RPG blog carnival - march 2020 - Alchemy

Hello dear Carnival community, my name is killerklown and i'll be your host this month !

What is the Carnival of Blogs?

The carnival has been running for several years and you can find the full listing of locations and topic in the RPG Blog Carnival Archive
Blogger carnivals are a way for a group of bloggers to all simultaneously write about the same topic. They are a great way to build community and dialogue across many different blogs at once.
This benefits fans and readers of those blogs because they have the opportunity to explore lots of different viewpoints in a short period of time.
It also benefits the bloggers because they get new readers to stop by. It also helps with SEO. Everyone wins.

Last month

Last month was on the topic of Legends & Lore, and hosted by Enderra

How to Participate

Have a blog? Want to write for the RPG Bloggers Carnival? Easy – just write a post on the current month’s topic and in your post link to the Host’s blog post that announced the topic (see below). You can also drop by their blog and leave a comment on the announcement post.
That’s it. At the end of the month, I will write a round-up and include a link back to your article.

Why Alchemy ?

• For what you might have seen on this blog, alchemy plays a big part in my DREAD setting.
• The whole idea for the setting is based on a really silly yet great idea from Sheep and sorcery: Using monster parts as alchemical ingredients
• Later on, I discovered a table listing what could be looted from creatures, on medievalmelodies.blogspot.com. 
• But my favorite find is an article written by Zedeck Siew (originally on Zak S.'s blog) where he describes a way to develop rituals. Sexually transmitted centipedes made an article about this and created rituals for fantasy that are great. I'm sure this framework can be used to create alchemical recipies... (I'm not linking to Zak's blog on purpose. Zedeck Siew told me he will repost on his own blog his piece of writing, but until then, I'll only link to Sexually transmitted centipedes, where I discovered the method)

What my plan for the future is:

I want an alchemy subsystem :

• based on monster parts and quest  ingredients (very MMO, i know) like aplles from the Tree of Idunn
• that permits to create low quality potions and high quality potions from the same "recipe", using a potency scale depending on the ingredients used
• a kind of addiction to potions, related to their potency
• some side effects for drinking different potions during the same day

What I expect from you

Well, the subject of this carnival is "Alchemy", not "create me my subsystem", so write whatever you feel like to...

Inspiration

Sill, allow me to present you a few ideas that could trigger your imagination:

• Rules to recognize a potion whithout "identifying" them
• side effect tables
• crazy ingredients for crazy potions
• influence of cheap potions increasing an attribute on society
• What happens when you roll a nat20 during brewing? and a nat1?
• Is perfume a low potency "potion of seduction"?
• How is someone supposed to drink a potion while unconscious?
• What are alternative to potions? (ointment, intraveinous solution, sniffing pulver, chewing mass, ... others?) How does it change the paradigm or consuming them?
• Battlefield laboratory - what could that be like?
• Is hunting humanoids for alchemical components ethical? (like hunting innocent goblins for their liver or something)
• What should be more expensive? A "cure Syphilis" potion or a "cure Hangover" potion?
• Shouldn't brewing potions require a kind of licence ( like distilling alcohol)?
• what happens if you bind the spirit of a shortly deceased creature into a potion?
• How much "historical" alchemy is ok in rpg?

More inspiration?

It is not the first time that someone will write on alchemy. The DM's guild is full of half destilled alchemist classes and unsavory crafting systems.
It's even not the first time the Carnival adopts this theme. Last batch of alchemical articals was 2016 and there were great entries ! Go check them out ! http://ofdiceanddragons.com/put-a-cork-in-it-october-2016-blog-carnival-wrap-up/
Searching for my alchemical Magnus Opus, I came around a few great posts that i'd like to share with you:

• https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-glog-alchemy-and-oozes.html
• https://thethingswedoforxp.blogspot.com/2019/09/bottoms-up-5e-glog-bolt-on-mechanic-for.html
• http://insidethegiantseye.blogspot.com/2019/11/2d6-potions-in-vending-machine.html
• https://diaghilevsdice.blogspot.com/2019/12/secret-santicorn-2019-field-alchemy.html
• https://goodberrymonthly.blogspot.com/2020/01/intravenous-solutions.html
• https://rogues-repast.blogspot.com/2018/12/secret-santicorn-alchemists-basement.html
• http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2019/12/1d6-things-that-happen-when-you-smoke.html (not exactly alchemy, but near enough)
• http://eldritchfields.blogspot.com/2019/12/d66-things-that-happen-when-you-inject.html (is injecting liquefied Henchmen already alchemy or is it still plain insanity? - i'll let you be the judge of that)
• https://magickuser.wordpress.com/2019/11/08/i-eat-the-monster-now-see-what-happens/
• https://magickuser.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/1d10-things-that-happen-when-you-inhale-the-ashes-of-the-outer-god-you-just-killed/

I really hope this topic will set your imagination ablaze and surprise me with loads of creative approaches I never could have imagined...

On your destillers, ready, Write !