Apothecary
For Apothecary & Enchanting you need to visit the Crafters Guild
Apothecary skills
Apothecary
3xp – This skill allows you to make use of the Apothecary Skill and create consumables that have magical effects. When you select the Apothecary skill you are able to pick three effects from the Apothecary table below. (Please make sure you select a Base Item – either Consumable or Weapon Oil – as one of these picks, or you will not be able to make anything.)
Apothecary Mastery
1xp – This skill gives you another pick from the Apothecary table.
What is Apothecary?
Apothecary is the skill of creating magical Consumables and Weapon Oils by combining resources. Each ability or effect has a base cost, and adding additional abilities increases the cost. These creations are tied to specific elemental Spheres, which affects the final resource cost.
What is a Consumable?
Consumables can affect you in a few ways and have durations tied to those effects:
- Skill Consumables grants a skill will allow you to use that skill until the next Sunrise.
- Instant Consumables have an effect that will take effect immediately when used.
- Any Consumable can have multiple Doses by multiplying the amount of Flicker by the amount of Doses you want to make.
OC Note: Apothecary Consumables are commonly expected to be things like potions but in Menhirs Fate may be any type of consumable item. Food and Drink may be used but please check before giving someone an item they can eat and answer any questions about OC ingredients.
What is a Weapon Oil?
Weapon Oils work by roleplaying pouring oil onto your weapon – then you must use the call that is granted on the next hit. You cannot wait to use the Call that is given by the oil.
- A Weapon Oil is used on the next hit you make with the weapon it has been applied to. It remains on the weapon indefinitely until used.
- Using another Weapon Oil replaces the current effect on the weapon.
- A Weapon Oil is consumed even if the call has no effect due to targetting failure (eg hitting a shield or person with a call that doesn’t affect a shield or person) – it remains for your next hit if the target doesn’t react to a valid call.
- A Weapon Oil can have multiple Doses by multiplying the amount of Flicker by the amount of Doses you want to make.
- A Weapon Oil cannot be applied to Thrown or Ranged weapons. These weapon types inherently perform a call and cannot do another call.
What do I need to make a Consumable or Weapon Oil?
The making of Consumables and Weapon Oils requires Flicker. The type of Flicker needed will depend on the consumable you wish to create and you may need several different types in order to create it. Depending on the Consumable or Weapon Oil, the amount of Flicker needed will also vary. Flicker is an ingredient that can be found via several sources in-game; it can be supplied through your base character resource, but there are also many other in-game ways of finding Flicker.
What do i do to use apothecary In-game?
To make a Consumable or Weapon Oil in Menhirs Fate there are a few simple steps to follow.
- Pick Your Base Abilities:
- After buying the Apothecary skill, choose 3 base abilities. These initial picks will dictate the type of Consumable/Weapon Oil you can create.
- You can add more base abilities, items or skills at the cost of 1 XP per ability. This will give you a broader spectrum for making.
- Making:
- Create a physical representation (physrep) for the Consumable or Weapon Oil, with an in-character (IC) explanation of what it is and an out-of-character (OOC) note for the mechanics on the back.
- Visit an Apothecary Station and perform the required roleplay. Please make sure you have the required Flicker in advance of this, as you will need to hand it to the referee looking after this station.
- Roleplay the making of the Consumable/Weapon Oil. This may take up to five minutes and may include any thematic roleplay.
- A referee will check your creation and approve it; please hand over the required Flicker to the referee at this point. Once approved, they’ll provide a sticker for your Consumable/Weapon Oil to represent the number of doses, and stamp the mechanics description.
- Important: Remove one sticker each time the item is used. Once the stickers are gone, the Consumable/Weapon Oil is used up.
- The Consumables and Weapon Oils lasts for 2 years or until it has run out of doses.
- Only 1 person may contribute their skills to a use of the Apothecary skill. Any number of people may roleplay having contributed but we will only take into account 1 person’s skills. Once created a consumable/weapon oil is final. No further effects can be added.
How does it work?
What you can make
The Consumables you can make are determined by choices made when purchasing the Apothecary and Apothecary mastery skills. Picking Consumable lets you make a Consumable with any of the effects you have chosen to learn and picking Weapon Oils allows you to create a Weapon Oil with any of the Calls you have chosen to learn.
What it costs
To work out the cost for a Consumable you begin by choosing a Base item: Consumable or Weapon Oil. These are aligned to different elements (Water for Consumable and Fire for Weapon Oil). The Base item does not add to the cost. All it determines is the initial alignment. Next you choose the effects. Each effect has an alignment of its own (Fire, Earth, Air, Water and Spirit) and a cost in Flicker. E.G Shatter: 3(E) This tells you that to create a consumable with the Shatter effect you will need 3 Fire Flicker.
Example
A Weapon Oil that causes Rend when they hit an opponent. The first step is working out the Flicker needed:
Alignment of Weapon oil – Fire
Alignment and cost of the Rend call – 4 Fire Flicker
Total cost before Reagent – 4 Fire Flicker
Reagent
All Apothecary items require a Reagent to hold the magics together. Each time you add an effect you spend a Spirit Flicker to hold it all together and this increases incrementally per effect added. This amount of Spirit Flicker also increases by 1 if it does not match the alignment of the previous step. This means you may find optimal ways of creating an Apothecary item to use the least amount of Spirit Flicker. The online tool for Apothecary can help with this and will be available with the Apothecary refs at the event.
Example 1
Jess Bobbins needs to add Reagents to hold the Weapon Oil together.
