How would MAGIC POTIONS work in real life? | FANTASY RE-ARMED

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Magic potions are not as simple as they are often depicted as they would change and effect their world in drastic ways. So let's explore different wats Magic potions can be implemented in fantasy!
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[@shadiversity]

Why did I start Shadiversity? and many more questions in this great interview with Patrick of Calimacil: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4fOg2h4nKidi7M

[@shawnm1902]

A: to be able to legally behead Oz on a whim with a sword as often as desired.

[@yue6705]

Shad check out the potion/pill systems in alot of eastern fantasy (Xianxia), it's very interesting. Also in reference to an earlier magic knight video, you talked about how magic is normally not tied to physicality however this is mostly unique to the western audience as in many eastern magic systems magic (qi) is tied directly to your physical prowess.

[@shawnodonnell564]

Healing potion idea. Healing accelerates your metabolism to heal itself so consistent use of it is literally burning out your life span. The caveat being that it would be the option using up your body every time it fixes itself. I also really like the idea of drinking it while at full health and it not neccessary being cancerous if not a low percentage every time you drink a potion thus while saving you from death, it's not something you would continue to abuse. Or a potion being made from several different ingredients, a specific plant, blood of a specific creature, etc etc, making it rare and hard to come across. It also expands world building with people trying to farm these plants and mythical dangerous creatures to manufacture said potions. (Some kind of crazy hydra farm or something 🤣)

[@Ed_man_talking9]

one idea for the health potion is it multiplies the amount of blood in your body, and it needs to be held together after the body absorbs it into the bloodstream. but when it leaves the stream bia wound it burns untiil the open wound is cauterized. wont explain away a broken bone but bythat point you're going to need a little more than liquid miracle to keep you in the fight.

[@scottdoesntmatter4409]

Pathfinder 1e has potions and scrolls doing roughly the same function, but scrolls can only be used by spellcasters and are cheaper than potions. Essentially it's a medium for a spell.

[@benthomason3307]

"I took a potion that accelerated my brain!" "Oh so you're smarter now?" *"I'm stupid faster!"*

[@Greideren]

"I'm doing 5,000 operations a second and they're ALL wrong!"

[@Marinealver]

If such things were real this would be the most likely result.

[@vgalis]

Reminds me of an old Simpsons episode: Max Power: Kids: there's three ways to do things; the right way, the wrong way and the Max Power way! Bart Simpson: Isn't that the wrong way? Max Power: Yeah, but faster!

[@thatHARVguy]

So, Barry Allen in season 7 of The Flash?

[@stevefilms1997]

@@Marinealver they are it’s called caffeine

[@beschantz]

Fun fact: artificial coloring is often added to liquid reagents in a medical lab so people can quickly discriminate them without reading the label. The reason for a potion's color could be as simple as that, a manufacturing additive that allows a user to quickly identify the nature of a potion in the middle of a fight.

[@lacidar3752]

Smart

[@dantherpghero2885]

Also video game logic. Health bar = Red. Therefore health potion also = Red.

[@sharkwaffle1582]

huh, I never knew that. that's actually a really good idea

[@KairuHakubi]

ahh like ethyl mercaptan

[@Horvath_Gabor]

@@dantherpghero2885 It's not really "video game logic", but just traditional color coding. Blood is red, blood has been associated with life since the beginning of written history, so red is associated with life, and so when it comes to representing that something has an effect on health, the color red is a common shorthand that made its way into games. As for the blue for magic, that's actually more interesting, and I think it has less to do with blue being "magical" than all the other prime colors being taken. Red is already taken. Green is mostly associated with poisons because arsenic, the most common poison in human history, is green. Purple is associated with decay and corruption, because dead bodies turn purple. Yellow and Orange are warning colors in nature, so they probably aren't used because of that association, meaning the only remaining basic color is blue.

[@loganhesse5984]

WARNING: Do not drink health potion if you have cancer, are pregnant or undead. Speak to a cleric if you have signs of headaches, dizziness, or sore throat.

[@liamwarner5749]

You jest but I have sitting on my shelf a game suppliment that contains rules for magic use when pregnant it . .. caannn be beneficial for the baby. I wouldn't recommend it though.

[@darkcyler]

or they could limit the ammount that your sappose to drink and not the entire thing like its an actual med. r if u drink too many mana potions it decreeses ur ability to produce natural mana until you can no longer produce it

[@shishoka]

@Liam Warner What is this supplement called?

[@heitorpedrodegodoi5646]

Why cancer and pregnant?

[@loganhesse5984]

@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 because it could cause the cancer to rapidly grow, and it can cause issues with the baby.

[@NotoriousTim]

I like the way witcher potions work. They're typically dangerous to most people, thus not everyone has access to powerful healing substances.

[@ladynightingale17]

And there’s a toxicity mechanic for drinking multiple potions

[@NotoriousTim]

@@ladynightingale17 Yes, even for the people they are designed for, too many can still kill them.

[@raphaelkap]

There's even people who are allergic to potions (like Triss Merigold) who have to rely on other means like magic trinkets

[@dylanwight5764]

They're also based on alcohol in most cases. This makes a lot of sense because we often use alcohol as a stabilizing agent for volatile compounds. If we accept that we can extract the Essense of Magic Sky Bear from... a magic sky bear's bone marrow I suppose... then it's easy enough to assume mixing it with a high proof alcohol will preserve it for longer and possibly even reduce its potency to tolerable levels.

[@Locahaskatexu]

@ye or maybe nah Otherwise known as Paracelsus' "Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die dosis machts, daß ein Ding kein Gift sei." (or in short, Die dosis macht das Gift) :P

[@max_garcia]

“Here you go, potion of cancer” “Why would they ever make this” “Because they tried to be smartasses by combining mana and healing potions”

[@anthonygammel7352]

Good for getting rid of pesky family, neighbors, politicians... The list is endless

[@jacobkrout1627]

@@anthonygammel7352 Or you can just snipe someone while he is riding in his motorcade

[@Servellion]

@@jacobkrout1627 that's a bit more obvious than cancer potion.

[@slacknhash]

"Why would they ever make this?!" "I know, right? But I think I look cool when I drink them. And I get really ratty if I go for a while without one. (pop) (glug glug glug)"

[@iainperkins2085]

@@slacknhash originally the doctors said that combining mana and health potions had all sorts of health benefits.

[@Irreverent_Radiation]

Other games: This plant can be used in the crafting of Healing Potions because it grows near a river where an ancient dragon died and it has absorbed the healing properties of dragon blood while making it safe for humans to consume. Red Dead Redemption 2: *chugs a galon of moonshine* I'M DRUNK AS HELL AND GOOD AS NEW, BOAH!!!

[@Errol_cz]

Meenwhile in Skyrim: Eats 15 wheels of goat cheese between sword swings, healing both cuts and burns.

[@theta682pl]

In stalker drinking vodka removes radiation

[@drogadepc]

Zelda BoTW: just put a Hearty Lizard and any monster part in the same pot and you get a Hearty Elixir.

