded up to the next multiple of 10 and then divided by 10. So the average weight for an item with an Encumbrance load of 1 is around 5 pounds. (Equally, the encumbrance limits for characters are divided by 5 to get the number of items that can be carried instead of the weight in pounds.) The quantities listed in this table have been chosen accordingly and the resulting prices and container capacities are based on the numbers from the 5th Ed. Player’s Handbook. If players come across these goods and want to take them as treasure, the only relevant number at that moment is how much they can carry while staying under the Encumbrance limits. Players won’t be trading in silk by meter but by encumbrance unit.

For the sake of simplicity, the numbers for kegs and barrels of ale and wine are rounded to easy number. The actual values for any of these goods are completely made up anyway.

Item	Quantity	Price	Encumbrance
Sack of grain	30 lb.	3 sp	3
Sack of flour	30 lb.	6 sp	3
Pouch of salt	5 lb.	2 sp	1
Pouch of ginger	5 lb.	50 sp	1
Pouch of cinnamon or pepper	5 lb.	100 sp	1
Pouch of cloves	5 lb.	150 sp	1
Pouch of saffron	5 lb.	750 sp	1
Keg of ale	20 l	10 sp	4
Barrel of ale	200 l	100 sp	40
Keg of wine	20 l	20 sp	4
Barrel of wine	200 l	200 sp	40
Bottle of expensive wine	1 l	100 sp	1
Keg of expensive wine	20 l	2,000 sp	4
Canvas	6 sq. yd.	6 sp	1
Cotton cloth	20 sq. yd.	100 sp	1
Linen	12 sq. yd.	600 sp	1
Silk	24 sq. yd.	2,400 sp	1
Iron	5 lb.	5 sp	1
Copper	5 lb.	25 sp	1
Tin	5 lb.	100 sp	1
Silver	5 lb.	250 sp	1
Gold	5 lb.	2,500 sp	1

Potions

Hemra

This potion is made from the boiled leaves of the hemra plant and some simple additional ingredients. The potion is a slightly bluish green and heals 2d4+2 hit points. Partiqularly high quality potions have a deep blue color and heal 4d4+4 hit points.

Rusan

This potion is an oil made from the leaves of the rusan shrub. A full dose causes unconsciousness for 1d4 hours, while drinking a third of that amount put a person into a hazy state that gives an advantage on saving throws against being frightened and disadvantage on all Dexterity and other Wisdom checks, which lasts for 1 hour.

Valkar

Eating one of these seeds gives advantage on saving throws against exhaustion for 6 hours. Eating another within 24 hours requires a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or it causes the poisoned condition instead.

Satak

This vile potion is made from a mushroom found in Venlad. For 6 hours it gives advantage on Strength and Constitution ability checks and saving throws, and disadvatage on Wisdom and Charisma ability checks and saving throws. When the effect ends, the drinker takes 1d4 points of poison damage and is poisoned for 6 hours.

Tamgut

This potion is made from specially prepared berries from the Tamgut shrub of the Wyvern Mountains, mixed with rusan oil. It causes incapacitation for 6 hours, at the end of which a DC 15 Wisdom check must be made. If successful, the drinker gets the effect of a divination spell.