Skills - from A to Z starting.... Now.

Some Thoughts about the Skill of Alchemy. 

The science of the black land hangs within the Hobby as a kind of pinata - it's overhead, swinging - it tantalizes us all with bright colors, exciting possibilities.  But everyone who takes a crack at it is blindfolded & swinging wildly while unseen forces pull & push - drag it away.  Eventually someone smacks it open - old Alchemy, and everyone hopes that it was full of the candy that they specifically like. 

Which sounds pretty stupid, actually, when you put it like that.  What I'm getting at, I think, is that a lot of the defined elements of This-Thing-We-Do-Together are rules & they're tried, true & played out practically.  A lot of rules show up & offer different variants of the same sorts of things & those same sorts of things tend to be Fighting, Magic, Skills, Race, Class & Gear - not every game has all of these, but games that don't have one of them are bound to try & explain why at some point.  If they don't have coherent systems of Chemistry & Physics?  Doesn't seem to matter. 

My intuition is that Alchemy, if it's going to be part of your game, really has to ask itself - What It Is.  Is it a precursor to Chemistry?  To Physics?  Is it a mystical tradition based upon the esoteric goal of achieving spiritual perfection?  Is it a magical discipline?  A craft?  Is it merely mixing ingredients randomly in pursuit of some buff or debuff?  I think it can be any of those things - but also, only one of those things.  That is - if it's a talent for mixing up potions, it's probably not also a search for enlightenment.  If it's a science - it probably isn't also an esoteric lodge-based tradition of mysticism.  Now - depending on which of those things you think Alchemy is in your game - then it's got to work by some type of rules.  Because Rules are at the bottom of This-Thing-We-Do-Together. 

Now I've experimented with a lot of different idiomatic variants of alchemy in my games.  I've played with specific potions that may be fabricated in specific situations.  I've toyed with alchemy as an esoteric tradition akin to the Rosy Cross.  At some point I stumbled upon a formulation that I have found myself clinging to so often that I may as well adopt it as my canonical device - the polar elements & the Wave-Form cosmos.  What it is is stated by Geometer Brenner fairly abstractly: 

The Waveform Cosmos – From the Geometer Brenner Water-over-Wind's address to the Essentialists of the Lodge of Six Colors – YK 2036

 We know or at least say and believe the Six Forces.  But the question remains – if everything is composed of forces how does anything have substance?  It was by the incomparable work of Marcus Fire-over-Light (7^th Century YK) that first grasped the unity of opposites – but not until the great work of Hugo Stone-under-Dark (12^th century YK) and his students Johan and Mercar Light-above-Light that the forces were shown to be only forces and thus lacking substance – since all the forces may operate in Void – the definitive absence of matter.  Often we are asked-  and often for the wrong reasons – What is Substance?  There are those of course who have attempted to subvert our mathematics to say that Nothing at all exists.  But this is a misconception.  Energy – that is Forces (not Energie – the force) all are transmitted in waves.  Hold a string and make it move regularly – it gains heights and nadirs-  the forces are just so.  The apogee of Energie for instance is perfect heat, the nadir is perfect cold.  We speculate as to absolute values – that is – a theoretical absolute perfect apogee and nadir – but in fact these are unreachable – the High and Low Infinities as described by Ramen Water-above-Wind (11^th century YK).  The forces that we experience are near the middle of the waves' Lengths and that was how it came to be understood that the forces are given substance.  How does the wave progress in direction?  If energy is a wave originating in an unreachable original infinity – and travels in a direction – it must reach a point – even if it never reaches its final destination – that place being another infinity.  Nevertheless there is 'Place'.  Hugo Stone-under-Dark saw that and understood what we call the Media – the pseudo-material through which the waves travel.  But later still Hugo's students showed that the Media is likewise composed of Forces!  The heights and Depths of the forces are all sequential – meaning they travel through a media – but that media is themselves.  Here the understanding of the Wave metaphor takes on another image.  A wave is a portion of a line – but as the circle is a section of a sphere- the waves are sections of a hemispheric solid – the media is the varieties of overlapping forces transmitted through this shape.  That is upon the innumerable waves of the Force of Air that we breathe-  which are shallow ponderous waves – we are 19 steps from the median.  But it has been discovered in this generation of Geometers that everything we experience is in fact on the 19^th step from the median – whether it is a positive point or a negative!
 Materially there is a correspondence – we exist at what I have described as the "Period" upon all waves and so it seems that in the instantaneous "Moment" of wave-correspondence there is a material expression of a force.  The seconds of time that we experience are the various "moments" of each wave simultaneously existing upon the 19^th "period"!  So time is in fact absolute.
 It has been shown by the tireless work of many Geometers that there are an infinity of other corresponding Periods which cause different Moments of simultaneity upon all the waves.  It is expected that each of the Periods is another entire existence which are by their varied construction unrecognizable to our own.  I won't speak for the Essentialists but I know that they have contended that that among these existences there must be the capacity for transit of portions of forces – which is held to be the source of the Essential Spirits.  Because it is known that the Essential Spirits exist an explanation is required for their existence – nevertheless the Essentiallists and Geometers have not agreed upon this point.

