Forgotten Realms Alchemy Lore

[NeonAvenger]

Is there any?
While the mechanical aspects are documented well (obviously) I can't find any lore associated with alchemy for D&D in general let alone the Forgotten Realms specifically.
Mostly it seems to be "Alchemy: It's magic's retarded cousin. Who cares?"

I generally reference "Real World" alchemy however with the increasing number of alchemists running around it would be nice to have a reference.

Can anyone suggest a source?

[Blackman D]

i dont think there is any real lore on alchemy, even pnp wise rare alchemy potions have no real detail in how to make them, just required ranks and gold costs for materials along with a basic description of what it does and thats about it

alchemy is just one of those things thats usually left to DM/creator discretion

[=Thunderbolt=]

I have been searcing the web for lore or some kind of reference some time now and it truly seems there is nothing. I guess there's room for a lot creativity then.

[Planehopper]

I dont recall any specific Forgotten Realms lore, but I think there was an alchemist entry in the sages & specialists handbook.

I will see if I can dig it up online.

[grymhild]

Herbal Lore

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Everyone—from farmers to foresters to shopkeepers— knows a few old family remedies, and almost every rural place not in the remote wilderness has an herbalist or two. A village on a trade route might have an apothecary, and almost all market towns have one—as well as a “hedge wizard” (self-taught mage of low Art) who augments his or her income by splinting breaks, washing infected wounds, and selling beneficial castings, salves, and the like.

If a village not on a trade route has a shrine (as opposed to just a priest or hermit), the priest who tends the shrine often functions as an apothecary to earn an income. If a shrine has two or three staffers, even if only one of them is a proper priest, an apothecary is likely to be on that staff.

Apothecaries prepare and sell physics, but also sell raw and “readied” (washed, cut, and sometimes powdered) herbs for kitchens and for medicinal use. Many festhalls and herbalists offer inexpensive herb bath or steam bath services, which always include a rubdown (deep tissue massage). Many travelers and street-dwelling poor use these services regularly to get clean, get their clothes washed, to get warm, and to have aches and pains seen to. For some, it’s what makes their lives (of having little, and being in contact with folk who have so much more) bearable. So the application of heat and skilled massage part of what real-world chiropractors do is in part covered by these relatively inexpensive services, usually 1 cp for a bath or a massage, and 2 cp for both with washing and “ovenboard” drying thrown in. Ovenboard drying is laying wet clothing out flat on boards heated by proximity to an oven or hearth or chimney to rapidly dry them. Clothes being ovenboarded are moved to new dry hot surfaces several times to speed the process.

Relatively few sages specialize in herb lore, but there are some self-styled academic authorities among humans. In Cormyr, the Guild of Naturalists has offices in Suzail and Arabel. It is a professional fellowship of those who study animal and plant life with the aims of understanding natural cycles fully and thereby exploiting natural substances—from plant saps and distillates to beast ichor and organs—to make scents, medicines, poisons, spell inks, dyes, sealants, preservatives, cooking herbs, and so on. A Cormyrean consulting a guild member is expected to buy guild products, but guild members will sell advice as well as concoctions to outlanders—and will buy raw herbs in good condition from anyone.

Here follow some widely known effective medicinal uses of raw plant gleanings. Herbs often do not need to be fresh, which is why many households keep a crock of various dried leaves, wrapped in scrap cloth, for use in winter Please note: None of these plants exist in the real world.

Bloodpurge

• Found in the depths of freshwater marshes polluted by magical and nonmagical wastes, this herb can neutralize minor poisons.

Bloodstaunch

• Found in dry gullies in semiarid temperate zones, this herb thickens blood very quickly upon direct contact, and so can be applied to open wounds to slow or stop bleeding.

Fleshwort

• Made from the stalk of a gray, celery-like vegetable, fleshwort is found only on recent battlefields, where corpses are buried near the surface or left to rot above ground. If sewn into an internal wound, fleshwort is slowly absorbed by any mammalian body as raw material for building new tissue.

Felsul Tree

• Chewing the soft wood that directly underlies the bark of a felsul tree, or chewing small datherthorn roots (those of purplish hue) quells nausea and deadens all mouth, tooth, and throat pain. This does nothing to remove the cause of the discomfort; it merely temporarily removes the discomfort to allow sleep, hearty eating, and other usual activities. Eating a volume roughly as much as the eater’s palm, as thick as the eater’s hand, will deaden for a day and a night, or so.

