Alchemy lessons

[Cernon Telvanni]

 

Alchemy lessons with Curator Telvanni Cernon

Apprentices, it is time to stop being stupid and study the fine art of alchemy. Me, serjo Telvanni Cernon the Curator of Great House Telvanni Central Morrowind Branch, will guide you from now and until you will succeed … or die in pain, depends on how stupid you are. So, stop annoying me and listen.

[Cernon Telvanni]

Lesson 1. Strange liquids in fancy bottles.

 

The starting point of every alchemy experiment is appropriate solvent. The better solvent you have the better result you will achieve. To prepare potions you need water. One can assume water from nearest well will suit every experiment. It is right if you are going to prepare soup, but not potion. Tiny magical nature of ingredients is very sensitive towards admixtures, so you have to use as clean water as you can get. In Tamriel Empire one can find nine types of water:

  

  

   

 

Be aware to give potions prepared from too good solvent to weak persons … if their mind and body trained not enough potion may have no effect. Better not to waste good and expensive solvents in such cases. Oh, and of course if you are not enough skilled in alchemy you will obviously fail with using too sensitive and rare solvents. Increase your Solvent proficiency skill to use be able to manipulate with better solvents.

[Cernon Telvanni]

Lesson 2. Traditional herbology.

 

 Oh you find a bottle of natural water? How smart of you! Do you have any idea what to do with it? No? As it was expected… To prepare potions you need special ingredients, mostly herbs. I’m too bored to tell you about herbs, so go and read Miranvel Ashborn’s “Traditional herbology”. I hope it will help you to Keep an eye on useful herbs.

I’ll just point out the most important things. And what can be more important than magical nature of alchemy ingredient? Obviously, nothing. To reveal the trait of ingredient you have to mix it with another one with the same trait. If you are not enough stupid, you will look into the book and find right combinations…. if not, just mix everything and let luck guide you... but in this case you have no place in this class… What I was talking about? Ah, yes, the traits! Let’s look in the book:

 

Every totally studied herb is a small achievement on the alchemist way. Once you will understand all traits of every common herb you will become skilled Botanist.

 

One can see that almost every ingredient has positive and negative effects. I suppose you don’t want to die after using healing potions, so better to exclude negative traits. The more you work on distillation and purification of your potion the better result you get. Of course you have to try your potion to figure out how good is it, so quite soon, if you will survive, you will get a Snake blood – almost total immune to simple poisons.

When you start your way in alchemy you have to control magical nature of several components. This is term of practice, but even very skilled alchemists are not ready for Laboratory use of more than three components in one reaction. May be you will be the first to control four? Will see…

[Cernon Telvanni]

Lesson 3. Grand volumes and long effects

Rich alchemist never wastes ingredients. If you enough skilled in Chemistry you will be able to make reaction between components deep to produce higher concentration of magical particles in your potion. Better skill will help you to dilute reaction mixture to get two, three or even four portions of potion from one load of ingredients. Amazing! The more potions you get, the more money you will get. What? Aren’t you here to open your own alchemy shop?

 

Some potion should have time depending effect. For example, if you are going to gather ingredients from the ocean bed, you will probably not be happy if your water breathing potion will stop working too early. That is why you have to be skilled not only in preparation, but also in using the potions. It is especially important for Medicinal use. The better you understand and control your metabolism the longer potion works. 

[Cernon Telvanni]

Lesson 4. The death in bottle.

 

Now, when you are skilled enough, I can show you how to use alchemy as weapon. Poisoning is the most elegant way to kill people and stay out of troubles. You, yes you, how do you sure your drink is not poisoned? Are you scared now? Poor one, next time you will not dare to drink on my lessons… if there will be next time. So, as with potions you should start from gathering appropriate solvent. This time water will not work due to low viscosity and lesser activity toward negative effects extraction. For making poisons you have to use oils. The better oil you get the stronger potion you can do. Of course you should be enough skilled with Solvent proficiency to use better oils. Oils could be extracted from corpses of animals’ fat and body liquids. Stronger creature will provide you better oil. 

 

 

[Cernon Telvanni]

Lesson 5. Toxicology.

Once you got an oil you can start with making poisons. Simple poisons could be achieved by using simple herbs. You just have to accumulate negative effects. It is noticeable that oils transform positive effects to negative! Thus mixture that restores health will now harm it. Ah, I love it! But the real achievement is to study the magical nature of unusual ingredients. No novice alchemist will try to work with them – their traits are unstable and potions based on them are explosive. But if you are skilled you can reveal the properties and manipulate with them. We have no time for stupid experiments, so use this thesis of my apprentice Tanel “On the problem of toxins extractions”. In this small book you will find all traits of unusual alchemy reagents. Let’s take a look:

 

It will take time to control these unstable substances, but when you succeed – you are real Toxicologist.

[Cernon Telvanni]

In conclusion i must point out that only years of experiments will provide you necessary experience so once you will be known as Master Alchemist… if you will survive, of course. 

Perhaps you have some questions?

[Valorin Telvanni]

"This is a useful guide for apprentice alchemists, Curator. I'd still prefer you not to poison your apprentices, or anybody, but well. This is a solid and useful guide."

 

(It's AWESOME! Thanks!)

[manavortex]

Curator, 

how very obliging of you to share this research. Does this mean that the apprentices have pleased you to bolster their chances of survival such? 
However, I have found some additional sources that one might want to consider. 

 

(( AWESOME!!! ))

[Cernon Telvanni]

Thank you for kind reply, serjos. I just want our apprentices not to annoy masters with simple alchemy questions. This seems to be absolutely necessary basic knowlege for every wizzard. Speaking on research Archmagister refered to: it seems to be created for totally stupid persons, who are unable to understand wich compounds to mix even if properties are known. I doupt their right to be part of our Great house.

[Jormunbein]

Thank you very much, Cernon! I saved a lot of time and mats using your excellent guide :)