[@lukeweber9350]

As a pharmacist, I love the more technical side of this discussion. Pharmacology is fascinating, and applying it in a fantasy setting by including adverse effects, drug(potion) interactions, overdoses, and addiction potential would make for a very immersive world. In the real world, genetics also play a part in how people metabolize drugs, who is at risk for side effects, and how effective certain drugs are in certain populations. This could be applied to a fantasy realm as well: certain potions are only effective for certain fantasy races( e.g. not effective for elves but works for dwarves and humans), certain fantasy races are at higher risk for side effects or addiction, etc.

[@Solrex_the_Sun_King]

So like a healing potion for a human takes a huge part of their lifespan away, but elves with their long lifespans don’t really care to chug a healing potion because the side effect is little to no effect.

[@15thTimeLord]

Sometimes a potion of sharp wit is just caffeine

[@thenthson]

Or mana potions give you the magical equivalent of a hangover. A quick burst now but you won't be able to cast very well later gives a slamming headache etc. More refined and expensive potions can offset this effect but it is never avoided completely.

[@lexlex44]

Something healing you, and giving you a headache makes no sense !

[@overlordmarkus]

@@liamwarner5749 You might want to take a look at Orconomics: A Satire. Absolutely delightful novel, also covers exactly what you're describing there. The audiobook is good as well.

[@spiritvdc5109]

Imagine a healing potion that shortens your lifespan because, in order to heal you, it temporarily accelerates your metabolism to repair faster, but the strain from the acceleration ages you more rapidly... so your "miracle healing potion" is a double-edged sword that shortens your lifespan by a small amount every time you use it. In such a setting, it could be seen as reckless to rely on them, or only use them in the most dire of circumstances since only living to be 50 is better than dying right now.

[@Marinealver]

Well that is because our damage systems are often a single dimension, health 100% to 0%. I had thought of different damage systems such as acute which is like your standard damage and chronic which is you maximum health. In your character's prime may have a maximum health of 750 hp but as stress and chronic damage stack upon aging will drop to 350. Time to Retire.

[@michaelpettersson4919]

That reminds me of the combat stimulants the terran maries have in Starcraft. It boost them but also take away 1/4 of their maximum life. I may misremember but I believe that not even the medic unit can heal that damage.

[@randlebrowne2048]

In real life, our cells actually have a sort of genetic fuse that burns down with each cell replication. Unless whatever healing potion you took actually repaired that fuse, it really would cause rapid aging!

[@seb2750]

In DnD terms, I think most likely your Constitution value will degrade over time due to your body life force draining out from all that accelerated healing.

[@ericmurotake5180]

Another idea could be that healing potions don't immediately heal wounds, but act similar to field medical kits. Coagulants, protective covering, stimulants, and anesthetics that stabilize a wounded person and expedite healing (represented by gaining temporary HP and a slowly filling section of true HP). They're more meant to stop you from bleeding everywhere in a pitched battle, while proper healing magics or first aid will actually heal the wound much sooner (actively knitting flesh and bone together, expediting recovery of lost blood, etc).

[@Official_Kayde_Games]

Shad in the intro: “Fcking kills someone.” Audience: “Ah, yes, the obvious eloquence of Shad’s vids! Beautiful.”

[@Maddog3060]

I was always a big fan of the "healing potions accelerate your body's natural healing" effect. Maybe the drawback is that it makes you hungry; lost body parts do need to be made from material after all. So to heal you have to basically eat a crapload of food, probably more than you would by healing normally because the accelerated healing is inefficient. That could pose problems on a long duration trip like a dungeon delve or long travel.

[@bow-tiedengineer4453]

It would also stop you from downing multiple potions in a row, because the first one left you starving, and there's nothing left to supply the next one until you eat a full meal.

[@CoconutMigrating]

That’s how magic healing works in the Wheel of Time. Wears you out and leaves you starving.

[@CharliMorganMusic]

Hungry? No, that'd be an understatement. It would consume your flesh and the waste heat of the change would kill you. Immediately.

[@raedien]

And shorten your life span if abused.

[@MelissiaBlackheart]

Healing potions accelerating your body's natural healing is how it was done in 4th edition dnd, but the change wasn't well received (there was a lot of *irrational* backlash around 4th edition) and they moved away from it in 5th edition.

[@JeffandBCProductions]

I like the way Dungeons and Dragons handles potions, to be honest (perhaps this is in response to other comments). It has it's strengths and limitations. For starters, depending on the potency, it acts like an adrenaline shot mixed with some minor healing properties. It rejuvenates and provides stamina to the individual, while also quickly regenerating some deep cuts or internal bleeding. On the flip side, and assuming we use the 1 copper piece = 1 dollar methodology, a 50 gp level 1 healing potion costs around $5,000. That's far too expensive for the average individual to use. You have to scrap together your funds early on just to purchase one healing potion. That's where we get into Shad's conundrum of "shall I use this now? Or shall I wait until one of my other party members needs it? Or what if I need it later and I'm on death's door?" Another possibility to add onto that is "What if I'm bleeding out, and our healer is out of spells?" Potions require specific materials to make, and skilled craftsmen to make them. Potions are usually stocked pretty low, as they take anywhere from a few hours to days just to make a single potion, and the materials come at a hefty price. All in all, I think these potions are done pretty well. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to down this potion that gives me the strength of a Demigod. Edit: Regardless of how you view D&D currency (and I do agree that it probably shouldn't be compared to real life), the point I was trying to make is that these potions are rather expensive for the average person, thus limiting them to wealthy folks, and/or limiting their inventory to the commoner.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

I like the interpretation that hp is sorta like a second stamina where if you get hit you lose concentration to dodge fatal hits so healing potions help with small wounds and gives you an adrenaline boost

[@tigerbesteverything]

problem is that It's not proportionnal to the level of the user and the same potion behave completly differently depending if you're low level or high level. Its effectiveness should be calculated in percentage of recovery and not be fixed.

[@nathanbrehm1085]

In dnd a copper is not equal to $1. Maybe a silver piece would be equal to a dollar? Drinks ank lodging are usually silver, so that sounds more standard. A gold piece is like a large bill 💵 and most people don't have gold. Copper is lesser.

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

@@nathanbrehm1085 like cents and quarters?

[@nathanbrehm1085]

@@airplanes_aren.t_real more so.

[@gman1515]

The diminishing returns thing is kind of already built into most fantasy games. The higher level you get the stronger healing potions you need to restore the same relative percentage of your max health. By the time you reach max level it would take buckets full of the most basic healing potions to fully recover so you have to splurge on the more refined stuff

[@NGMK]

Well, except for potions that heal x% of max HP

[@gman1515]

@@NGMK that's why I said most fantasy games, there are of course exceptions that prove the rule

[@livecatgrenades]

​​@@gman1515there's other examples as well. For instance PF1e potions might only go up to 3rd level spells, but they still add the *caster level* to the total. Ergo, if your 10th level alchemist, for example, makes a cure light wounds potion at their full caster level (and considering the price hike for such) it'll be 1d8+10..... Not powerful but cheap and easily produced in shorter time compared to the higher level stuff while remaining reliable. Also consider that said alchemist can spend a week throwing out one of these everyday if he's inclined. So yeah there's diminished returns but not quite inescapably so.

[@DontTrustBananas]

in my setting health potions are made out of the blood of creatures that regenerate fast. for example mostly trolls. stronger potions need stronger blood. that is why adventurers and specialized hunters are often very rich but never live for long. also that lead to trolls forming packs, and even communities and later on developed a higher intellect and strategies and they even figured out magic. my point is such a small detail of how the potions work, lead to one of the main plot hooks in my setting.

