Alchemy, sorcery and free combinations

The idea

Almost everything in the world is an ingredient: plants, animal parts, minerals, objects, water from different places, even the time and weather when something was gathered. The player mixes and processes as they like, and the result comes from rules (properties that combine), not from a fixed list of recipes. This allows discovering things nobody on the team planned recipe by recipe.

1. Ingredient properties

Each ingredient has a few essences, each with an intensity (1 to 5):

2. Processes

The how matters as much as the what. The same ingredient yields different things depending on the process:

The order of ingredients, the temperature, the time and where it is done also matter (near a place of power, that place's essence is added: Light in the Jardins de Celéstia (Gardens of Celéstia), Heat in the Ermos (Wastes)).

3. How the result comes out

1. The ingredients' essences add up, modified by the process.
2. The dominant essence defines the type (Life = healing, Heat = fire, Mind = focus or dreams).
3. The second essence defines the form or extra effect (Life + Air = area heal that spreads; Heat + Earth = fire grenade; Shadow + Mind = illusion potion).
4. Opposite essences cancel out or explode (Heat + Cold, Light + Shadow), unless a stabilizer ingredient is included (honey, lake salt, crystal).
5. Chaos adds a random effect from a table (can be great or disastrous).
6. The quality and the alchemist's skill define strength and duration; below the required level, the recipe may fail, turn cloudy or have a side effect (good for humor: turning into a frog for a minute).

4. What can be made

• Potions: healing, stamina, mana, fire or cold resistance, brief invisibility, underwater breathing, night vision, walking on water, low flight for a few seconds. Crossing potions (water breathing, walking on water, low flight) have a short duration and are inactive in the hard-to-reach places of 20 §7 (Ilha das Tempestades (Island of Storms), Planalto Suspenso (Suspended Plateau), Pico do Mundo (World's Peak), Ilha das Sereias (Mermaid Island), Abismo de Coral (Coral Abyss) and others).
• Oils and poisons for weapons (arrows that burn, blades that put to sleep).
• Bombs and flasks: smoke, fire, ice, blinding light, sticky goo.
• Long-lasting elixirs (hours): harvest luck, better fishing, more fireflies attracted.
• Dyes and pigments for clothes, houses and maps.
• Food and drink (cooking is the same logic with edible ingredients).
• Spell components: reagents that strengthen or change a spell from 18 (a Light powder makes the healing spell jump between allies).
• Enchanted objects: a lantern with firefly oil that reveals invisible things, boots with Air essence.
• Transmutation (advanced): turning one material into another of the same family (iron into moon-steel with Light and Cold). Transmutation never produces a place's unique materials (those in 20 §7); only common materials of the same family.

5. Discovery and knowledge

• Personal grimoire: every new combination the player makes is recorded (ingredients, process, result). The first time, the effect shows as "unknown" until tested.
• Observing the world teaches: an old NPC says that "cherry blossom at full moon calms"; an animal that eats a plant shows its effect; books in ruins bring clues.
• Discovery has a cost: testing a new combination requires a scarce input and has a per-account cooldown, so discovery doesn't turn into a race of bots or spreadsheets.
• First discoverer: whoever discovers a combination new to the server has their name recorded in the Library of Vaelor and gets a title; the recipe can be sold as a scroll (scribe, see 09) or kept secret.
• Legendary recipes require ingredients from rare events (eclipse, full moon on the Ilha da Lua (Moon Island), feather from a raid creature).

6. Ingredients everywhere

• Animals: feathers, scales, honey, milk, eggs, silk, shells; can be gathered without killing (shearing, milking, collecting eggs) or hunted.
• Minerals and crystals: salt, sulfur, colored crystals, sands.
• Waters: rain, lake, sea, hot spring, dew, melted snow; each with its own essence.
• Objects and remains: ash from a festival bonfire, old bells, temple candle wax, squid ink.
• Kept living things: fireflies in a jar, butterflies, frogs, which need care (if released, they return to the world).

7. Economy and balance

• Alchemists, herbalists, beekeepers, breeders and scribes become valuable professions (see 09).
• Potions and poisons are consumables, that is, a natural sink of the economy (see 14).
• PvP balance: strong effects have a strength cap and a cooldown shared by type (you can't drink 10 strength potions in a row); Chaos effects don't work in ranked arena. The stacking cap applies in PvE too.
• Technical limit: the server computes the result (the client never decides), and every new combination is recorded, so the team can adjust whatever comes out too strong.

8. In the proof of concept (Phase 1)

Six essences, fifteen ingredients from the village and surroundings (including fireflies), three processes (grind, boil, dry), cauldron and grimoire. The test is: do players discover combinations on their own and have fun experimenting?

9. Launch subset (decided)

8 essences (Life, Heat, Cold, Light, Mind, Body, Earth and Water) and 5 processes (grind, boil, distill, macerate and dry), with the ingredients of the launch block. Shadow, Poison, Chaos, Air, fermenting, burning, freezing, enchanting and transmutation come in updates. Matches the magic subset in 18 §9.