Harlthorn

• Drinking the liquid derived from boiling down equal parts of the thorns from harlthorn bushes (a common Heartlands wild shrub) with dried or fresh leaves of the very common weed known as hoof-leaf (because its flat, on-the-ground leaves look like the print of a cloven-hoofed herd animal) calms delirium, rage, and grief, and soothes itchiness and skin rashes, allowing for rest or sleep.

Tatterskyre

• Eating small flakes of tatterskyre bark slows bleeding (internal and external) and thickens the blood, soothing agitated folk and making them drowsy. This herb can aid the healing of many sorts of internal wounds.
  
  Orcs and all goblinkin (goblins, hobgoblins, and such) are especially susceptible to the effects of tatterskyre bark, and typically fall asleep if given as much to eat as would cover their palms. Since this is a sleep typically filled with pleasant dreams, many orcs gather and carry the bark and eat it regularly.
  
  The tatterskyre is a gnarled shrub that tends to form loops or drooping arcs like wild raspberry canes, rerooting when it touches the ground only to throw up fresh stems. It grows all over the Heartlands and the North, is smaller in colder climes, and its bark is very flaky and easily brushed off; its foliage sprouts as bursts of needlelike flat leaves all up and down its stems.

Dathlil

• The tiny petals of the common white ground flower known as dathlil work to neutralize poisons for some who consume them, typically by drinking them as a tea, or washing them down with water or alcohol. The effects vary widely with the individual and the poison being fought against, and even vary unpredictably for the same individual over time, but do apply to all known creatures and are sometimes (not often) complete cures—one petal banishes all poison effects. Dathlil can work on contact, ingested, and insinuative poisons—but it sometimes does nothing at all. For most individuals, the herb usually slows poison and lessens its eventual damage.

Tonandurr Bark

• Bound against open wounds, tonandurr bark inhibits bleeding and infection, and helps skin and flesh to heal by helping it expand and knit together. This substance works on humans, halflings, dwarves, and gnomes only; elves it helps not at all; and it actually harms goblinkin, making their wounds fester. “Tonandurr” is a tall, spindly “weed tree” of the Heartlands and more southerly forests; it’s not hardy enough to survive winters much north of Waterdeep, though a few specimens are kept alive in indoor gardens in Silverymoon and Neverwinter.

Blood of the Dragon

• Down the centuries, dragon blood has always been a highly sought after, very expensive medicine among those who can afford it. Dragon blood is widely believed to impart the longevity and vigor of the mighty wyrms. Some individuals even use it to try to become half dragons, usually by means of the would-be dragon opening his or her veins and immersing the bleeding limb in dragon blood—though there is no evidence that this process works without the use of a long series of powerful spells, cast with exacting precision and care.
  
  So, dragon blood is thought of as “liquid gold” and is bought and sold for very high prices. In Calimshan, dragon blood is believed to be inky black with gold flecks in it, and anything looking different will be dismissed as false, but those who have fought or slain dragons know that real dragon ichor varies widely in hue, consistency, and smell, the only common property being that it is smoking hot when freshly shed, due to the heat generated by a dragon’s metabolism.

Drugs

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In the Realms, a drug is something—usually liquid, taken orally—whose making is complicated and unknown to whoever is using the word. In other words, the liquid made by boiling harlthorn and hoof-leaf together, as described earlier in “Herbal Lore,” would be a drug if its manufacture wasn’t so widely known. Most drugs are secret-recipe mixtures of herbal distillations, plant saps, and animal secretions, all of which have no real-world inspirations or counterparts.

Local laws often restrict making and importing of drugs, because bad things have happened in the past. Since alchemy, doctoring, and the like all approve of using herbal and created substances to help the sick or injured, and most clergy use mind-altering or pain-numbing herbs and drugs as part of their rituals, drugs are seen as bad only when they are clearly intended to be used to incapacitate someone so that person can be killed, robbed, kidnapped, made to sign or say things he or she otherwise wouldn’t, or in some other way taken advantage of. Poisons are always seen as bad except when used with state sanction in war, or by physicians as part of medical treatment— and this latter use is usually very closely watched by local law keepers and guilds.

Waterdeep provides a model to use for tolerant trading cities where local rulers or dominant temples aren’t trying to control drug use.

The drug trade in Waterdeep is largely confined to Skullport and Downshadow, in terms of dealing and in the storage of large amounts. “Topside” (in the city proper) there is no drug production, only runner-to-client selling. Selling is done face to face, but some nobles send their stewards, bodyguards, or trade agents to buy drugs. These so-called “runners” tend to be lone individuals or gangs of no more than three, a runner and two “watcheyes” (lookouts) who are often young children, preferably girls, who serve the runner as eyes and as places to stash drugs if the Watch approaches—because Watch officers are far more reluctant to search a young girl’s body than that of a hard-bitten, known-to-them Dock Ward tough.

