Daniel's Plant And Potion Book

[Jistuma 1996]

*Daniel keeps a notebook with him, where he writes his findings and experiements on. The book is filled with drawings of plants, diagrams of use, recipes that are scratched over, and texts detailing what he finds. It's contents are shown below*
 
(This is a post to serve as lore and as documentation to my characters discoveries and potions. It's going to start with little stuff, and progress from it. Mostly I will place things that don't need lore aproved, but that are considered 'new', opinions on each bit is actually asked for, and if you want, you can ask nicely my character for the notebook in this thread, and he will show it to you, meaning you can roleplay asking him and him showing you without fear of it being powergamed. This way you can have IC knowledge of it if you want. Just ask nicely in the rp post you do, don't threaten or steal it or etc, because that would mean Daniel would not show you the book, and would protect it.)
 
Plants

The Desert Berry Bush
 
Found this bush while traveling the deserts of the Fringe. It's not really all that remarkable nor noticible most of the times. It appears like a bush with thorns which has died and dried up. What brought my attention to it the first time was that a desert hare was leaning over one and appeared to beeating something. As I got close the hare ran away, and I looked into the bush to find small red berries growing from it. At first I believe it to be simply a berry bush that had dried up still with it's fruit, I couldn't be much wrong. With a knife I cut one of the stalks to take home the berries to test them, and found the cut to start leaking. As I looked more to the inside of the cut plant I realized that that appearing dead bush was infact still alive, it only looks dead through the outside. I took notice of it and started finding more around the desert.
 
The Desert Berry Bush's appearance is that of a withered rose bush, long brown/grey stalks with big pointy thorns, yet without any leaves. It doesn't appear to grow higher than four feet, but most of the thorns are longer than an inch. It grows inside cactus forests, as in, where there is great concentration of cactus. I have never found one alone in the desert, without a cactus near it.
 
The bush gives Berries of Red color every full moon. These don't last long, as animals of the desert appear to enjoy it's taste quite dearly. The berries are extremelly sweet, something very strange to find in the desert, so no wonder the animas enjoy it.
 
The stalks are not like the berries, if an animal by any chance passed the long thorns to rip and eat the stalk, I believe would fall dead in less than a day. As you cut the stalk you notice that the insides are green, instead of the dead brown. From it it's juice flows a lot, yet of course it's poison to drink it. From my experiments with rabits, their mouth and face start to get raches, they move their tongue a lot, opening and closing their mouths, and a few even moved their paws inside the mouth to scratch. Too much of it and it kills of course, and it looked painful.
 
After accidentaly touching one of the thorns I noticed that my hand started itching and became red for about a day. It doesn't seem deadly to descendents and probably kha's, but it does explain the small rodents found dead near them. It has the same effects as the juices in the stalk, so a thorn is poisoness, and annoying, just doesn't kill big animals.
 
Alchemy uses:
Desert Bush Berry - Weak Fire Symbol
The berry serves more as a treat and to probably cooking, but don't take my word for it, I'm a horrible cook. As for alchemy uses, perhaps as a fire symbol, as is custom to red ingredients. In this case not because of the color, but because of the strong flavor it has, almost overwelming. On the other hand, it doesn't appear all that useful nor seems to give great use in equivilent exchange.
 
Desert Berry Bush - Moderate Earth Symbol
The stalk seems to have far more uses in alchemy. Expecially I believe for oils of protection and potions of stoneskin I think it would be a great ingredient to add. I believe it represents protection and resilience, the thorns and it's poison nature being the reasons why. To prepare for it I have found it hard, as when cut, the juices drip quite fast. You can't remove the bush from the ground, as it's roots are too big, so they have to be cut in the spot. Feet long pieces of stalk I believe is enough to create a potion of protection or stoneskin, and to cut it, one would have to almost tilt the plant down so that the cut doesn't face down. Gloves are essencial in gathering it because of the thorns, and after cutting, I advise placing it in a long bottle, with the cut end pointing up. When being prepared, the alchemist should be careful as to lose as little bit of the stalk as he removes the seemingly dead outer layer of the stalk, before using itin his potion.
 
 
Black Sun's Spinster
 

 
This black plant blooms a black flower in the hard stone parts of the desert. I was once told of it by a friend and decided to try and search for it. It grows through the cracks in the dry ground and slowly ascends until it blooms into quite an astounishing black flower. The leaves are small and with a green and brown color, like most plants of the deserts, only the flower being black.
 