 

That's a quote from a novel of mine.  Brenner speaks here in an intentionally obscure & hard to follow form - it's meant to make it all seem much more complex & technical & specialized.  But - I'll make it clearer - state it more clearly

  

• There are 6 Elements in this system & each has a positive & negative polarity.   
• The high & low points of these poles exist on a wave-pattern.  
• The waves of each of the 6 is part of a larger wave.
• The larger wave is the universe.

So an example is this wave - the Illumans wave which encompasses both Dark & Light - which are in this construction - poles of a single element.  

Now, imagine all the elements are similar waves.  And each of them is woven into a single thread that is the sum of all waves they move through some unintelligible media but along curves set by the Universal Wave.

Okay - now there are many waves making up one wave.  This one wave comprises the entire universe and all possible universes.  The material universe that we know & love - exists only at very specific points along this curve  The distance between these points is the planar-frequency - the interval at which this specific universe exists.  Further up the wave or further down - that's a frequency that corresponds to an entirely different universe.  

Now, the essential waves that make up the universal wave are in some type of resonance so that things exist in a recognizable pattern (e.g.: Fire is hot & bright) & continues to be so on every tick along that planar frequency.  The planar frequency is nice as well because it gives a rationale behind the appearance of sequential time.  

We also have an infinite variety of universes up & down the wave that are very, very close to one another - so close that a universe may seem to be completely identical.  But also far enough away that some basic forces are completely out of sync (E.g.: Fire is not but not bright).  So there are varieties up & down the planes - potentially including ones where the universe is dominated completely by one pole of an element or another - say a universe of pure heat without cold.  

This pattern & structure really checks off the boxes for me in terms of worldbuilding & game-design because:  

• It creates some framework where there are predictable results.
• It has a high degree of randomness
• It allows for higher & lower dimensions with different experiences of time
• It includes the physical material that all things are comprised of
• It has mysterious & inexplicable elements - i.e.: what medium does the wave pass through?

I think that I like this cosmology so much & that it's versatile enough that I can build any amount of settings using it - and it's a big enough idea that needs so much more explanation that I can formulate any number of further ideas from out of it.  So - it's a kind of constant in my worldbuilding.  Maybe all my worlds are just different frequency universes on this same wave - that's fine.  I can work with this as a model & adopt it as my own personal canon.  Done.

So what's this mean for Alchemy?

I love this even as I plan how to remove it forever...

I could, I suppose just invent millions of possible combinations of things & then extrapolate results.  That's possible, sure - Fish + Toothpaste = Dire-Venom or some-such.  I don't really hate this as a thing that people do in a game.  But I think that I want alchemy to be more...  

Pure.  I'm not sure at what point fish+toothpaste=the Chymical Wedding but I don't care to find out either.  I'm Invested in a system that has functional boundaries but also modular components, that has prescribed & expected results - but also a realm of random possibilities.  So for pure, you've got to get to the pure, unvarnished, hidden atomic truth.  

For that - the elements.  I'm sticking with my 6 - because I like them & because they symmetrically apply to the 6 statistics that everyone knows so well.  This matching is helpful - for game design - because it builds in types of effects based on the elements in question.  So here's my pure 6/12 elements that do the lifting for the system to come:

Heat ß  Energie à Cold

Light ß Illumans à Dark

Water ß Floe à Air

Mineral ß Chthon à Metal

Chaos ß Protean à Void

Flesh ß  Viscera à Wood

Naturally, I'm putting it all into fantasy-Latin-Greek-Esperanto - but I could stand to wash it all in the thesaurian bath a few more times.  I'm content with the items - more than I am with the names, the names can be different for different groups etc...  Sticking with the core here-  I have 6 axes & 12 poles to describe effects both.  This is the place I start from when I start to think about Ruling-Up alchemy as a skill.