Intro
While magic items are a big part of the game, there will
always be a use for those items that bridge the gap between magic and
mundanity, alchemical items!
Alchemy in the real world is a broad term for a variety of
philosophical and proto-scientific traditions found throughout the world that
focused on understanding the relationship between the individual components of
the world with each other and the spiritual. In other words, it was chemistry
before the scientific method. Alchemists were often concerned with trying to “purify”
metals, transmuting a “base” metal into a “noble” metal, the most famous
example being lead into gold; or else they were concerned with some other magnum
opus such as immortality, a true “universal solvent”, or even the curing of any
disease by way of a universal medicine, or panacea. The idea of the Philosopher’s
Stone was born from this, and was often said to be capable of any or all of
these feats.
Alchemy also delivers to us the concept of creating life,
such as homunculi, or even other constructs, including golems in Jewish
folklore, mythos and alchemical/theurgical lore.
Of course, while alchemy did indeed lead to many
advancements in how we approach the sciences to this very day, it was still
shackled in many ways, such as an obsession with the ancient notion of a
limited number of elements from which the world is made, as well as jealously
guarding their discoveries behind ciphers and code like its sister philosophy, Theurgy,
both of which fall alongside Astrology as the three core sciences of
Hermeticism.
In pathfinder, however, alchemy covers the combined magical
and chemical discipline that is the alchemist class, which we’ll cover at some
point in the future, and the more mundane items they can create. Unlike
alchemically brewed potions or the various concoctions that only work for the
alchemist that made them, mundane alchemical items can be made by anyone with a
sufficient training in the skill of crafting alchemical concoctions, and furthermore
function for anyone who carries them.
Such items range from alchemical explosives, enhanced
medicines, unique compounds ranging from using chemistry in clever and
fantastical ways, to outright breaking physics as well. Of course, these items,
just like truly magical items, are meant to be used in a world of fantasy and
wonder, and while such items are never quite as powerful as their magical
counterparts, they can still perform wondrous acts when used correctly.
Over the next week, we’re going to look at various examples
of alchemical items, their uses, and even a neat subsystem devoted to creating
alchemical items on the fly!