Weapon Oils are aligned to Fire and Rend is Aligned to Fire.
Weapon Oil (Fire) to Stun (Fire) costs 1 Spirit Flicker. The base Spirit to bind the effects together with no additional cost due to them Aligning.
This means the total cost of the item would be 3 Fire Flicker and 1 Spirit Flicker
Example 2
Jess Bobbins needs to add Reagents to hold a Crush Consumable together.
Consumables are aligned to Water while Crush is aligned to Earth and and adding + 1 use/encounter is aligned to Fire.
Consumable (Water) to Crush (Earth) costs 2 Spirit Flicker. The base Spirit to bind the effects together plus the additional cost due to them not Aligning.
Earth (E) to +1use/encounter (Fire) costs 3 Spirit flicker. It also does not align and so costs 2 Spirit Flicker due to being the 2nd effect added to the potion and 1 more due to the lack of alignment.
The potion will have a Reagent cost of 5 Spirit Flicker.
This means the total cost of the potion would be 4 Earth Flicker, 1 Fire Flicker and 5 Spirit Flicker for 1 dose.
Apothecary table
| Base Item | Effect | Cost | Valid for | Notes |
| Consumable: (Water) | Antidote | 5 Water | Instant consumable, weapon oil, enchant | |
| Weapon Oil: (Fire) | Rebound 1/encounter | 4 Air | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | |
| Crush 1/encounter | 4 Earth | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | Can only be applied to Blunt weapons | |
| Elemental Blast 1/encounter | 2 Spirit + 2 Air for range | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | ||
| Ensnare 1/encounter | 3 water + 2 air for range | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | ||
| I’ve Seen Worse 1/encounter | 3 air | Skill consumable, enchant | ||
| Mend 1/encounter | 3 water | Skill consumable, enchant | ||
| Regeneration 1/encounter | 4 earth | Skill consumable, enchant | ||
| Rend 1/encounter | 4 fire | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | Can only be applied to Sharp weapons | |
| Shatter 1/encounter | 3 fire | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | ||
| Stagger 1/encounter | 3 air | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | ||
| Stun 1/encounter | 3 fire | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | ||
| Taunt 1/encounter | 3 fire + 2 air for range | Skill consumable, weapon oil, enchant | ||
| Ranged Proficiency | 4 air | Skill consumable, enchant | ||
| Regain Health | 3 water | Instant consumable, enchant | ||
| +1 use per encounter or day for this object | 1 fire | Addon to skill consumable, enchant | Usually encounter, day on regain enchant | |
| Toughness | 2 earth | Skill consumable, enchant | Can be stacked with itself for better consumable | |
| Light roleplaying effect | Free for consumables | Can only be used on consumables | ||
| Medium roleplaying effect | 1 Air | Can only be used on consumables | ||
| Heavy roleplaying effect | 1 Air | Can only be used on consumables |
Fixation
The roleplay effect may be addictive, making the character feel a strong urge to experience it again from the same origin. *A player may choose to ignore this effect if they feel uncomfortable with this roleplay*
Roleplay effects
For additional Flicker costs, you may add roleplay effects onto your items. These effects will last for the duration of the item and always be in effect on the character when holding the item.
You may add roleplay effects to your Consumable only. Light roleplay effects are free and require no Reagent but moderate or heavy roleplay effects may be added by spending additional Flicker.
Duration of the effects
- Light effects are short-lived, lasting 30 seconds
- Medium effects can last for 30 mins
- Heavy effects last for 3 hours
Guide to writing role play effects
You may if you choose, add roleplay effects to your creations. While we do not wish roleplay effects to dictate to characters what they are thinking or feeling, we instead encourage you to describe the physical or environmental effects of the creation on the target so that it may allow them to interpret and act accordingly as their character sees fit. For example, your creation, rather than stating that the target is frightened, might instead describe that the character’s heart is racing and they feel a pit in their stomach or that every loud noise or sudden move is a shock to the senses.
Other roleplay effects may include direct instructions for example “ you wish to seek out adventure”, sensory specific effects, like “ all colours seem brighter” or, “all sounds seem muffled” or they may include perceived environmental factors such as “the air feels thin to you, the ground is moving”.
Additional Notes
Consent and Collaboration: Heavy roleplay effects, in particular, should be discussed between players and Menhirs Fate Volunteer to ensure that they fit with ongoing narratives and are enjoyable for everyone involved.
We will not approve any roleplay effects that we feel do not meet our standards for safety or codes of conduct. Some effects such as love Consumables etc are not allowed and must reflect the game’s community standards, your Enchantment and Apothecary Refs will not allow those effects to work. For this reason, please check with them before creating any roleplay effects.
Hidden effects
The apothecary may choose to hide the effects behind a flap on the physrep that can be closed and only opened upon drinking or by being investigated by an Apothecary.
Apothecary Schematics
Beyond the power of standardised apothecary skills are schematics. These may appear from a variety of sources in game and cannot be purchased as a skill. A schematic allows you to create unique consumables that can do things beyond the listed effects on the apothecary table. They require unique ingredients instead of the normal Flicker but can be made by anybody with the Apothecary skill assuming they have taken the relevant base item (Consumable or Weapon Oil)
e.g. a Schematic has appeared for a Weapon Oil that needs to be made with the blood of a unique monster to be able to kill a particular enemy. The Schematic will allow anyone who can make a Weapon Oil to use the blood for a Weapon Oil that lets them use Obliterate on that specific target.