The plant of might doesn't reach very high, no higher than a foot. Many flowers may bloom from a single plant, and after the flower is withered or cut off, another one blooms once more. Removing the whole plant does mean others start growing in it's spot, normally only one remains thought, normally the first to grow.
 
The plant doesn't seem to grow anywhere else besides the hot cracks in the desert, perhaps that is the reason there are not so many of them everywhere. This means that they might be hard to find at first, but as soon as the location is found, you never again need to find their spot, you can just go there everytime you want one of the flowers.
 
The flower, while quite beautiful, only has one use I could find besides it's appearance. It's use while not particularly useful to many, can be extremelly useful to others. If a woman eats one of these flowers a few hours before she mates, she will not get pregnant. Of course a woman that does this should be careful not to eat it too soon, or chose a flower that is not big enough.
 
Eating the plant means you get to taste it, and it's not that tasteful. While it only works on women for some reason, I had to try it myself to see if it tasted good or not. It doesn't. You get the acidic taste in your mouth for hours after eating it. From my experiences with bunnies, which as well didn't like it all that much, I found out that it does stop a female bunny from getting pregnant, thought mistakes from when to feed it happened a lot.
 
To try and find a better use of the flower, I started experimenting with some alchemy tecniques. Using lard, grinding the flower, removing water, and purifying it to make it stronger, I was able to increase it's awful taste 3 times! Together with the taste thought, I improved the time a woman would not be able to have children, up to one and a half elven days. As for the side effects, asside from the horrible taste, I found none yet, but it's hard to find some when you experiment on bunnies.
 
((Yes, I created the pill in LOTC. Side-effects while not known IC are affections in taste and smell. Things your character didn't like before, might create a huge craving during the effects. Specific smells will make the character get moody, or not be able to bear it, these smells are random, like the smell of grain, or the smell of a specific flower, or smell of watered cats. It doesn't cause insanity or evil thoughts, don't use it as reasons to kill someone, even if your character is moody. Be creative.))
 
Alchemy uses:
I have found no alchemy use so far, only the use of the flower itself. I am afraid of creating a potion with this plant as the central core, as I believe it might make a woman fully infertile if gone wrong.
 
 
Jailer's Moss
 
During some walks through the tunnels of Kal'Arkon, I saw this peculiar white/yellow moss growing from near openings in the wall where water dripped. Nothing of importantce at first, they didn't seem anything out of the ordinary, and they appeared to be a lot of it in those swamp tunnels. Even in small streams it seemed to grow and in one of those is where I got to see it's effects, as I found a fish stuck to some of it.
 
I then collected some of it from a wall, and realised how annoying it really was. It glued itself to my glove, and then I could only pull the whole plant. I started to cut it with my knife and it got stuck to it as well. While the plant couldn't hold the force someone has while pulling it and breaks, the glew it creates can.
 
I started taking more attention to that moss as I continued my journey through the tunnels, and I found out that it feeds on insects, small fishes and other aquatic small creatures that get stuck in it. I was still having trouble removing the bits I had on my gloves. I wanted to try some more, so I took my glove off and touched just a bit with my finger in one. It became stuck even with the most lightest of touches. As I pulled, the whole plant came with my finger, and once more I couldn't get it out.
 
It isn't dangerous but it's annoying. I took some of it home, not that I had any choise at that time, to study it more. It continues sticking even over heat of fire, and after cooling down. Water doesn't help, as the glew doesn't seem to mix with it. After a few days the plant finally dies and with it the glue disapears. Other than awaiting, the only other way I found on how to remove it, is with aqua vitae, or brews with alcohol. Quite a waste I say.
 
Alchemy use:
Weak Air Symbol
One would think that it might be an earth symbol due to it's abilities to grab and hold things, or the point that it just doesn't get off. Perhaps a fire symbol since it brings to a person so much rage and emotion. I found that it actually works better as an air symbol. Mostly the representation of mobility and travel. While it does have it's glue to stop small animals to feed itself, it also spreeds by being grabbed by larger animals. With this plant, I'm thinking of trying to create a lard that sticks to everything, trying to bring the glew of it into higher uses.
 
(Thanks to Blund for the name and some ideas.)

Spirit Magnolis

This peculiar plant is extremelly rare. It only grows in the body of my friend, Ernest, a Graven who is a great lover of nature. I will try to replant this in the cold region of the Fringe, but I don't believe it would be possible.

