Alchemist

Prerequisite(s): Proficiency with an alchemist’s kit

You learn the forbidden art of creating life through alchemy. Using 10 gp of alchemical reagents and an alchemist’s kit, you can grow 1d4 + 1 creatures in jars as a light activity during a long rest, chosen from the following list: contained fetal horror jar, green ooze, pickled watcher, preserved flayer mind, sanguine lamprey vial, suspended metamorphic nymph, twisted abomination bottle.

You may only have 5 such alchemical jars prepared at a time. Any jars created in excess of 5 are inert and have no effect.

Sample Alchemical Creations

Fetal Horror Jar

Wondrous item, uncommon

As an action, you can throw this jar up to 20 feet to an unoccupied square, shattering it on impact. A fetal horror emerges from the shattered jar. Roll initiative for the creature, which has its own turns. It obeys any verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). At the end of each of the creature’s turns, it makes a Charisma saving throw. On a failed save, the creature continues to obey you. On a successful save, your control of the creature ends and the creature may attack or flee.

Pickled Watcher

From the eyestalk of a watcher, a pygmy is grown in a sealed jar of swirling blue alchemical fluid. The dead eyes and slack-jawed mouth, filled with needlelike teeth, bob in the murky arcane liquid. These jars are often ornate, fastened with double lids: one for consuming the fluid, and a second for removing the shriveled, bloated watcher within.

If the fluid around the watcher is consumed, the imbiber is granted true sight, the ability to see the nature of things and pierce all illusions. However, the mortal eye was not meant to bear the intensity of this gaze for long. Consuming the liquid makes the imbiber sensitive to the sun and other bright lights. As the effects of the elixir fade, vision may fade with it, leaving the imbiber blind. Normal sight eventually returns for most, though some have gone truly blind from consuming too much of the pickled watcher’s elixir.

Pickled Watcher

Potion, uncommon

When you drink this potion you gain truesight and sunlight sensitivity for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes you must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or be blinded for 1 hour.

Potion

Proper potions of healing, sanctioned by the alchemists guild, cost an enormous sum for the common man. Fifty gold pieces, though affordable for an adventurer flush with treasure from plundered hoards, is far beyond the reach of most ordinary folk. Many turn to back-alley alchemists or blackmarket dealers for sanguine elixirs. These cheap replacements are consumed by sick commoners, wounded soldiers, and injured mercenaries. They are often made poorly, and the odds of sickness from the worms is exacerbated by the unskilled hands of the alchemist who created them.

Blackmarket Potions. Though alchemists failed at creating true fae, the result was not without some aspects of faerie power. The dust that glitters in the rosy waters of the elixir is fairy dust, a powerful intoxicant and aphrodisiac. Those who drink such a potion are swept up in the wild magic of the fey, charmed by all creatures they encounter. It heightens natural attraction, and often leads to the imbiber thinking they have fallen in love. Beyond simply being a love potion for the imbiber, it also suffuses them with an aura of powerful pheromones, causing the creatures around them to be similarly enthralled by the potion’s effects. These potions are often sold as blackmarket love potions, with this particular side-effect omitted during the bartering.

Preserved Flayer Mind

Potion, uncommon

When you drink this potion you gain advantage to all Intelligence and Wisdom skill checks for 1 hour. After 1 hour you must succeed on a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or suffer 1d4 psychic damage and the effects of a short-term madness.

Sanguine Lampreys

Sanguine lampreys, or bloodworms as they are commonly called, are grown from cheap alchemical reagents. They are used in sanguine elixirs, suspended in a vial of blood-red fluid. If approached, they will strike at the glass, revealing maws of serrated teeth. If ingested, these worms will repair the flesh of their host. The process is painful and can poison a host not strong enough to tolerate the worms.

Sanguine Lamprey Vial

Potion, common

When you drink this potion it restores 2d4 hit points, but you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 hour. The amount of hit points restored by such a vial increases when its creator reaches 5th level (4d4), 11th level (8d4), and 17th level (10d4).

Suspended Metamorphic Nymph

Potion, uncommon

When you drink this potion you gain advantage on all Charisma skill checks, but all Charisma rolls against you also have advantage. Effects such as detect magic will reveal glowing dust radiating from you. These effects last for 1 hour.

Alchemists attempted to synthesize sylvan beings, creatures not of our world. The metamorphic nymph is the result of those experiments — both the failure and the success. Fae are unlike other creatures, not native to the mortal plane. Creating them through alchemical means proved difficult. Suspended in swirling pearlescent pink fluid (which can be gleaned as the source of the elixir’s power), it appears at first to be a pixie, with faerie wings and tiny features not unlike a fair human, though as the elixir swirls the rest of the creature is revealed. Insect-like features mar the smoothness of the fairy’s skin, its body tapering into insectile legs.

Twisted Abomination

First created by warlocks, the elixir of the twisted abomination is a dark attempt to harness the strength of a captive demon. Inside this red liquid, a twisted form of claws and horns and muscles bulges against the glass of its containment. Drinking this fluid suffuses the imbiber with terrible strength and mindless bloodlust. Some become lost in the potion’s induced rage and use their strength to commit terrible acts of violence, of which they have no recollection when the effects of the elixir fade.

Twisted Abomination Bottle

Potion, uncommon

When you drink this potion you gain advantage on Strength checks and your size increases by one category — such as from Medium to Large. While enlarged you are also enraged and can’t talk, write, or read, and you can’t cast or concentrate on spells. Your weapon attacks deal an additional 1d4 damage of the same type. These effects last for 1 hour.