A Lords’ Edict was long ago issued banning the making and selling of drugs in Waterdeep— so the relevant crime is Willful Disobedience of Any Edict, which results in exile for five years or a 1,000 gp fine. The former is enacted on all outlanders and those who do not own property, and the latter against all Waterdhavian landowning citizens—who will find themselves very closely watched for a month, then again in the third month thereafter, because the Watch wants to catch and fine them again. It’s not a crime to use drugs, nor is it a crime, strictly speaking, to possess them. In practice, nobles and wealthy merchants receive nothing but a stern “We’re watching you” warning if caught with either small or large amounts of drugs, but a commoner merchant or laborer is assumed to have the drugs to sell, and will be sentenced accordingly, unless the individual is a member of the Guild of Apothecaries & Physicians or can prove he or she is working directly for a guild member.

Aside from those exceptions, drugs that can readily be used to kill—even if only through overdoses—can, if the Watch or the magisters involved desire it, be treated as poisons, and arrested beings are charged with murder even though no killing has yet occurred. Waterdhavian justice has no attempted or intended murder charges, so what occurs is a murder trial, usually ending in a sentencing for “Murder with Justification,” which brings a five-year exile or three years of enforced hard labor.

Drug making is secretive and a matter of constant experimentation, so there are thousands of drugs that go by even more names, enough to fill shelves full of books as big as this one. Here follow just a notorious, popular handful.

Alindluth

• When ingested, alindluth deadens all pain and prevents shock and nausea effects for a few minutes. There are no known side effects, but if the substance is used too soon after first exposure (or in too large a dose; dosages vary by body volume and weight), it induces a short-duration coma.

Chaunsel

• Upon contact with bare skin, chaunsel makes the affected area extremely sensitive for up to about twenty minutes. It is often used by thieves or others working in darkness, applied to their fingertips to make them able to feel tiny details, seams, and such. Overdosing causes days of numbness in the affected area.

Tansabra

• When injected (it must reach the bloodstream), this mixture of particular creature venoms causes complete “system shutdown” in mammals. This means that breathing is suspended, the body temperature “holds,” the need for oxygen ceases, bleeding stops, any internal bleeding and tearing is healed (unless fresh wounds are induced), acids and toxins suspend their operations on the body, and the recipient loses consciousness. In effect, the body is placed in stasis. Certain littleknown arcane and divine spells can force release from “tansabra sleep,” and there are rumors that certain rare gem powders and herbs can shock someone out of tansabra sleep, but otherwise, an affected being emerges from the effects of tansabra at a random time.
  
  Creatures in tansabra sleep don’t heal naturally, and magical healing doesn’t affect them—but of course they can be conveyed to magical healing while in thrall to the tansabra, and healed the moment they awaken.
  
  Repeated exposure to tansabra can kill an individual, but how much exposure is lethal varies randomly from being to being. A lethal dose is not related to the amount of the drug administered— it depends on a person’s tolerance for the number of distinct times his body undergoes the effects.

Vornduir

• When inhaled as a powder, vornduir varies widely in effects. To many people, it does nothing at all. Others get mild rashes and itches.
  
  For a few, it switches pain and pleasure for an hour or two, so a gentle caress brings discomfort, and a slap, flogging, heavy punch, or cutting wound can induce an enjoyable feeling.
  
  For others, it makes them feel warm, even if they are wet and out of doors in freezing temperatures, and at the same time happy and alert, for two days or more. For these folks, sleep isn’t needed, and their dexterity and judgment don’t suffer due to weariness.
  
  Vornduir prevents shock and immobility due to exposure, but not frostbite or lowered body temperature, so users won’t get hypothermic, but they could freeze solid. The drug, a mixture of herbs and animal essences, also acts as a complete and instant antidote to certain poisons—for some individuals only!

Poisons

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In general, natural-source potions and ointments have a lower level of efficacy than substances that either incorporate spells in the creation process, or use material as an ingredient that has been enspelled, or both. This statement holds true for the majority of poisons, though some monster venoms are powerful indeed.

Even if a poison enters the system of its intended victim, there’s no guarantee the stuff will work to great effect. The physiology of some individuals (dwarves in particular) enables them to shrug off certain poisons, feeling nothing more than a sick feeling for a moment or two and the loss of a small amount of vitality. Some folk build up a tolerance to poisons that they are exposed to repeatedly, and might even become immune to one or more toxins in this fashion.

