Philosopher's stone

[Jeff]

Well, i've had an idea about the Philosopher's stone, as a liquid substance capable to turn vile metals in gold.
Of course, it shouldn't be easy to obtain.
A skill is required to perform alchemy. Let's call it Alchemy, with Plant Lore as a prerequisite.
For the Philosopher's stone you'll need to build an athanor . You can put up to 12 items in the Athanor.
The problem with the Philosopher's stone is that...no one knows how to craft it. You can put everything you want in the athanor, and after some processing you'll obtain 1 liter of a liquid substance called Philosopher's stone. But to see if it is the real stone, you'll need to test the substance on some metal. A nugget will be enough. If you have guessed fewer than 2 ingredients, the nugget will melt down and disappear. You'll get a description of the effect, anyway. Based on the correct ingredients, the nugget should glow more intensly as you approach the real Stone. Also, even ambiental factors could apply. You could have to do the stone in a forest, on a night of full moon. Or you may need to be in a cave in a sunny day. No one knows. You may also need high-quality ingredients to get the correct formula.
If you are lucky enough, you'll finally get the real Philosopher's stone. 0.1 liter of the substance con turn a nugget into gold, and 1 liter can turn a bar of vile metal into a gold bar.
You could argue about a svalutation on the value of gold, right. But it would be a very difficult task to get the correct formula, and whoever find the formula won't tell that to others. Since we are talking of very rare ingredients, he'll need to find or buy them, risking to get suspected if he get large quantities. If he get too much gold fastly he'll be suspected too, so he should care about his treasure and try to keep it a secret.

[Peter]

Dang, that ain't bad.

Might go well if other possible outputs are added; health potions, woad, gilljuice, greek fire...

[Jeff]

Dang, that ain't bad.

Might go well if other possible outputs are added; health potions, woad, gilljuice, greek fire...

Well, the main feature of the Philosopher's stone is the mystery about its creation. But the athanor could be used for other items too, of course.

[Potjeh]

Problem is, once the recipe is found, it will find it's way into the open and render gold mines obsolete. Thinking otherwise is like thinking that you can contain a bunch of dinosaurs on a tropical island.

[sabinati]

yeah i like the idea of the athanor, but i don't think i like the transmutation thing

[Jeff]

Problem is, once the recipe is found, it will find it's way into the open and render gold mines obsolete. Thinking otherwise is like thinking that you can contain a bunch of dinosaurs on a tropical island.

If someone render public the recipe, it basically ruins all his work. By the way, we are talking of normal items and extremely rare items (maybe some rare herbs, whose rate isn't dependant on perception, only found in a full moon night). You couldn't do it in high quantities anyway.

[Potjeh]

Same can be said for cheese, yet the Wiki is filled with cheese recipes.

Anyway, it could work if the item needed for gold production was very difficult to obtain. Alchemical manufacture of gold should be at least as hard as smelting it from ore, if not harder, else gold mines will become useless.

[Jeff]

Same can be said for cheese, yet the Wiki is filled with cheese recipes.

Anyway, it could work if the item needed for gold production was very difficult to obtain. Alchemical manufacture of gold should be at least as hard as smelting it from ore, if not harder, else gold mines will become useless.

Obviously it has to be harder. But i was also talking of ambiental factors, remember. You must guess the correct location, time and ingredients, along with some requisites for quality. The atharor could require long times to process the stone, rendering the search for the formula very looooong.
It's another way to get gold, basically. A costly and mysterious way, but still another way.

[Potjeh]

I'm just saying, mystery alone isn't sufficient to make it hard, as it's a one-off cost. Even one person with the recipe could push the gold miners out of business by mass-producing bars of gold. If it took days of searching to find all the ingredients, than it could work.

[Delamore]

How can you possibly balance this so it keeps gold mines valued?
Gold mines are stuck in one location, finding them is hard and they are rare.
Gold is a bitch to smelt down too.

Ok now we have your idea:
Balanced by being hard to work out the first time
hard to get materials

So what happens when people know how to make it and the hard to find out thing is ignored, will it be hard enough to make to make it balanced against mining?
Then if it's hard enough to make even without working it out, why would it be worth it to try to work it out when it's clear that the effort to get gold otherwise is easier?