[@thememeilator2633]

You could also make it to where the blood can be condensed and "stacked" with more blood to increase the regenerative properties without having to make a bigger potion or having to find stronger beasts

[@erickgomes7704]

If you want to anchor it more inclined to realism, blood is not a very good option, even because blood cells have no DNA, and the other cells in the blood are at a much lower proportion. Try a liver, that has extremely powerful regenerative properties haha.

[@LU4E-d3r]

The evolution of the troll is an interesting idea. Cities could then regulate how often people can hunt them to attempt to slow their evolution. Then you could have troll poachers. 😏

[@jameshayes-barber9340]

That seems really fucked up

[@Zahnpuppy]

Drink the troll smoothie, but if you do it too much you can no longer regenerate using other monster smoothies. and you have to stick to troll, but once you've reached this point troll smoothies can regenerate limbs for you. But the new limb is troll-like in appearance.

[@Devynwithawhy]

I have a spell caster who knows how to cast only three spells: he can make things temporarily super sticky once he touches them, he can send little gusts of wind (strong enough to knock a vase off a shelf, and rustle his hair and billow his cloak but not enough to knock someone over), and lastly his most powerful spell is he can create fire. The fire burns about as hot as a lighter or matchstick, but he can create it at distances of hundreds of feet away. Thus, he can cast fireball. All he does is throw a wad of fine sawdust at an enemy, and then boom it explodes. This is how he casts "fireball" and obviously he's a bit more sophisticated that throwing the sawdust. He's basically an alchemist sage other than those three spells, and yet he is the GREATEST WIZARD IN THE LAND due to the way he has used his magic. There's a great scene where someone asks him to use his magic to open a door, and he says no and hires a thief to do it.

[@flyingsheep1539]

That seems really interesting, would be interesting to seem him hire some peasant to empty out bags of flour to set off a dust explosion

[@Devynwithawhy]

@@flyingsheep1539 He does end up blowing up a castle, and he's not a big boy, so he probably did have help

[@Devynwithawhy]

@James McAthey oooooh

[@soulreapercaptain11]

"Potions as spell storage" is actually how potions work in Dungeons and Dragons. Potions carry the same effects as various spells. Wands and Scrolls also store spells but those still require some knowledge of magic to use. The only requirement for using a potion is the ability to swallow.

[@Schaelarren]

Well apparently my ex-girlfriend would not be able to use potions...

[@dragonfell5078]

@@Schaelarren lmao good one

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

@@Schaelarren if I get your meaning right then she must be great at casting dragon's breath (where you spit fire) 🔥

[@Schaelarren]

@@lillyanneserrelio2187 Well, that's how I picked up the quick-draw feat. So now I can pull my weapon out as a free action. ;)

[@ellagrant6190]

"Let's just say it's meta." *glances at the camera which is also meta.* Well played!

[@DarkSoulSama]

"Nanomachines, son!" MGS2 even had a character whose super-power was being VERY lucky, and she cannonically got it from nanomachines.

[@Zombiewithabowtie]

Doesn't she also have in situ invertus as well, the condition where an individual's organs are on the opposite orientation to their normal position in the body?

[@DarkSoulSama]

@@Zombiewithabowtie Gave the MGS wiki a check, it doesn't seem to be the case.

[@Zombiewithabowtie]

@@DarkSoulSama I just checked, and she does have dextrocardia, where the heart is oriented to the right instead of the left.

[@DarkSoulSama]

​@@Zombiewithabowtie Yeah, you're right. So, she deflected bullets with nanomachines, survived a gunshot by being lucky and having dextrocardia, then just used good old magic to deflect RAY's missiles X_X

[@pablotomasllodra4423]

It gets even more ridiculous in Rising.

[@mlmf2012]

I can imagine a medival knight wearing helm shaped like a soda hat but for potions. And the knight would fight continuously while also chugging down potions in the middle of battle.🤣

[@NeoBluereaper]

I do like in Goblin Slayer the 'healing' potion is more or less like an energy drink. It has minor rejuvenating properties, but most of all it reduces fatigue and just dulls pain for a while.

[@duckpotat9818]

So it's literally just a strong stimulant like meth/cocaine/speed. Funfact: Nazis used a lot of em in WW2

[@jaystone193]

So Basically A Fancy Aspirin?

[@shardinhand1243]

cool idea for negitive side efect for healing potions, they speed up your healing by boosting your metabolisim so while your healing super fast your aging faster to, so to heal a wound that would take months, your aging all that time in seconds leaving you weak and hungry but healed of wounds.

[@naethorn5755]

That will just will cause cancer

[@shardinhand1243]

@@pixels_per_minute like hes aged 30 years in like 7 years of being on the frontlines of battle.

[@shardinhand1243]

@@pixels_per_minute life extending potions. potion of ginko baloma :3

[@shardinhand1243]

@@naethorn5755 cancer potions are in the back on the left.

[@max_garcia]

Does metabolism actually cause aging? Last time I asked I was given two causes by the same professor which is a doctor btw. One was physical exhaustion… using your body wears it down slowly and that’s why you age. Or the replica of you DNA when it doubles is not 100% the original but it looses some of its genetic code every time it multiplies. I do agree being tired and being hungry would be a good drawback depending on how the potion works. One thing I like about MHA is that they have recovery girl who has the power to accelerated he healing of anyone meaning it is very limited on what it can do yet it can do so much and it tires down the patient. Honestly aside from the fact that humans shouldn’t be capable of doing that in the first place, with the lack of magic in MHA I have to admit it is one of the only realistic powers I have seen in the series and I liked it so this concept has my support on exhaustion being a consequence because of the usage of energy to heal if the potion doesn’t provide anything but accelerated healing. Aging? I am more doubtful of that

[@copperdragon9286]

The "Liquid Luck" potion from Harry Potter actually only effects the user by making him/her do just the right thing in the right moment. So it could be understood to cause a kind of subconscious clairvoyance. So it is perfectly understandable how this effect can be caused by a potion. It probably would not help you to win the lottery if you take it after you have chosen the numbers.

[@True_Term]

Maybe you could convince the person who has the winning numbers to trade them with your own, before those numbers are pulled of course

[@Oban2006]

But Harry Potter world and magic is stupid

[@Oban2006]

The Harry Potter Universe is literally designed to kill you!!!!!

[@chexwarior]

@Copper Dragon yeah, slughorn advertised it as making you successful in whatever you do, but on Harry it sidetracked him from what he originally intended to do and compelled him to do what he'd succeed at.

[@azraelbokor247]

The effects of liquid luck is pretty much the same as LSD. Minus the visuals. The feeling of euphoria and the effect of events seemingly falling into place perfectly. It doesn't affect the world around the user, it makes the user feel more in tune with the people and world around them.

[@skjefull8786]

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy's potions are really interesting. He did a really good job explaining the mechanics of the magic / potions for his world. Also as a quick aside, using D&D as a reference, storing spells in a potion allows non-magical users use of said magic. Thus it could be sold as a commodity.

