Pharmacy

Pharmacy is the skill used to combine various plants into Pharmaceuticals that have various effects. These effects are predictable, with the same combination always giving the same result. You can play this as knowledge of chemistry or lower tech herblore skills.

You need access to a Pharmaceutical Laboratory in order to make Pharmaceuticals, which can be anything from a pristine custom-made room full of glassware to a cauldron surrounded by herbs. There will be a suitable laboratory available at interactives; do not expect to find one on linears unless you have been told in advance there will be one.

Herbs, pharmaceutical items and bases are represented by sleeved cards with images of the item on. Characters can place slips of paper in these sleeves if you wish to represent labeling the items in question.

The systematic study of pharmacy is a relatively new discipline - while chemistry and medical use for various plants have been studied for time immemorial, the advent of Intuition has led to many new discoveries, and far stronger brews. There was little time for investigation into the new discipline before the changes, and now research is heavily suppressed and controlled by the Analytical Intelligences.

Nevertheless, progress continues, albeit slowly. Characters with the Pharmacist skill can conduct experiments, combining ingredients in new ways to discover their uses, or get a guaranteed result by following a recipe prepared by another Pharmacist.

Using Pharmaceuticals

Each character can only use one Pharmaceutical per scene. Further Pharmaceuticals taken will have no effect and be wasted. (Some Pharmaceuticals are Poisons and don’t count against this limit.)

In order to use a Pharmaceutical, you must take out the rules card from the sleeve and read it to ensure it has the effect that you expect. This generally requires that you use both hands to do so. Once you have done this you can roleplay drinking/applying/etc the item and apply its effects.

For unknown reasons, using a blade oil or injectable potion counts as the Pharmaceutical use of the person applying it, not the person it is used on.

Common Knowledge

Every pharmaceutical must contain one base, and can use one or two active agents. The active agents are usually Herbs.

Bases

Every pharmaceutical needs a base. These bases define how the final product can be used. Oil will create something that can be used on or with objects, for example a blade venom, something that can be injected into another person, or a cleaning compound. Tea will create a drinkable substance that primarily affects the mind. Paste will create a substance that can be applied topically, and primarily affects the body.

While not identical, effects from the same herb across the bases will have some relation.

These are common and easily available, part of any pharmacy laboratory. Players should expect to have access to as many of these as they need at interactives. It is generally not possible to create Pharmaceuticals on linears.

Active agents (herbs)

These are extracts gained from various plant life that can have impressive effects on the human body. These appears as a card with a picture of a plant on. Some are common knowledge, others are newly discovered or hard to find, and knowledge of them is naturally incomplete - for now.

Recipes

Well-known recipes among those who study the art of Pharmacy are:

• Adding extract of Red Asphodel to a paste creates a salve that enables extremely fast recovery from injury.
• Infusing Heartsblood into a tea was the discovery that kick-started the field of Intuition - it makes a pleasant tasting drink that enhances one’s capability for Intuition, allowing for the discovery of Mantras.
• Using Blackmoss with blade oil gives a weapon the sting of an entire bed of nettles, it effectively REPELs an opponent.
• A tea combining Crowncap and Wall Timothy makes a tea that enhances self-reflection, allowing an Intuitionist to affect their own mind.

Plants

An example rule card for a basic healing potion made with Red Asphodel and a paste base.

The plants used for Pharmacy can be rather rare and sometimes difficult to distinguish from their more common and less useful kin. There are five plants that are known as the Cardinal Essences which are commonly found or cultivated. Other, rarer plants are also rumoured, but they tend to have stranger and more intense effects.

A book called "Notes for the Field Herbalist" is readily available and acts as a primer on this subject; your character can have read it if you like, and if you want, you can print a copy so your character has one in play. Click here for the book.

(Any overlap with actual plants is more or less coincidence.)

• Heartsblood is one of the more easy to identify, being a plant similar to a snowdrop, with the white flower stained red at the centre.
• Red Asphodel is a tall plant, with slender leaves and a cluster of bright red flowers.
• Contrary to it’s name, Blackmoss is not a moss at all, being a plant with dense, dark leaves and globular yellow flowers.
• Crowncap is a very tall flower with a branching stem and crown-like flowers of white edged with yellow.
• Wall Timothy is a dense herbaceous scrub with small, dark green leaves.