Poisons are illegal, usually rare or well hidden, and expensive. As with drugs, there are many known poisons that go by even more names. Here follow a few of the most infamous or most widely available. Unless otherwise noted (such as for dragonbane), the poisons described here must be ingested to produce their indicated effects.

Belarris

• One of the few poisons that can be cooked thoroughly in food and remain effective, belarris is a black, oily mixture of wyvern blood, two tree barks, and six plant saps.
  
  Someone who ingests a dose is hit with a tide of fatigue as the substance enters his system. If the poison takes full effect, the victim is rendered unconscious for several minutes.

Calad

• This golden, opaque liquid is derived from the cranial fluids of basilisks, catobelpas, and disenchanters. Calad causes short-term distorted hearing and vision in its victims, at the same time that its alien chemical composition eats at one’s insides.

Dragonbane

• A legendary poison that is far more often counterfeited than found, this bright blue, opaque liquid is a mixture of the blood of three sorts of dragons. Dragonbane is used to best effect on real dragons, who find themselves unable to breathe for a brief time after being dosed with it. (Other creatures are “merely” wracked with pain and internal distress.) Dragons tend to slay anyone they encounter carrying it—because, as many wyrms have discovered to their chagrin, the poison can be delivered by simple contact or through an injury and does not have to be ingested.

Imvris

• A clear, purple-tinged but nigh colorless liquid that has a peppery floral scent, imvris is a distillate of the crushed petals of twelve jungle flowers.
  
  The poison causes paralysis in those who are exposed to it. The effect is nearly immediate; it dissipates quickly on those who merely make contact with it, but if imvris enters the body by ingestion or injury, the paralysis can last for hours.
  
  The effects of multiple doses are cumulative, but only to a point: For a victim who has suffered at least seven consecutive hours of paralysis, any additional exposure instantly negates the effect and renders the individual immune to the poison for half a day thereafter. During this time, the person can hear very keenly.

Lorbralinth

• Better known as just lorbral, this sweet-smelling, clear, oily poison is made from the spittle of no less than sixteen monsters, including the basilisk and the leucrotta.
  
  Touching the concoction does no harm, but someone who ingests it or is wounded by a lorbral- tainted weapon becomes briefly debilitated with alternating waves of chill and fever.

Srindym

• An iridescent, silver liquid, this poison was created by elves millennia ago and was often used by less principled individuals of that race against “lesser” races. Very few individuals know how to make srindym—or know where the secret caches of it are—so it’s rare and expensive. Making srindym is a closely guarded secret that involves elven blood, moonlight, the casting of multiple spells, and several plant ingredients.
  
  This poison works by injury, contact, and ingestion.
  
  Elves (including drow) are immune to srindym, and half-elves are highly resistant to its effect. Other kinds of creatures quickly become disoriented and stiff-jointed, then lose consciousness for a minute or more.
  
  Srindym acts as a sort of antidote to itself, for a while: No single creature can be affected by a subsequent dose of the stuff for about a day thereafter. Also, repeated exposure to the poison brings with it eventual immunity—every time an individual is beset with it, the resulting period of unconsciousness is a few seconds shorter, until finally the toxin has no effect on that person ever again. Some of those who employ this poison are not initially aware of this aspect of its makeup, and learn about it only when the target of their attention fails to fall down.

Swiftsleep

• A gummy, translucent ale-brown liquid that smells like crushed citrus fruit, swiftsleep is abundant and relatively cheap because its ingredients are a distillate of crushed flies and certain common tree beetles, added to duskwood sap.
  
  When delivered into an open wound or otherwise directly into the bloodstream, swiftsleep causes nigh-instant slumber, with normal breathing and smooth, even snoring, for an initial period of many minutes. In much the fashion that srindym works (see above), each time the same target is affected, swiftsleep’s duration decreases by a good fraction, until after several exposures that individual is immune.

Thardynyn

• A translucent yellow liquid that’s odorless but tastes like sugary strawberries, thardynyn is made from a distillate of certain fish scales combined with alcohol (usually wine) and the blood of certain birds.
  
  Thardynyn is harmless if consumed, but if the substance touches one’s body in any other way, the resulting shock to the system causes uncontrollable shuddering, leaving the victim helpless to prevent what happens next.

Yethgrel

• An enspelled mixture of the spittle or blood of seven sorts of monsters, yethgrel is a vivid purple, opaque liquid. The substance wreaks havoc on the physiology of anyone who drinks it, yet at the same time it protects that same body from any other harmful effects for a short period. Some brave—or desperate—individuals have deliberately taken yethgrel so as to survive a few deadly exchanges of combat

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Alchemy

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In the Realms, alchemy is a field dominated by secrets, mysteries, and danger. A few alchemists search for the means of turning stones or other dross into gold, or for elixirs to restore or preserve youth, but most alchemists think such preoccupations to be “bold madness” or centuries (at best) away from success. The daily living of most alchemists consists of concocting nonmagical painkillers, healing salves, and love potions for those whose fears or slim purses keep them from being customers of magic.