[@bigutubefan2738]

Yeah the potions arised incredibly naturally in Mistborn, (without writing a whole book about herbalists, witchcraft or Snape), that was one of the better hard fantasy things about it compared to much of the rest reading like the rules of an RPG. They were simply the most effective way to ingest metal (e.g. in a colloidal suspension). A well chosen liquid medium would inhibit corrosion too. I haven't checked, but that's probably true in the real world too.

[@VanDy361]

You mean metal shavings suspended in alcohol ? Because that's not really an potion. That's more like a simple ammo for inborn magic power

[@justinthompson6364]

Storing a spell in a potion also could allow the caster to go about the process of creating the spell at a more opportune time. Maybe a mage has access to a limited amount of magical "oomph" at any given time (mana, spell slots, whatever) and expending it up front means they can have more total stored when they actually need it, sort of like how they used crystals in Eragon. Alternatively, it may be a time-consuming process or require concentration, making spellcasting less than ideal in a battle or other crisis.

[@akl2k7]

@@VanDy361 Makes me wonder if they're actually talking about the potions in the Stormlight Archive, which takes place in the same universe, but not on the same planet.

[@VanDy361]

@@akl2k7 there's no magic potion at all in stormlight

[@vadandrumist1670]

Reminds me of my biggest problem with Dungeons & Dragons, how a Cure Light Wounds will only heal a few scratches on high level characters, but the rookies a clean bill of health when otherwise they'd be on the brink of death.

[@trappyboi8678]

It's because hit points are not directly the same as how many hits you actually take. Hit points going down usually represent your stamina and when it goes too low it means you're too tired and thus exposed to a potential fatal blow. High level characters just have superhuman stamina so giving them a bit of a typical human's stamina is only rly a tiny fraction of their superhuman reserves.

[@SymbioteMullet]

They need stronger potions because they're like an addict; they've used so many potions that they need the bigger stronger hit to get the same effect.

[@gendor5199]

Yeah that's a huge issue that I think Cogent deals with pretty well.

[@vadandrumist1670]

@@trappyboi8678 The point still stands, only even more pronounced then. Why is it that my Cure Light Wounds bring some people back from the brink of death, and others only make them slightly less tired? Once these superhumans get to -1 I can heal that potential lethal injury just fine, but until then it's just papercuts. There's also no explanation for how these superhumans are superhuman, especially when they aren't inherently magical in nature.

[@IIARROWS]

That's why potions should heal a percentage. Let's say 25%, 50%, and 100% (and maybe a really small 10%)

[@thundermarkperun1083]

"What about healing potions that make you urinate a lot or gives you diarrhea?" There's an excellent channel, the name of which I forget, but the guy did fantastic videos about how stimpaks and radaway would work in Fallout, and considering how the human biology works, the toxins and other stuff that it would be flushing out would go through your excretory system.

[@laurenceperkins7468]

Which includes your sweat glands as well, for whatever that's worth.

[@booqueefious2230]

Yeah you probably get glowing turds after a good course of Rad-Away

[@TheRenegade...]

iirc the channel's called Shoddycast, but unfortunately the guy moved to the game theory channel

[@PpAirO5]

You mean coffee ?

[@SirConto]

A game called Elona Rpg had a cool "potion addiction" condition. It basically just made your char drink random potions from their inventory. Which was super annoying, because A) In the game you'd often find toxic potions whose intended use was just to be thrown at enemies as a weapon, so drinking them could hurt you badly B) Because some potions could be really valuable and expensive, so your char drinking them on a whim when they didn't benefit him was super annoying. So generally, you'd really want to solve that as soon as possible.

[@JoeKawano]

Lol, rofl

[@elgurkus6885]

I always liked how Tensura handled their healing potions (minor Spoilers for the LN) First off: The world runs of Magicules, which are basically the magic equivalent to atoms and they are (in universe) known to bend or straight up ignore the laws of physics Health potions are distilled from a magical Herp which, turns out, is just your run of the mill herb mutated by a high magicule concentration. The strength of the potion is purely based on its purity, ranging anywhere from healing small cuts, to restoring the entire body, as long as its still alive. The way this is explained, is that the potion basically "reads" the DNA of the target and uses up the magicules to recreate the missing tissue. Its definitely a lot of "its magic, deal with it" but it still makes sense based on the things we know about the setting. Also, AFAIK there are no other potions other than healing ones.

[@tigerbesteverything]

in tensura its normall that there is only healing potions since the world is based on skills and not on magic pool.

[@mikhielbluemon4213]

Damn. I like that but I'm odded out that there's only healing.

[@flyingsheep1539]

The balance of Tenshura is also very anime, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A single creature being able to easily obliterate countries

[@kirkhansen9473]

Regarding diminishing returns of potions and similar 'magic' healing: FFG's Star Wars RPG family has 'Stimpacks' that are thematically supposed to be an injectable fusion of bacta (regenerative healing liquid), antibiotics, painkillers, etc. In terms of game mechanics, they function much like healing potions would in a fantasy game. The first stimpack a character uses in a 24 hour period heals 5 wounds (most characters having between 10 and 20 wound points), the second heals 4, the third heals 3, etc. and thus any stimpack beyond the fifth that a character uses in a 24 hour period provides no benefit. Mechanically, this works well because the limit to healing means that characters will not necessarily try to heal every last wound between encounters. Also, the limit and limitations of the stimpacks mean that the medicine skill is still very useful because, not only does medicine allow further healing of normal wounds, but medicine is one of the only ways to accelerate strain recovery (Strain representing pain, stress, fatigue, etc.) or heal critical injuries, which, not only cause penalties, but cumulatively make each succeeding critical injury more dangerous.

[@Horvath_Gabor]

All right, let's analyze this one. So, health potions in fiction can be divided into two categories: HP potions, and regenerative potions. The first category is the de facto type in all RPGs, be they the tabletop or the computer variety, and they work by interacting with the systems governing damage simulation. A health point system is an enormous bugbear in and of itself, so let's ignore how unrealistic it is. It exists to abstract damage and turn combat into something math and dice can meaningfully interact with, and leave it at at. So, in these systems, HP is representing how much damage a character can take, and most often than not it is entirely decoupled from the other debilitating effects of a fight with deadly instruments. In turn, health potions simply restore this number, and that's about it. This kind of health potion is also really common in LitRPG settings, where either a fantasy world has a built-in magical system mimicking a modern CRPG, or in the case of VRMMO stories, it's an actual game system within the setting. The thing that has to be considered here is that, more often than not, there is some kind of system in place to maintain body integrity. In reality, getting stabbed by a sword in the stomach is something that takes you out of the fight, but in these settings, it would simply result in losing, say, 6k HP out of 30k, and maybe it would cause some status effect. However, as far as the "injured" person's body is concerned, they wouldn't get disemboweled, get their muscles torn, or even their skin broken, because the system keeps up their body integrity until they reach 0 HP. Because of this, consuming an HP potion or receiving healing magic simply replenishes this "allowance", and wouldn't cause any biological effects, as their body stays intact until they reach 0 HP. The other kind is the regenerative potion, though it's a distinction that's rarely made in-universe. This is much more common in more grounded fantasy settings, where getting stabbed in the gut actually means that an actual sword is lodged in your actual gut, with all the nasty stuff involved in the process. Now, healing potions in these settings generally work by rapidly regenerating wounds and restoring stamina. As for how that works, there are generally two ways it can happen. In soft magic settings, the potion doesn't as much "heal" than "rewind the injury". All the damaged and displaced tissues would return to their original place, all the missing blood would be replenished out of thin air, and there would be no trauma left, allowing the combatant to go back into the fray at once. In hard magic settings, the potion would only speed up the recovery, and it would often result in extensive scarring and/or loss of stamina, and it would require some recuperation time after that. Loss of fingers, limbs, or other body parts is also generally beyond the abilities of potions to cure. In either case, there's an unspoken premise that is rarely addressed, namely that somehow the recipient's body has a "platonic state" where it would be returned by the potion. In a sense, that kind of already exists in biology, and that's why scar tissue won't grow indefinitely after you cut your hand, but it's also the reason why you cannot grow back lost fingers; there are clear limits to the body's self-healing capabilities, which potions, even the hard magic kinds, often ignore. At the end of the day, what potions can or cannot do is still up to the writer, and the most important thing to consider is never "does this make biological sense", but "is the capability and mechanics of the potion consistent in-universe".