 

The plant is a red one, long with short leaves. A bit ruff when you pass a finger through it, and very hard to crush and tear. A plant that grew on the body of a ghost, so I couldn't really be suprised about anything weird that it could do. Instead of something weird, my friend told me it does great tea, and it does. It's smell came as a burnt rose, and it's flavor faded into orange after a few moments.

 

Alchemy uses:

Strong Water Symbol

I believe this symbol could be one of the most powerful strong water symbols that someone can have. It's rarety is incredible, as it only grows on one being in this realm, a Graven. What it represents and why it does, I will need to test it out, but I have so little and am unskilled in alchemy to use such rare ingredients.

 

 

Starving Coyote's Tick

 

This ingredient is of course, not a plant, but non the less, I had no other place to write it, and it's still an ingredient for alchemy that I found out. Once more collected in the deserts of the Fringe, this ingredient is a giant brown Tick.

 

I had been figuring out that not only plants but also animals could be used in alchemy, such as using feathers, bones, and other parts of animals, expecially rare and mythical ones, is a great way to adquire great ingredients. As such, I gathered a hunter with me, a friend of mine, and I went towards the deserts of the Fringe. There, I quickly got attacked by a scorpion, I had great luck.

 

Non the less, after healing myself, and taking a plant that could serve as an antidote, I continued searching. Found lots of blobs, which actually have a good use for a base instead of using lard, but asside from the blobs, we were having difficulties finding more animals. This was until we rested in an Oasis for a while, until we saw coyote's tracking us down. They were easily killed after attacking us, and I proceded to check them for any useful ingredients.

 

I found no real use with the coyote's the draught was killing many animals and the coyotes probably had not eaten in a week. They were starving, their bones could be seen through their fur, and that was probably the reason as to why they attacked us, they were desperate for food. As I searched their corpses, I found a big lump on one's side.

 

It turned out to be a very big Tick, brown in color. It had clearly been feed a lot from the coyote, but still it was bigger than any tick I have ever seen, not that I have seen that many. Still, I grabbed my knife to try and remove the tick from the coyote. Removing a tick is hard, but I had a knife with me, I was trying to cut it loose, but still I couldn't. I was getting angry and so I tried to cut the Tick in half but still I couldn't.

 

Finally my hunter decided to help and instead of cutting the tick off, removed the flesh the tick was grabbed to. So I stored that tick thinking of what it could represent. In the other bodies of the coyotes, I found only one more tick, meaning that they are quite rare, since they don't even grow that much on starved animals.

 

It was looking good, an animal that was hard to cut, and couldn't be seperated from the other animal it grabs, and was rare. I called it the Starving Coyote's Tick, since there was where I gathered it, but I feel any other animal in the desert may have them. It resists heat, but not flames, and cold makes it paralized. It isn't an animal that can live anywhere else besides hot climats, but I believe with one and a spot in a hot place, someone could keep quite a few of them with a farm of animals.

 

Alchemy Uses:

Strong Earth Symbol

It represents great attachment, union or connection, and it's extremelly hard to cut. As such and together with it's rarety it is quite a strong symbol of Earth, one with representations that are rare. With it I even created a mending potion, if you can believe a tick was used for such, where it's purpose was to help reattach a cut limb from someone. I used it together with many other symbols of life, rejuvination and speed, but still it would not have worked as well without this symbol

 
Potions

The Glue Oil
 
I decided to try and use the Jailer's Moss as the main ingredient for an oil, to create something that could work as a very good glue. So first for that, I have to seperate the glue from the moss itself, the preperation is the hardest part because as I said before, the glue doesn't mix with water. So instead I have to use aqua vitae and then heat it up to only leave the glew. This takes a long time and a lot of moss.
 
Jailer's Moss is an air symbol, even thought it has the most important essense in the oil I'm preparing. Normally air symbols mean speed, but in this case means travel. I believe that with this particular ingredient, this glue will work well for things that move a lot and need to hold themselves. Perhaps the lack of movement will make the glew stop working.
 
An air symbol on it's own wouldn't be enough thought, I need to strengthen it, and what better way to do it then by adding Earth symbols. One of Hardiness would be the best way to go at it I believe, and so I think Goblin's Ivy would work the best. The last thing I would add would be something to signify connection. I can't find a good ingredient, but I believe Tippen's roots would work well as a life representation instead.
 
Recipe:
 
Base: Lard
1 Symbol of Air (Travel/Speed) - Chosing this symbol will give different results based on what they represent. A representation of speed will result in a fast acting glue, and a representation of travel will work well in things that move around.
2 Symbols of Earth (Hardiness, Connection) - To give consistancy and to give he glue it's properties. A good symbol that represents connection is needed if Jailer's Moss isn't used as an air symbol.
 