Alchemy in the Realms is concerned with everything from stuff you drink to make you slim, to stuff you rub on to remove your warts, to stuff you eat to make sure you will or won’t get pregnant, to stuff you slap on manacles or locks to make them crumble to rust, to stuff you paint on manacles and locks to make them stay unaffected when some of that previously mentioned stuff gets slapped on them.

Some alchemists constantly seek new poisons and antidotes, because there’s good coin to be made from folk who need them—such as the dancer in Calimport famous for performing with many deadly scorpions and snakes that bite or sting her repeatedly and harmlessly, to her evident pleasure rather than pain; and the thieves who, equipped with the same alchemical quaffs as the dancer, freely steal valuables from coffers guarded by venomous serpents and scorpions.

Alchemy isn’t called “alchemy” when practiced by priests, who are not above disparaging lay folk who practice it, though (aside from temples having less experimentation and substance substitutions, and more written records) there’s little real difference between a temple’s “holy secrets of the gods” preparations and independent alchemy.

Some alchemists and herbalists work with each other, and some sneer at each other. Truthful lore isn’t widely shared in alchemy, so the “science” advances very slowly, every practitioner having to achieve mastery for oneself. Most alchemical tomes available for purchase contain wrong or deliberately false information.

Alchemy in the Realms is nowhere near as dominant and effective as modern real-world chemistry is, but specific breakthroughs might occur during the events of a campaign. If clever adventurers find wild new uses for something, remember that alchemy can easily involve unintended explosions. Lots of them.

The Quest for Eternity
Elixirs, potions, and drafts (in the Realms, something introduced into a drinkable, usually in sparing amounts) that engender love or lust, or confer very deep sleep, pain relief, or invisibility are the daily bread and butter of all alchemists, herbalists, and spellcasters. These simple concoctions also provide a reliable source of income for temples, shrine-tending priests, traveling preachers, and even hermits.

However, the general populace believes that only those who can work magic can create potions of longevity, elixirs of youth, and other means of extending one’s life span. These are always rare, expensive, and highly sought after treasures. Gossip and local lore abound with horrific tales of what can go wrong in the pursuit of magical youth, from death in an instant (literally crumbling to dust from sudden aging), to being transformed into various monsters, to an ongoing curse of limbs and body parts slowly but continuously shifting through various beast forms. All the same, longevity magic remains a common pursuit of the very wealthy, who often hire wizards to help them cheat death, and among powerful mages themselves, who often try to devise their own lifeextending and renewing magic.

This quest for immortality (or at least vigor) is a long process, and not something for which an adventuring wizard should be able to find a tutor. As well, subtle differences in internal body chemistry lead to magnified differences in a potion’s results. As a veteran alchemist might warn, “What works for you may not work for me, and be warned—experiments that don’t work age you, so a night of tinkering and gulping might bring you tottering to the edge of your grave.”

Although there’s a roaring trade in false elixirs of youth restored or eternal youth, very few individuals know how to make real potions of longevity. These few keep this secret to themselves, sharing such concoctions only with those they fall in love with and want to have as companions forever, to avoid being forced into slavery as captive potion producers. Thus, everyone has to discover the process anew, either by finding it written down in an ancient tomb or cache (and honestly or maliciously incorrect formulae are common) or by finding such potions as treasure.

Longevity potions were far more common in ancient Netheril than they are today, because certain magical processes were more widespread and better understood then than they are now. Real longevity magic is likely to be well guarded (including false potions—usually poisons—as lures for would-be thieves), and is never offered for sale in shops. Owners such as powerful wizards might sell a single potion, discreetly and after a personal approach, to a wealthy buyer (usually presenting the item as “discovered among the treasures of Archwizard X after his unfortunate demise at the hands of Y”). Buyers should be aware that evil mages have been known to gain influence over wealthy individuals by selling them “youth potions” that grant such control.

The life of an alchemist, a family of alchemists, or an adventuring band of ingredient procurers serving various alchemists, can make for an ideal campaign for one to three players.

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Note:

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Hi! So, I've started looking through all of the Realms sourcebooks... I'm not sure how long it will take me to find all of the references, but this is from Ed Greewood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms.

~Grym

[Rhifox]

Thank you, Grym! All of that is very very helpful.