[@clockworkowl6248]

and "does it contribute to an interesting story"

[@damoclesecoe7184]

Bravo, a fine read!

[@randlebrowne2048]

In the Wheel of Time series, magical healing is much more comparable to surgery, requiring actual medical knowledge from the healer, lest the patient be killed through anatomical ignorance, regardless of the actual power level of the magic user. There aren't any actual magic potions in the series (herbalism is much more of a traditional medicine); but, there are essentially magical items that serve as a sort of lost high technology/magic hybrid.

[@gustavogarcia8783]

One method I see being used is replacing "Health" with "Stamina" Instead of being hit, you are receiving minor wounds and getting tired of dodging. If your stamina reaches 0, you are too exhausted to keep fighting. In this case, a healing potion would be anything that gives you energy, like caffeine!

[@shawnm1902]

Rampant health potion use leading to addiction expert apothecaries say. Common side effects include narcolepsy, headaches, fevers, chills, enlarged heart, and uncontrollable shaking. Apothecaries warn of healing potion overdosing that can lead to heart failure. Please confer with your apothecary before beginning a health potion regiment. This telepathic broadcast brought to you by healers of fantasy world. Stay safe!

[@luelee6168]

I like that idea better because it is you're endurance that determines how effective you are as a fighter and how long you can stay in a fight. I can imagine the fighter, barbarian and cleric holding the line, using their strength with shields while the magic-user, archer and other casters support from a distance, conserving some of their endurance, and the thief or rogue like character classes deal the deadly blows from the flanks or even from between the legs of their comrades. A sharp blade, behind the Achilles's tendon or up into the groin while their attention is on your fighters.

[@troymin]

This. I like to think of general, unlocalized Game Health as less of a 1:1 to blood/tissue damage, and more of a way to quantify the "likelihood to resist death [as a check against the current action]." (Which I guess is just another definition of health... but from a different approach...). So kind of a mix between stamina and luck/probability.

[@topogigio7031]

Oh wow it's almost like the literal first edition of D&D had this as a canonical rule from release

[@khorneflakes4446]

The addition of anesthesia into healing potions is probably a good idea. This pain blocking aspect would be very important as injuries severe enough to justify the potion are probably excruciating.

[@rikremmerswaal2756]

I know that Harry Potter has a very soft magic system, but I do have a theory about the luck potion. In the books it says that Harry had the feeling the potion was guiding him after he ingested it. He simpley knew what to say to certain people to convince them. A luck potion might simply improve your perception, creativity and improvisational skills for a limited amount of time. If something makes you more socially abt by stimulating certain qualities you have, it might feel like the potion is making you lucky.

[@justas423]

I thought it would be something like good ol Irish Luck. Messes with your brain *just* right to get you on the right track mentally.

[@reeceemms1643]

In both the book and movie I think it also improves the chance of good luck, on his way to hagrid's hut he encounters slugwurth, the person he needs to get the memory from to learn about the horcruqes

[@LangThoughts]

My theory is that it made Harry have a limited, temporary, Seer ability, that made him see what would be the best course of action and best things to say to achieve his goal.

[@myre36]

Correct me if I’m wrong because my memory is a bit hazy, but when Harry drinks the potion, he gets a gut feeling that he should go down to Hagrid. He doesn’t even that he would meet Slughorn on the way, and if I remember correctly, he doesn’t even know that Hagrid’s spider is dead. And I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure that no matter how perceive and creative you are, you would not be able to predict that Slughorn was in the area, and that Hagrid’s spider was dead, and that it’s poison would be valuable to Slughorn, and get him into a better mood. And another thing I faintly remember, was at the closing parts of book six. Before the Death Eaters break in, Harry gives his friends the rest of liquid luck to protect them. After the battle, his friends then describe to him how every spell and curse the enemy cast just miraculously missed them. Does higher perception and creativity repel magic? Again, correct me if I’m wrong

[@LangThoughts]

@@myre36 Yeah, that's why I think the Felix works by giving prophetic feeling to the drinker, Harry has a "prophecy" that he feels as a gut feeling to go Aragog's funeral (Hagrid sent a letter, but because of the last time Harry and Ron met Aragog, they feel that would be going to far in humoring Hagrid), and a a "prophecy" that he feels as a gut feeling to reveal himself to Slughorn. His friends' experience could be explained by a "prophecy" that they feel as a gut feeling to position themselves in a way that the curses will miss.

[@bookofkittehs]

Love how this is basically just a conversation of how drugs might function in a fantasy world. We're just using the term "potions" when frankly we should just be calling them drugs (or perhaps potions are a particular class of drugs) if we're building a world where we consider the fundamental properties of them, how they function, and their potential dangers and drawbacks, as these a simply the things that we have to consider when using drugs in the real world. Some real-world drugs (medicinal or otherwise) would even seem pretty magical if we didn't know how they worked.

[@pauloazuela8488]

Yeah, you're right. I'm mostly just thinking how drugs work let's say a theoritical type of drugs we don't have yet IRL😅

[@delusionaldreamer8332]

In the worldbuilding I'm doing right now, and watching this video for, there's a type of pseudo-plant that can grow just about anywhere, and it's essentially a drug, specifically a stimulant.

[@JonathanMandrake]

I think a mix of Alchemy and Spellcasting can also be interesting, making it following a brewing recipe and casting spells or using magical energy at the required times to make that healing potion. Then it requires both the plants/shrooms/whatever else and the magical energy provided to be able to heal someone, making them still rare and expensive

[@Кира-ж1щ1э]

The idea of ​​cancer and potions sounds interesting enough to be included in the setting. I now have certain groups of people who are "allergic" to healing potions and forms of magical healing that are weaker than Greater Restoration. Each use of such potions will have a chance to be the last in their life. You can get around this problem if you use "external application" - compresses, bandages soaked in potion, just pour the potion on the wounds. This will reduce the chance of sudden death, but the effectiveness of treatment may be affected. And applying a compress is definitely not the type of action that can be quickly cranked during a battle.

[@tigerbesteverything]

you have the perfect example in tensei slime that boost eveything even diseases and can kill you instead of healing, and it can be solved by just removing the problematic part and then restoring the entire body.