 

Hair Rejuvinating Potion

 

The potion that I have been comissioned to make! Bloody hard... A potion to make the hair on a bald person grow, and I guess in everywhere else. This is kind of hard considering my current skill in making potions, but I can at least devise the recipe. Alchemy recipes are based more on logic than trying over and over again, thought of course it can only be prefected with experimentation.

 

So what would a potion for hair rejuvinating need? Of course rejuvinating, and nothing is better at that than mandragora, a water symbol. That I believe would be the main ingredient that is probably needed for any good potion of this. The potion needs to make the one using it chose where the hair will grow or become better, so an oil works far better as a base than water or aqua vitae.

 

Still, there are many things this potion can do. A weak potion won't make any hair grow, but can make someone have spectacular shinny hair most likely. A moderate would make the hair grow faster and help with hair loss, most likely. And the strong potion would be the one I need to make, a potion that makes hair grow where it touches on the skin.

 

To make the hair strong, representation of regrow or strongness, and speed as well. To make it grow, regrow and life are needed. And for the strong one, very strong symbols that represent Growth and Life are needed. The problem with this thinking, is why would the hair be that to grow? I figured that to make it happen right, before you place the oil on the skin, you need to have a few things done. You have to clean everything, not leave dirt or anything like that, because you might grow fungus or mushrooms instead. It has to be VERY CLEAN. Afterwards a very CLEAN rag is used to wet the oil in, and passed in the area. Again it can't be dirty, nothing can be dirty. Also clean gloves should be used to handle the cloth, or your nails will grow, and hair will grow on your fingers.

 

Recipe:
 

Weak:
Base: Lard
1 Symbol of Air (Speed/Grace) - For fast results of course, but the Grace aspect can be used instead, to make the hair more graceful.
1 Symbol of Earth (Hardiness) - Makes it so that the hair becomes stronger.

1 Symbol of Water (Rejuvinating) - The main ingredient to make the hair rejuvinate and repair itself.

 

Moderate:

Base: Lard
1 Symbol of Air (Speed/Grace) - Same
2 Symbols of Earth (Hardiness and Regrowth) - Regrowth will make the potion work quite well for growing the lost hair.

1 Symbol of Water (Rejuvinating) - Same

 

Strong:

Base: Lard
1 Symbol of Air (Speed/Grace) - Same.
2 Symbols of Earth (Hardiness and Regrow) - The symbol representing Regrow has to be strong, because you want hair to grow where it doesn't exist before..

2 symbol of Water (Rejuvinating and Life) - The Symbol representing life needs to be strong, hair is living, and it needs to grow where the potion is placed.

 

 

Massage Oil

 

Quite the potion I made, with the task of giving a massage to my lover, she had been very stressed out. I had the idea from another friend of mine who told me about said massage oil that was warm and nice, so I begged her to give me some, but she never did. So instead, I made a new type using alchemy.

 

Since it's an oil, it's base needs of course to be lard. Lard might be icky to touch if someone knows what it is, but if refined, and made more homogeneous, it does has a great texture and runs smoothly through the skin. Adding the achemy reagents, I could then add the characteristics I wanted to the oil, mostly, rejuvination and warmth.

 

Not so much alchemy as mixing plants, but I believe equivalent exchange came to it as well. Crushing Mandragora meat with only a half of Elrow berries gave the rejuvinating characteristics of the Mandragora, with a mild and weak warmth feeling of the Elrow berries. It really couldn't be more of Elrow berries or the oil would have become too hot and would hurt to place on the skin of someone else.

 

I used serpant stalk juices in the mix as well, because of their healing abilities, and because they don't smell. I could used other symbols of life and rejuvination, like frost vines, but those would probably cancel out the elrow berries and result in a weak warmth feeling, destroying the scale of equivalent exchange. Tippen's roots would work as well, but everyone knows that Tippen's roots smells bad, and I didn't want a massage oil that smelled bad.

 

Now that I think of it, Spirit Magnolis would be great in the mix, as it is a powerful symbol of water with great calming effects, but such a powerful symbol shouldn't be used in something like a massage oil, it would be a waste.

 

The lard had to be hot already of course, and everything would be mixed. The juices of the mandragora and the serpant stalk did actually make the mixture too fluid, because they are moderate symbols of water. As such, I had to let the water be removed by letting it heat up for a while longer. After the consistance was done, I just passed the mix through some filter paper to remove the solid bits, and the Oil was done.

