The Alchemist’s

Handbook
A potion-brewing system for
Mausritter

By Juan Carlos Hernández

 Introduction
In this book you will find an alchemy system for Mausritter, which
includes rules for brewing, and using potions, as well as some
alchemy-related items.

This module uses spell effects from the base game, as well as the
following third-party products: “Belladonna’s Botannicals” and
“Manual for the Mastery of Mentalism” by Juan Carlos Hernández,
“Stonewall” and “Lake of the Pirat King” by Cameron Donelly &
Richard Davis. As such, you’re strongly encouraged to check out those
supplements.

Some things, like ingredient prices, are left up to GM discretion. Feel

free to treat this system as more as guideline than a set of hard rules.
Modify anything you don’t like, add new ingredients, add new effects,
do whatever.

Credits
Writing, layout and illustrations by Juan Carlos
Hernández

Heavily inspired by the alchemy system in the Elder

Scrolls game series.

The Alchemist´s Handbook is an independent production

by Juan Carlos Hernández and is not affiliated with
Losing Games. It is published under the Mausritter Third
Party Licence.

Mausritter is copyright Losing Games.

 Alchemy
Every substance in the world stores a small ammount of magical energy.
For most of them, this ammount is too small to be of any significance.
However, there are some substances that contain an unusually high
ammount of magical energy. These are known as alchemy ingredients.
Alchemists study the art of breaking these ingredients down until only
their magical essence is left, and using this essence to create potions.

In general, this process consists in finely grinding and mixing these

ingredients with mortar and pestle, and then burning the resulting
mixture away in a calcinator. The esence of each ingredient contains
different magical effects. When the mixture contains the same effect from
more than one source, a potion is succesfully created. The more sources of
the same effect it has, the stronger the effect is.

Unless you’re lucky enough to be taught some recipes to obtain a desired

effect, the beginning of your journey into alchemy is to be marked by
frequent trial and error as you experiment to slowly discover which
ingredients contain which effects.

Items
Ingredients:
Ingredients are the materials you mix to (hopefully) creste an alchemical
reaction and obtain a usable potion. Each ingredient has four different
magical effects. Ingredients known to be used by alchemists include:
Rose petals Chamomille Bat teeth
Pine needles Frog slime Honey
Beetle shell Fly amanita mushrooms White mushrooms
Cat claw Crow feather Owl feather
Cinnamon Tree bark Clover
Snake scale Beetle wing Fox hair
Red poppy Blue poppy Yellow poppy
Bitter almonds

A unit of any ingredient has 2 usage dots (it’s assumed that you don’t use
the entirety of that cat claw or that entire stick of cinnamon in a single
attempt at making a potion). You can spend a watch foraging for
ingredients like you would do with rations. You can forage for 1d3 units of
a specific ingredient, or just look around and find a unit of 1d3 different
ingredients. It’s left up to GM discretion what ingredients make sense for
you to obtain through foraging based on your surroundings.
Ingredients can also be bought from merchants. Mundane ingredients like
chamomille or clover are quite cheap and can be bought from any
herbalist, while ingredients that are rare or dangerous to obtain like cat
claws or owl feathers can only be obtained from very specific merchants
that can charge quite hefty prices.

Alchemy kit (100 pips)

An alchemy kit contains a mortar and pestle and a calcinator, both of
which are necessary for making potions. It can be acquired in most mouse
settlements, or found in adventure sites (especially sites belonging to
wizards or other magic enthusiasts). Alchemy kits found as loot will have
2d4 usage dots already marked.

Glass bottle (5 pips)

An empty glass bottle is required to store a potion. After succesfully
creating a potion, write its effects on the bottle’s item card. When you use
it, eras ethe effects and re-use the bottle.

Ingredient pouch (100 pips)

Worn on a body slot or carried in a pack slot. It can store up to 10
ingredients.
Instructions: Cut out the ingredient puch and use the lines as a guide to
fold it. Paste the side flaps to the front part. Consult the photos on the
itch.io page to see an example of how it must look. Put your ingredients
inside.

Potion belt (50 pips)

Worn on a body slot. Provides easy access to up to 6 potions so they can be
used without rummaging through your pack.
Instructions: Cut out the potion belt and fold in an accordion shape.
Consult the photos on the itch.io page to see an example of how it must
look. You can paste a potion on each slot with a piece of tape.
 Potion effects
For the most part, potion effects work like the spell they’re named after,
with one exception: while spells can specify a number of targets that will
be affected by them, potions will only affect the creatures that ingest them
or are doused with them.

If at least two of the ingredients used in the creation of a potion share an

effect, the potion will have that effect. The power level of the effect will
depend on the number of ingredients that share it:

2 ingredients: Equal to the equivalent spell cast with 1 die.

3 ingredients: Equal to the equivalent spell cast with 2 dice.
4 ingredients: Equal to the equivalent spell cast with 3 dice.

The list of effects obtainable through alchemy includes:

Fireball Heal Magic missile
Fear Restore Grow
Invisibility Gills Barkskin
Feathers Night eye Ilussion
Sleep Paralyze Blind
Charm Fortify mind
Spells that don’t directly affect creatures were excluded for obvious
reasons, as well as spells that don’t make much sense in potion form. Still,
where it makes sense, some effects from this list could potentially affect
things other than creatures (e.g. you might throw a Fireball potion at a
plank of wood to start a fire, or pour an invisibility potion on a rock to
make it invisible)

Have in mind that, depending on the specific combination of ingredients

you use, potions might end up with ore than one effect. In some cases,
they might end upwith both a positive and a negative effect, which can be
quite interesing.
 Making a
potion
1. Make sure you have ingredients, an alchemy kit, and an empty bottle.
2. Choose a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 ingredients to use. The
potion-making proccess taked 1 turn for each ingredient you use.
3. Your GM will consult the ingredients and effects table and tell you if the
combination you used succesfully creates a potion. If so, you might want to
write it down so you can remember it later!
4. Write the pottion effect(s) on the bottle item card. Use a pencil so you
can erase it an re-use it later!
5. Roll for usage on your alchemy kit, as well as any ingredients you used,
regardless of if you succesfully created a potion or not.

Using a
potion
There are several ways to use a potion:

Drinking it:
The most straightforward way. Drinking a potion will make the drinker
experience its effects.

Dousing a weapon:
As an action, you can douse a weapon or projectile with a potion. The next
creature you hit with it will suffer the effects of the potion as well as the
weapon’s regular damage.

Throwing a potion:
As an action, you can throw a potion at a creature. The creature you hit
with it will suffer 1d3 damage from the bottle’s impact, as well as the
potion’s effect, and 1d4 creatures standing next to it will be splashed with
the potion and suffer its effects as well. However, this destroys the glass
bottle.