[@Izunundara]

Applying a bandage impregnated with the healing potion to an open wound could likely get some of it into the bloodstream anyway, making it absolutely not a painless alternative but definitely better than a bad case of Bleedtodeathitis

[@Кира-ж1щ1э]

@@Izunundara assuming that healing potinon works in a couple of seconds, wound may close fast enough to prevent at least most of the potion to entering bloodstream. But yes, even if it enters bloodstream and cause violent cancer growth, it is better than dying in a couple of hours from Bleedtodeathitis

[@Adam_okaay]

Triss in the Witcher Saga (not in the games... well not W1 anyway) is one of only mages who not only can get sick, but she's also allergic to potions so she has a nasty bought of dysentery.

[@KairuHakubi]

@@Izunundara of course then you get into the fact that we already have coagulant medicines in nature so there wouldn't be much advantage of using the more arcane potion for that.

[@MrDalisclock]

Shad: "A potion of sharpness that keeps you awake" Shad, we already have that. It's called coffee

[@MrWarlord396]

I think you'd like how the Ethshar series handles potions. They are limited to spells that effect you directly (as contrasted to magic powders, which can contain certain external spells) and are shown to take a long time to brew and include casting the desired spell 'into' the potion/powder, all of which takes its own rare and expensive ingredients, but it's kept relevant because magic (particularly wizardry) requires delicate and often time-consuming rituals with only two limited and fairly undesirable ways to load them up internally into 'spell slots'. These are also the main way that non-wizards are able to gain access to magic, by buying the relevant potion or powder and taking it with them if they need it.

[@joebenzz]

Having a spell integrated into a potion is an interesting concept. Spells are usually used by experienced magic particioners. It would require skill, training and alot of time to master. Have your entire life dedicated to said practice in order to become effective in it. But "Magical" potions would be for those who are not trained magicians and could be used by anyone. The only drawback would be that it is a one time use per drink and temporary.

[@myscreen2urs]

There are potions in the real world with "spells". It's called homeopathy🙃

[@david54999]

Given that time magic exists in Harry Potter, my interpretation of liquid luck is that it gives a form of unconscious precognition and helps guide you to what you would consider 'better' outcomes.

[@gogroxandurrac]

Any thoughts about the other side of potions? Alchemist fire, poison, or magical c4? If magic warding isn't a thing, but traps with alchemy do, that's a game changer. Personal power may be really good for wizards, but they're limited to a mana pool but alchemists could stockpile a massive amount of chemical weapons.

[@dakotamartinez8310]

That is a good point.

[@bishopofeternity48]

Only if there is a long shelf life.

[@Chris-ok4zo]

Shad is the fantasy incarnation of the phrase "See what everyone has seen and think what nobody has thought". Paraphrased from a Vsauce2 video, the one about Vitamin C.

[@James35142]

Shad, could you review the weapons of the Fate series? You'll have a field day.

[@thepokemontrainer6094]

That would be impossible since fate weapons are mostly pure fantasy while Shad mostly does weapons that have some sort of realism behind it, or he argues about weapons looking very stupid but that would be cool because im a huge fate fan. im actually a writer myself and people dont know this but i create medieval historical fiction books with characters that are inspired by fate for example the main character is based on Shirou or Inspired by Shirou and theirs also another character inspired by Jeanne D'Arc and theirs another character inspired by Saber and theirs another one inspired by Modred. But even though the characters are inspired by these characters, im trying to make the most historically accurate book ever made with info that you probably will never ever find in any history book its that awesome!!

[@MegaPokefan97]

@@thepokemontrainer6094 I don't think so. Artoria's Sword, Cu's Lance, Emiya's twin blades, Sasaki's katana, Iskandar's short sword, and of course Gilgamesh's Ea, all more realistic than say... that three-blased sword

[@thepokemontrainer6094]

@@MegaPokefan97 Artoria sword is the size of a fucking torpedo how is that realistic and I’ve seen all fate anime and read the light novels and played the games and none of it is realistic or to me at least. I’m taking about weapons where you stab people to death not slice them because stabbing is mostly affective since you can kill someone easily.

[@MidwestArtMan]

A few things I thought of: 1. You could have people in the country with a plant that heals deep cuts in a few days, but the king has alchemists who have a process to make a plant extract that heals the same cuts in just hours. It would be an expensive and time-consuming process, so most people only have access to weaker versions. 2. Healing potions could have the side effect of making your hair grow faster and skin peel because it dramatically accelerates the cell division in your body. This could make the user age faster because the telomeres in their DNA would be shortened a bit with each cell division. It may also lead to mutations of cancers because the cell division is being done so fast, it's less accurate when copying DNA. 3. There would likely be common potions that look very similar, but have very different effects, like water, vodka, and hydrochloric acid. A thief could switch someone's potions pretty easily if they're in generic bottles.

[@ericmurotake5180]

Another idea is that alchemically derived potions don't actively restore wounds, but act as more of a stopgap measure (forming a protective coating, expediting coagulation of blood, containing anesthetic and simulant properties to help the wounded stay alert and conscious despite being injured, etc). Healing magic (whether sealed in a potion or other medium or cast directly) is ACTUALLY healing (knitting flesh, binding bone, restoring blood and regenerating damaged tissue), but takes time to fully work, whereas an alchemical potion can be popped quickly (think something like an adrenaline shot or EpiPen).

[@terrorbilly3367]

i got a really serious question. how would magic potions taste? like how would health potions taste ?

[@Battlemage4]

Between spicey and setting number 10 on an electrical muscle stimulator.

[@mxm23adregalusandmore62]

I guess i would Depend on the setting and the In-universe ingredients you're using for them . For example, Certain fantasy games put cooldowns or 'potion sickness' when using them, so it's safe to assume that in those settings they either taste horrible or they make you feel quite dizzy (but anyway, i'm getting oit of my way to justify a game mechanic)

[@terrorbilly3367]

@@mxm23adregalusandmore62 like in witcher swallow the health potion is literally posonus and it's made from alcohol

[@daag1851]

in some RPG systems healing potions are made from vine(red vine) and taste like it , potion name: potion of red cross system: Draci Doupe (from Czech)

[@chenoaholdstock3507]

Depends what they're from. I mean, if it includes, say, rosemary, well, it'll taste like that (same goes for whatever flavor there is from the herb.) I've also seen renditions where it tastes terrible. I always like to imagine they are often dosed with sugar to negate any bad taste. So, they taste a bit like a cough medicine.

[@DiamondAppendixVODs]

HP is often more like stamina rather than one's capacity to accumulate injuries. In that case, health potions are more like energy drinks that give you more energy to keep fighting

[@o0alessandro0o]

That is a common theory, unfortunately the spells seem to directly contradict this: "cure critical wounds" seems like a rather explicit name doesn't it? There are games that try to address it (the star wars d6 RPG I believe made a distinction, and of course Storytelling does have increasing penalties depending on your health), but overall a game that allows you, at your highest level, to take 20, 50, 100 times the amount of damage that you could take at level 1, and still be in perfect fighting form, is inherently flawed. Tunnels and Trolls tried to do something about this with their monsters, which had a single score that effectively contained both their health and their fighting proficiency. Problem being, a higher vitality also meant higher damage output and vice versa (so you could not, for instance, make a glass cannon monster), and of course once your monsters started losing they actually lost, since their combat effectiveness went down along with their health. Which, realistic, but not what you expect from an RPG. HP are an abstraction, yes, but they are, pretty much unavoidably, a bad abstraction.