 

Recipe:

 

Base: Lard
2 Symbols of Water (Rejuvination/Life/Balance/Calmness) - Chosing the water symbols would make the oil have it's healing and calming affects. Lots of different types of oils can be done by chosing the representations wanted.
1 Symbol of Fire (warmth) - Only good for the type of massage oil I wanted, but I feel it gave it quite a nice feeling.

 

 

Sleeping Potion

 

It's not every day that I have requests to create new potions. The sleeping potion was asked to me by my boobless friend Alirya, a great surgeon and doctor. Normally I would refuse to create a poison, which is what a sleeping potion is, but her reasons are far different than tormenting, and are used for the safety of her patients.

 

Normally just natural poisons are used, such as Night Sap, to make people fall asleep. The problem with NightSap is that it's a drug, an addictive one, and has many problems if used. I believe there are many other types of natural things that can be used, but the problem always focus on the side effects. While a man wanting to make someone sleep to then kidnap them, murder them or enslave them wouldn't care about side effects, a doctor placing someone to sleep so that she could operate on them would.

 

To remove most side effects is the reason for this potion, and the reason it is a potion. Some side effects can be kept, such as the horrible taste of the potion, but perhaps other ways could be used. Inhaling is what I am after, inhaling something has far quicker effects than drinking a potion. For the first time, I have found a use for an Air symbol that represents flight.

 

A sleeping potion isn't as easy as someone could think, mostly because you really have to think of the representations of the symbols. What could create a natural sleep? It has to be natural as to not create problems, knocking out someone for example might have the problem of breaking something. So I went and thought about what someone needs when falling asleep, calmness and relaxation. Symbols of Water.

 

While calmness can be achieved with many symbols of water, relaxation is a bit different. I would say that water Symbols that could create numbness as well could fit in the relaxing bit, which there are a few as well. It also has to last, a patient waking up while a doctor has a hand inside his belly would probably end with his death. An Earth Symbol for resilience is needed. Of course for the action of the sleeping potion to be speeded up, another air symbol of speed is needed.

 

To use it, there could be many ways, I believe the best would be keeping the liquid in a bottle and opening it to give the other person a sniff. I believe that the smell will be pretty bad, but for someone injured and in pain, that probably won't affect him too much. For those that don't want to go to sleep thought, they would bring their heads away from it. It's time to make someone go to sleep can be tested, but it should be at least 30 seconds, still far quicker than risking killing the patient by knock out.

 

Recipe:

 

Base: Aqua Vitae
2 Symbols of Water (Calmness and Relaxation) - To make the one affected relax so much and be in a state of calmness that he would fall into sleep.
2 Symbols of Air (Flight and Speed) - Flight for making it be breathable, speed for making it act fast.

1 Symbol of Earth (Resilience) - To last longer so that the one affected sleeps for long.

 

Freezing Potion

 

Gathered this idea by talking to someone about the possibilities of alchemy. They wanted to walk on water, so I thought, why not just freeze it? I liked that idea and decided to start thinking on a recipe that would work for that. Doesn't seem to hard to tell the truth, mostly water symbols of representations of ice.

 

The base on the other hand, has to always be aqua vitae, this because if it's water it will freeze. With that base, I believe I need two water symbols that strongly represent ice. To make it hard, an earth symbol that represents hardiness, and an air symbol for speed as well. Sounds an awful lot like a healing potion, even thought the ingredients would be different.

 

After a bit more study and talks with a few associates, and a read of Gauldrim's alchemy book, I found out it's better to use a third water symbol. While the others must be strong representations of ice, this one could be just good to combat fire, in other words, to combat heat. Which is basicly the same as cold or ice representation in a way.

 

Recipe:

 

Base: Aqua Vitae
3 Symbols of Water (Ice, Cold and Fluidity) - To create the cold and freezing temperatures to freeze water or other stuff.
1 Symbols of Air (Speed) - To act and freeze fast.

1 Symbol of Earth (Hardiness) - So that the result is hard ice, and not brittle.

 

 
((Edits))
27/05
Added Desert Berry Bush
Added Black Sun's Spinster
Added Jailer's Moss
31/05
Added Oil Glue Potion

7/06

Added Spirit Magnolis

15/06

Added Hair Rejuvinating Potion

11/07

Added Massage Oil Potion

12/07

Added Starving Coyote's Tick

25/07

Added Sleeping potion

8/08

Added Freezing potion

[Glyc 234]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.