Apothecary skills
Apothecary
3xp – This skill allows you to make use of the Apothecary Skill and create potions 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 to enchant as one of these picks or you will not be able to make anything)
Apothercary Mastery
1xp – Apothecary Mastery gives you another pick from the Apothecary table
What is Apothecary?
Apothecary is the skill of creating magical potions and poisons by combining abilities and 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 affect the final resource cost.
What do I need to brew a potion or poison?
The brewing of potions and poisons 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 potion or poison, 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.
How do I brew a potion or poison?
To make a potion or poison 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 potion/poison you can create.
- You can add more base abilities, items or or skills at the cost of 1 XP per ability. This will give you a broader spectrum for brewing.
- Brewing:
- Create a physical representation (physrep) for the potion or poison, 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 brewing of the potion/poison. 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 potion/poison 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 potion/poison is used up.
- The Potion lasts for 2 years or until it has run out of doses.
How does it work?
What you can Brew
What you can brew is dictated by the base abilities you have chosen in Apothecary and any further abilities you have added along the way. At least one of these picks must be a base creation (consumable or blade oil). This dictates the type of creation you can brew. You may have multiple types of base creations, meaning that you can brew any creation of that type.
**For example, Jess Bobbins has one base creation,Consumable. They can now create consumables.**
How you can Brew them
The other abilities and skills you take in apothecary determine what magical effects you can brew in your creations.
**Jess Bobbins has chosen Consumable, Heal Wounds, Fuel Focus. This means that they can now do any of the following
- Create a consumable that gives the drinker the use of Heal Wounds (only usable if they have Focus)
- Create a consumable that when consumed will heal the consumer as though they have had the Heal Wounds spell cast on them.**
What it costs
The amount and type of Flicker needed to create a potion is determined first by the base costs that can be found in the apothecary chart below. Start by simply adding up these base costs.
**Jess Bobbins decides to make a healing consumable and so creates a Consumable that has both Heal Wounds and One Focus Point.
Base cost of Consumable – 1 Water Flicker
Focus x 1 – 1 Spirit Flicker
Heal Wounds – 3 Water Flicker**
The Glue
All Potions items require “glue” to hold the magics together. Each time you add a skill or ability, spend an extra Spirit Flicker to hold it all together
**Jess Bobbins is adding both Heal wounds and Focus to their Consumable . So this will cost them two extra Spirit Flicker.**
The Alignment
All items, skills and abilities in the game have an alignment. This alignment determines what type of Flicker you will need. It also defines how easy it is to put certain abilities on certain items. If the ability or skill alignment doesn’t match the base item alignment you will need to add an extra Spirit Flicker each time to make them fit together.
**Jess Bobbins’ base item is Consumable which is aligned to Water. As Focus is aligned to Spirit, and Heal Wounds is aligned to Water, they need to add a further one Spirit Essence to make it all work.
So Jess’ total Flicker cost is now 4 Spirit Flicker and 4 Water Flicker**
| Alignment By Colour | |
| Fire: | R |
| Air: | A |
| Water: | W |
| Earth | E |
| Spirit: | S |
Apothecary table
| Base Item | Calls | Skill Proficiencies | Roleplay effects | Fuel |
| Consumable:(W) | Crush: 4(R) | Two handed weapon: 2(S) | Light 1(S) | Vigour: 1(S) |
| Blade Oil: (R) | Stun: 3(R) | Pole arm: 3(S) | Medium 1(S) | Focus: 1(S) |
| Petrify: 3 (W) | Light armour: 1(S) | Heavy 1(S) | ||
| Ensnare: 3 (E) | Medium armour: 2(S) | Fixation: 1(R) | ||
| Rend: 4 (R) | Heavy armour: 3(S) | |||
| Taunt: 3 (R) | Ambidextrous: 1(S) | |||
| Disarm: 3 (W) | Thrown weapon: 1(S) | |||
| Stagger: 3 (A) | Ranged proficiency: 4(S) | |||
| Heal wounds: 3 (W) | Shield proficiency: 2(S) | |||
| Mend: 3 (E) | I’ve seen worse: 3(S) | |||
| Shatter: 3 (R) | Regeneration: 4(S) | |||
| Counter spell: 4 (A) | Focus +1 (This adds one focus to your current focus and can take you to above your maximum): 3(S) | |||
| Shielding: 3 (E) | Vigor +1 (This adds one focus to your current focus and can take you to above your maximum): 3(S) | |||
| Elemental Strike: 2 (S) | Focus Regain: (Restores 4 of the Character Focus) 3(S) | |||
| Increase Range: 2 (A) [Increase the range of any cantrip call effect to 5 meters] | Vigour Regain: (Restores 2 of the Character Vigour) 3(S) | |||
| Poison: 3(W) | Toughness: 2(E) This increases by one for each use in a potion | |||
| Antidote: 5(W) |
All spells have a melee range until you take the increased range pick. This turns the spell into the throwable version.
Weapons or Foci with Fuel are the casters of the call so no spell vocals are required, However 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 potion including spell vocals
Fuel
Fuel in Apothecary refers to the pools of strength 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
Roleplay effects
For additional essence 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 potion/poisons. Light roleplay effects are free, 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 Staff 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 potions 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.