[@lucasfranke5161]

Eh, it depends. On a lot of video games HP and stamina are clearly different things

[@semi-useful5178]

Or they dull the pain. so Laudanum, Cocaine, or other such things.

[@Zyvo2]

I've always thought it odd that my character can fight just as well at 1Hp as they could at 10,000 Hp. THen when they get to 0 Hp, they just collapse dead instantly. Should realistically work like a limiter to stamina, instead of a seperate unit of blood concentration. Especially when a human can die from just 40% of their blood being removed, and only has 3.8 litters, while the RPG character can loose more than 100 liters and still run a marathon.

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@Zyvo2 A lot of systems include status effects at HP thresholds, which can also trigger boons (for example, a beastkin race might gain a berserk effect at "bloodied" (~50% HP), as it has now decided that it is fully committed to killing the thing that hurt it. Or a Barbarian might Auto-Rage at a similar point.

[@Zeke1460]

Random thought: what if you made an immortality potion but attached it to Cyanide or an even stronger toxic substance that kills you instantly? I think that would be a pretty cool story note. Giving the main super powerful villain the eternal life they always wanted but not telling them that they have to survive the 100% sure kill poison before the spell activates. Most heroes wouldn’t do something like this, but I think an interesting protagonist would.

[@calvinwarlick8533]

So, for instance, an immortality potion made with mercury? China beat you too it by a few thousand years.

[@Santisima_Trinidad]

*Hands villain buket of lava* "Down this and you'll gain immorality" *villain gets melted by the lava* "Ya see this would have been a brilliant plan if it wasn't for the fact we wanted to get a key off of him"

[@JarieSuicune]

Actually, total death can take longer than you think, according to more recent observations (kinda morbid, yeah). So that could be a fair gamble, just super unpleasant. That said, there are a LOT of flavors of "immortality" and lots of them suck (and some are just variants of "don't die of old age" so anything can still kill you).

[@KairuHakubi]

funny you say that, because my first thought with "how would health potions affect the world" is .. they would learn to make quick one-hit kills. just as Shad illustrated, a potion won't help with a decapitation. so health potions essentially become bulletproof vests, if you don't aim for the head, you don't make a kill, and it would change all of warfare. No point in wounding any enemies. But then for a good, balanced story, it's nice having violence happen without your cast constantly dying, so potions' real advantage is a plot advantage. people can TRY but FAIL to kill main characters, they can get HURT but then survive and not be maimed.

[@trulyinfamous]

@@calvinwarlick8533 really only organic mercury or mercury salts are particularly dangerous. The fumes are the biggest hazard when dealing with metallic mercury. Even then, it'll take a while to kill you.

[@justawhim]

Luck potion in Harry Potter is not luck. It just gives you confidence. The luck part is literally just belief

[@myre36]

I might be wrong because my memory is a bit hazy, so correct me if I’m wrong, but in the final portion of the sixth book, Harry gives his friends the last bit of liquid luck he had, to protect them from the Death Eaters. And afterwards, his friends described to him that all the spells the enemies cast miraculously missed them. So did their confidence just repel those spells? And even earlier, when Harry was trying to get Slughorn to give him the memory, was it Harry’s confidence that told him to go down to Hagrid, even if he had no idea that the big spider died? And when on his way, he just happened to run into Slughorn, who just happened to follow Harry and just so happened to be interested in the spider’s venom, which brought him into a better mood, and therefore it would be easier to get the memory out of him? Was it confidence that caused all of these coincidences? Seems more like luck to me. Again, correct me if I’m wrong

[@necroseus]

@@myre36 The simplest example to it just being an unnaturally powerful confidence boost is Ron. During the course of one of the later books, Ron is on the Gryffindor quiddich team. Ron's very nervous about a big game, and Harry tricks him into thinking he spiked his orange juice with lucky gold syrup. Then Ron crushes it. I'd say a confidence boost can easily explain the repulsion of spells. When you're more confident, you're less likely to hesitate. The deatheaters are evil, and are rather used to using fear to control their enemies. With unrivalled confidence, I can see it as supremely easy to out maneuver their muscle memory. It's like mind games in any high speed videogame. If your opponent is used to fighting on a specific skill level, they get crossed up by players who are really bad in comparison to them, or really good in comparison to them - simply by virtue of not being used to that playstyle.

[@blackjoker2345]

@@necroseus I think that explanation runs counter to the setting. Harry potter is a setting where magic has literal time travel, potions turning you into whatever you want, and the ability to kill people with bad latin. Removing magic from the potion of lucky doesn't make sense in that context.

[@andrewwashburn6080]

@@necroseus um your forgetting the fact that ron didnt actually have any potion so what he did has nothing to do with what the potion is. when we actually see the potion its very clearly luck.

[@Don-Scrima]

"Let's talk about potions!" *[Shows a picture of a knight guzzling Sunny Delight]*

[@mistahl5350]

Do you know who that's supposed to be? (genuine question, didn't want to just say in case this is sarcastic)

[@Don-Scrima]

@@mistahl5350 No idea, but I thought it was funny.

[@mistahl5350]

That's a character in Dark Souls, Solaire. I don't know much about him other than he "Praises the Sun." So we now know his favorite drink :P

[@hdnfbp]

I always imagined health potions super accelerating your metabolism to heal you, but as consequence you'd have rampant diarrhea

[@DavidRichardson153]

See the Shoddycast video about Fallout stimpaks - same issues but minus the taste.

[@hdnfbp]

@@DavidRichardson153 already saw, i loved that it confirmed my thought and explained really in dept

[@DavidRichardson153]

@@hdnfbp Indeed. I used that video as a basis to make my own magic potion for my story (I simply called it a healing stimulant), but I wanted to emphasize the more negative effects that come after using it, so it ends up only being used in a medical setting. As uncomfortable as those extra effects can be to deal with in a hospital, I think we can agree that they would be even worse to deal with at home or out and about

[@crimsonhalo13]

I was going to suggest the cancer effect for healing potion overuse. If the normal process is cells dividing, the unnecessary use case could be limited creation of new tumors as long as the magical effect is underway. Glad someone else thought of this.

[@thepokemontrainer6094]

I dont know why but that part when Shad chopped up his friends head made me laugh so badly i know its brutal but still the way he did it was so hilarious. Because its so true because this is real life not a video game get it?

[@stoic521]

I don't get it. Please explain.

[@thepokemontrainer6094]

@@stoic521 because you die in real life you don’t have a health bar

[@BudroThePious]

I like the idea of healing potions being extremely painful to use as you heal all at once. This would put a built-in dampener on health potion use.

[@AnonyMous-gt8vq]

The introduction is legendary. Shad never disappoints.

[@MahsaKaerra]

If I recall, in the Diablo games it takes a while for a potion to fully take effect. So if you're in the middle of a fight then a healing potion is as good as neutralising the damage you take from enemies rather than actually recovering anything.

[@Chu8rock]

Don't know about Diablo 1 or 2, but in 3 it's instant healing.

[@thewolfstu]

A healing potion is just a tormented plant trying to heal itself back to life with it's innate magic as it dies and you drinking it absorb it's healing. Also, Wouldn't potions have shelf lives?

