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 – Apothecary Mastery gives you another pick from the Apothecary table
Item Designer
We have created the Menhirs Fate Item Designer to go along with the apothecary rules to make it easier for people to figure out how to create whatever they want. This program lets you add all the effects that you want to a Weapon Oil or Consumable and then lets you optimise the creation.
https://www.menhirsfate.com/item-designer/
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 allow you to perform a skill you may not have access to. When using the skill it is still subject to all the normal rules of that skill. Consumables within this skillset do not let you break normal restrictions for those skills such as gaining the heavy armour skill and also casting magic.
Consumables can affect you in a few ways and have durations tied to those effects:
- A Consumable that grants a skill will allow you to use that skill until the next Sunrise.
- A Consumable that restores a Health, Vigour or Focus will take effect immediately when used.
- A Consumable can have multiple Doses by mutiplying 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 can not wait to use the Call that is given by the oil. Weapon Oils do not require fuel for the Call to be used and can only be used once.
- 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. A Weapon Oil never requires fuel to perform this call
- Using another Weapon Oil replaces the current effect on the weapon.
- A Weapon Oil is consumed even if the skill has no effect.
- A Weapon Oil cannot grant any of the skill proficiencies nor can you apply any roleplay effects with them
- A Weapon Oil can have multiple Doses by multiplying the amount of Flicker by the amount of Doses you want to make.
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 skills, 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.
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 whether you are making a Consumable or Weapon Oil. These are aligned to different elements (Water for Consumable and Fire for Weapon Oil). 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 1
Jess Bobbins decided to make a Weapon Oil that give the causes Stun when they hit an opponnent. The first step is working out the Flicker needed
Alignment of Weapon oil – Fire
Alignment and cost of the Stun call – 3(F) 3 Fire Flicker
Total cost before Reagent – 3 Fire Flicker
Example 2
Jess Bobbins decides to make a Consumable Potion that gives the user the Shatter call and 1 Focus point to use it. The first step is working out the Flicker needed for the potion.
Alignment of Consumable – Water
Alignment and cost of the Shatter call – 3(F) 3 Fire Flicker
Alignment and cost of the Focus Fuel – 1(W) 1 Water Flicker
Total cost before Reagent – 3 Fire Flicker and 1 Water 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 Stun is Aligned to Fire.
Weapon Oil (F) to Stun (F) 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 the Shatter potion Consumable together.
Consumables are aligned to Water while Shatter is aligned to Fire and Focus Fuel is aligned to Water. Adding them in this order would cost more as you need go through each step.
Consumable (W) to Shatter (F) costs 2 Spirit Flicker. The base Spirit to bind the effects together plus the additional cost due to them not Aligning.
Shatter (F) to Focus Fuel (W) 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.
The most efficient way for Jess to create this potion is to add effects in the following order:
Consumable (W) to Focus Fuel (W) costs 1 Spirit Flicker. This is because the alignment is the same and only costs the base Spirit Flicker.
Focus Fuel (W) to Shatter (F) costs 3 Spirit Flicker. This costs 2 Spirit Flicker due to being the 2nd effect added to the potion and 1 more due to the lack of alignment.
The more efficient way to create this potion means it is now 4 Spirit Flicker
This means the total cost of the potion would be 3 Fire Flicker 1 Water Flicker and 4 Spirit Flicker for 1 dose
| Alignment By Colour | |
| Fire: | F |
| Air: | A |
| Water: | W |
| Earth | E |
| Spirit: | S |
Apothecary table
| Base Item | Calls | Skill Proficiencies | Roleplay effects | Fuel |
| Consumable:(W) | Crush: 4(E) | Two handed weapon: 2(F) | Medium 1(E) | Vigour: 1(F) |
| Weapon Oil: (F) | Stun: 3(F) | Pole arm: 3(E) | Heavy 1(A) | Focus: 1(W) |
| Petrify: 3 (E) * | Light armour: 1(W) | Fixation: 1(A) | ||
| Ensnare: 3 (W) * | Medium armour: 2(E) | |||
| Rend: 4 (F) | Heavy armour: 3(F) | |||
| Taunt: 3 (F) * | Ambidextrous: 1(A) | |||
| Stagger: 3 (A) * | Thrown weapon: 1(W) | |||
| Heal wounds: 3 (W) | Ranged proficiency: 4(A) | |||
| Mend: 3 (W) | Shield proficiency: 2(E) | |||
| Shatter: 3 (F) | Focus +1 (This adds one focus to your current focus and can take you to above your maximum): 3(W) | |||
| Counter spell: 4 (A) * | Regain Focus: (Restores 4 of the Character Focus) 3(A) | |||
| Elemental Blast: 2 (S) * | Vigour +1 (This adds one focus to your current focus and can take you to above your maximum): 3(F) | |||
| Shielding: 3 (E) | Regain Vigour: (Restores 2 of the Character Vigour) 3(E) | |||
| Poison: 3(W) | Toughness: (Increases Hit Points by 1) 2(E) | |||
| Antidote: 5(W) | Increase Range: 2 (A) [Increase the range of any cantrip call effect to 10 meters] | |||
| I’ve seen worse: 3(A) | Regain Health: (Restores 3 hit points) 3(W) | |||
| Regeneration: 4(E) |
* Skills that may be thrown
All spells have a melee range until you take the increased range pick. This turns the spell into the throwable version. Only abilities that are able to be thrown as shown on the cantrips list can have their range increased. Consumables with Fuel are the casters of the call so no spell vocals are required. Without fuel the character must have the Vigour or Focus themselves and an appropriate weapon as they would if they were casting the ability without an Consumable including spell vocals
Fuel
This section is only relevant to Consumables as Weapon Oils don’t require Fuel
Fuel in Apothecary refers to the resource pools that fuel those effects.
Calls that can be produced by Vigour require either your personal pool of vigour to power them or require at least 1 point of Vigour fuel on the item itself. The calls that require this can be drawn from the Vigour effects list
Calls that can be produced by Focus require either your personal pool of Focus to power them or require at least 1 point of Focus fuel on the item itself. The calls that require this can be drawn from the Spell list.
If a call can be found on either list then it may use either fuel source
Having Vigour or focus from a consumable does not give you access to the free abilities of Vigour or Focus.
You can only be under one continuous effect at a time from consumable. This allows you to use instantaneous effect consumables multiple times such healing, regain focus etc. consumables lasts until the effect has been used or until the next sunrise.
If a character has a gained a skill from a Consumable and then uses another Consumable that grants a skill, the previous effect will be immediately cancelled and replaced with the new effect. In cases where a consumable grants multiple skills such as Polearm also granting Two Handed Weapon when another consumable replaces the use of Polearm the character also loses access to the Two Handed weapon skill.
Note: this will have no effect on the durational effect of Poison.
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 phys rep that can be closed and only open upon drinking or by being observed 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 target