Gimme your opinions on Alchemy's Processes

[Helmet 1454]

 

This post is about Alchemy's EXTRACTIONS/IDENTIFICATION specifically.

I require your takes/opinions on them!

 

Normally I would dm people invested in it, but with Alchemy there's like a million Alch FA holders at any given moment soooo... were doing this now! Again.

Of course, voting on the poll alone will only do so much. If you'd like to contribute further, leaving a comment with your gripes/praises for Alchemy's Extractions & Identification in terms of lore, how its handled by players, what you think about it in general, or just contacting me via disc will have a bigger impact.

 

No shade to King of the Moon and whoever helped him ofc

Edited August 22, 2025 by Helmet

[PrimnyaQuorum 4006]

All alchemy lore is slop at this point, devoid of any meaning or value beyond the end product. It doesn’t matter how badly you hate klones or how weird it is a demon metal is an alchemy byproduct (incompatible with order/alchemy btw); it’s all slop compared to what the klone is or what the rokodra does.

[The King Of The Moon 7016]

12 hours ago, Helmet said:

No shade to King of the Moon and whoever helped him ofc

It's important to bear in mind the context of this.

This entire post was written before ST oversight (and later RP screenshots) were mandatory for item creation, on the explicit (this was originally written on the post) understanding that alchemists would not have to emote out the processes for every single potion they made, and the majority of the time the creation would be handwaved though these processes existed to make sense of what actually would be going on in alchemy lore-wise, through which teachers could explain the concepts of alchemy through roleplay with students, as well as to provide an optional asset for alchemists to RP on the day to day. The logic behind this 'handwaving' was that making items was all an alchemist does, and having to do homework every day would get incredibly repetitive and tedious.

 

I still think - especially with the underpinning ramifications now weaved throughout so much world, magic and creature lore - this is something worth preserving. Though it simply shouldn't be mandatory; extractions were never meant to be about 'this is what you have to emote all the time', but rather 'this is how it all works under the hood', as with Signs and Symbols and the wider Material Alphabet.

When the rules changed for Transfiguration enchantments and later all signed items, this laissez-faire interpretation of 'mandatory RP' was removed from alchemy by the wider ST / leadership. It was a decision I was opposed to at the time. Though to my knowledge it may have also been revised since? Between then and now even then more changes have been applied to alchemy both with and without my knowledge, including how item signatures are handled, and I am frankly out of touch with this project from now half a decade ago so can't speak with much authority on it these days. There have been so many amendments and additions now that alchemy has mutated far beyond my authorial intent. But that's also okay!

The lore we give to this server isn't just ours, it is a tool for collective narratives on the platform we all share in some way. In that regard please worry about valid criticism, feedback and alteration (including those I disagreed with from the team) being misinterpreted as 'throwing shade'!