Alchemy

Alchemy is the potion craft of Britannia — the discipline of grinding reagents into magical liquids that heal, harm, buff stats, cure poison, or detonate as throwable explosives. An Alchemist supplies a warrior's belt of Greater Heals, a rogue's stash of Greater Poison, a mage's Conflagration arsenal, and the Gardener's potion-fertilizer pantry. The skill never produced gold from lead in Ultima Online, but its reagent-to-potion economy is one of the steadiest gold streams a crafter can tap.

What Alchemy does

Enhance Potions and the skill bonus

Alchemy carries a built-in Enhance Potions bonus that scales linearly with the skill: +1% per 3.3 skill points, reaching +30% at 99 skill (the practical GM cap on the bonus). The bonus stacks above any equipment Enhance Potions value and is not subject to the 50% equipment cap, so a GM Alchemist with full Enhance Potions equipment can reach the 80% absolute cap.

Since Publish 73 the bonus has a floor as well: an Alchemist's effective Enhance Potions value will never drop below Alchemy / 2, regardless of equipment. A GM Alchemist always has at least 50% Enhance Potions, even unbuffed. This makes Alchemy uniquely valuable to a damage caster — a GM Alchemist throwing Greater Explosion potions does dramatically more damage than a non-Alchemist with the same potion supply.

Brewing

Alchemy uses a Mortar and Pestle as its primary tool. Reagents and an empty bottle in pack, double-click the mortar, choose the potion. Each brew consumes the listed reagents and yields one filled potion.

Reagent ladder

The reagent recipe is fixed per potion type. Common reagent costs:

Reagents are bought from Mage and Alchemist NPCs (often cheaper from the Alchemist) or grown from Gardening. The Gardening synergy is a serious gold loop on its own — a Gardener who is also an Alchemist drops the reagent cost effectively to zero.

Potion Keg workflow

Brewing one potion at a time is impractical. The standard pattern:

1. Brew the first potion of a given type.
2. Drop it onto an empty Potion Keg.
3. Subsequent potions of that type made afterwards automatically pour into the same keg, keg full at 100 charges.
4. Once the keg is full, dump fresh empty bottles in and they fill from the keg.
5. Roll forward: empty keg → fresh empty bottles → tier up.

A keg's contents can be identified by tipping a single potion out — a trained Alchemist's sample reveals the keg type publicly. Crucial for vendor stalls: unidentified kegs sell at a discount.

The standard Make Max button on each potion's craft page autobrews until reagents run out, dropping each potion straight into the appropriate keg.

Training

Volume is the cost: hundreds of mortar-and-pestles and several thousand reagents. Approximate costs to GM:

The skill-band ladder:

A Crystal Ball of Knowledge confirms which potion is in the gain band at any given skill level — the recommended target shifts gradually. A 99-skill Alchemist who is brewing Greater Heals already may still gain on Greater Cures.

Glassblowing

A high-level Alchemist (typically GM) can take up Glassblowing, a related secondary craft. Glassblowing produces empty bottles, decorative glassware, and three special Alchemy potions plus one decorative item that require Alchemy Recipes to learn:

• Glass Sword (decorative)
• Glass Mug (decorative)
• Special potion variants that combine Glassblowing chemistry with Alchemy reagents

Glassblowing is taught by Sa'Bal the Master Glassblower in the Tokuno Islands; the city of Zento is the canonical training ground. Empty bottles in particular are a steady gold spring — every potion needs one, and Alchemists self-supply via Glassblowing rather than buying from Mages.

Gardening synergy

Greater Heal, Greater Cure, Greater Strength, and Greater Poison potions are plant fertilizers in the Gardening system — drop them on a soil tray and the plant accelerates growth or shifts color. A Gardener-plus-Alchemist character runs both systems off the same shelf:

• Gardener grows reagents → Alchemist brews potions → Gardener fertilizes plants → cycle.

The market for Greater Heal / Greater Cure as fertilizers — independent of their combat use — keeps Alchemy profitable on every shard.

Strategy notes

• GM Alchemy + GM Glassblowing. The pair turn an Alchemist into a complete supply chain. Empty bottles, kegs, full potion stocks — no NPC dependency.
• Garden first, brew second. Gardening produces all six common reagents plus a few rares; running both on one character cuts material costs by 90%.
• Power Scroll for the throw build. A 120 Alchemy character throwing Greater Explosion potions hits harder than most Magery casters at the same skill level. The Power Scroll matters here for both gain pace and the floor on Enhance Potions.
• Satyr Trick for 100→120. Capture a Discordance song, peace-target a Satyr, brew while in the Satyr's aura. Standard post-100 grind.
• Don't store kegs labelled. Sealed kegs sell at a discount because buyers can't verify contents. If you're brewing for sale, identify each keg before stocking the vendor.
• Conflagration vs Explosion. Greater Explosion is single-target instant; Greater Conflagration is multi-target persistent ground-damage. A serious Alchemist carries both.

See also

Glassblowing, Gardening, Magery, Tinkering, Bulk Order Deeds, Power Scrolls, Crystal Ball of Knowledge, Mortar and Pestle, Empty Bottle, Potion Keg, Black Pearl, Bloodmoss, Garlic, Ginseng, Mandrake Root, Spider's Silk, Sulfurous Ash, Nightshade, Greater Heal Potion, Greater Cure Potion, Greater Explosion Potion, Greater Conflagration Potion, Enhance Potions, Sa'Bal, Zento, Tokuno Islands, Reagents.