[@Japanlover79]

Nah man I'm sure that potion I found in a 10,000 year old burial crypt held by a dead guy with flies buzzing around him is fine to drink

[@JAGzilla-ur3lh]

Harry Potter addressed that idea. Ron drank an out of date love potion in the sixth book and it had an abnormally strong effect, making Ron completely singlemindedly obsessed with this random girl until Professor Slughorn gave him an antidote.

[@mr.kittysavestheworld695]

Potions in the Dresden Files expire after a few days. You can't just stockpile a ton of different potions for any situation; you have to anticipate and prepare ahead of time for what you're going up against.

[@thewolfstu]

This all gave me an idea recently. A sort of magical glass-like orb which radiates warmth and when you break it, it heals you really quickly for a small amount. The upsides to it would be it's quick for combat use and it doesn't expire, but it would heal less than a potion and then the potions themselves can heal for a lot more, but end up being not as easily usable in combat and can expire.

[@potatoheadpokemario1931]

@@JAGzilla-ur3lh I thought it had a strong effect because he ate a lot of it, not because it gets more potent with time

[@Gambitfan]

I can't remember where, but I remember seeing an idea floating about the internet where doctors (chirurgeons) and alchemists were in a cold war against each other over their healing reagents, as they kept robbing business from each other, and going to one can effect your relationship with the other. Doctors were better at identifying specific diseases and problems and of course, surgery, but the medical cure-all was a medical cure-all...if you took the right potion and could afford it. Anyway, just a really neat idea that I don't think I'm doing justice (I think those who specifically casted healing spells were somewhere in the mix) about how potions might effect the world beyond the presence of the potion itself.

[@Merrsharr]

Early editions of D&D had potion mixing rules. There's a story on youtube about a character who survived a particularly hard fight and then died and killed the party because I drank a healing potion too soon after some other potion, causing a fireball effect inside his stomach. (There's also the explanation that there's different recipes for the same effect, so the result of mixing potions is random every time)

[@Attaxalotl]

5E does too, but it mostly leaves it up to the DM

[@RubyVector]

Extra Lesson: Poisons Yes the trypical trope is that Poisons deal damage or cause a harmful effect. Consider a fantasy setting where like Alchemy and Herbalism, Poision crafting is its own science that can deliever its own effects. In this sense you would have devistating poisons being made but equally a posion could imbue a powerful enhancement (say the ability of night vision) as well as a lingering debilitation (to continue the example before, sunlight senestivity). Then you add to this that the poison is a gamble where the body has to resist it first then they gain the benefits, should they not resist it they would only get the negatives of downing a poison. This in a wider world context has conitations for races in a world you make, take for example the trope that Drawfs are resistant to poisons. Would this mean they are better prepared to resist the posions and gain the benefits (thus leading them to have a rare advantage in the world) or is the physicolgy such that poisons with benefits don't work on them. - Yours, A humble navigator

[@adorabell4253]

Are you a fan of Poison Genius Consort?

[@RubyVector]

@@adorabell4253 Until you asked me I did not know of its existence.

[@adorabell4253]

@@RubyVector It's a trip. Tons of poison stuff.

[@RubyVector]

@@adorabell4253 I shall go and explore it always looking for more poison effect ideas. I run a custom D&D campaign world where this is a game mechanic the players can tap into as a 'Risk Reward' affair. Example poision being Destiny's Gamble, when resisted they gain temporary health but regardless of if they resist or not 60 seconds later (10 turns in game) they take double the amount of temporary health as damage.

[@TheDrCN]

"Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift, allein die Dosis macht dass ein Ding kein Gift ist." "All things are poison and nothing is without poison. The dosage alone makes it so a thing not poison." All medicine is poison, most poison could be medicine.

[@darkequation]

I've read a short story where strong healing potions with exotic ingredients are addictive and make the warrior in the team slowly losing his mind until he beg others to put him out of his misery.

[@williamthehuntsman]

My friends and I talked about this very thing a year ago. One of them used her medical background to create a healing potion that 1. Was made with an opioid like plant. 2. Was highly effective at pain nullification/healing physical damage. 3. Was highly addictive. 4. If used too much, the body would build up a natural resistance to it, leading to it requiring more of it to heal. We thought this was such a good idea that we all use it now for all our games.

[@__Rodrigo__]

i literally just sit to write and organize the part on my novels about potions and got this notification... Whats next ? How " read subscriber's mind" would work on real life ? Lol

[@catcocomics1601]

in my Minecraft adventure map I'm working on, there are basically 3 different types of potions (complete with a glass bottle economy of sorts), and some of them tie into the Light Force/Life Force system heavily prevalent in the world's setting: *Life Force/Healing Potions* - they're really just small bottles filled with water on a material level, but that water is there to dilute/contain raw Life Force energy. These types of potions scale from simple spring water (it has residual Force energy from the Earth) and progressively glow redder and brighter as they are filled with Life Force prayers. It is entirely possible to fill a bottle with so much Life Force that the Force Energy overloads your body and incapacitates you like a blown fuse box. *All healing potions are either obtained from treasure or created from spring water through prayer.* *Alcoholic* - Different alcoholic beverages provide different effects based on characteristics commonly attributed to them (most lasting for half an hour): Cider doubles your Light Force regeneration rate (or allows you to regenerate Light Force if you are not yet able to) as well as improving enemy drop rates (luck). Ale increases your melee attack power but slows your movements a little bit. Wine increases you melee attack speed. Mead slightly reduces incoming damage. Water Melon Schnapps greatly increases your Will Power recovery rate as well as giving you 1 minute of Life Force regeneration. *Beverages can either be purchased in a bottle or tapped from a keg using one of your own bottles.* *Hag's Brews* - The recipes for these are mostly unknown to the players, though each brew has its own characteristics that don't necessarily make sense for their effect. These potions have stronger affects than the beverages, but only last 20 minutes rather than 30 and can't be tapped for free. Draught of Night bestows Night Vision (your vision goes for a moment as your eyes adjust the the sudden "brightness"), is a Dark Purple color. "A dark, syrupy brew. It has an unusual savory flavor that is rather appealing." Vial of Protection reduces incoming damage by a greater margin than Mead, is a Royal Blue color. "Strangely tastes like you're drinking liquid rock candy, but not quite as sweet..." Traveler's Brew restores a decent chunk of Life Force and completely fills your Hunger and Saturation, is an Orange color. "It's a bottle of stew. It's very delicious." Bottled Courage increases your melee attack power, similar to Ale, but without slowing you down, is a Green color. "Tastes very... green? You feel emboldened, though." Bubbly Beverage allows you to breathe under water, is a Sky Blue color. "It's practically soda water flavored like local bass... sure..." Elixir of Striding increases your running speed by a good margin, is a Yellow color. "Has the texture of chicken stew, yet tastes more like bamboo shoots. Guess that means speed somehow..." World setting has a lot of powerful magic with limitations, ultimately revolving around manifestation through the manipulation of Light Force (often focused using some kind of catalyst).

[@JackofNothingess]

Team Shad: Hmm maybe I shouldn’t have hit him in the head… Team Oz: Have at thee, you pansy! ‘Tis but a flesh wound!

[@MaitreNaDaoine]

I love your editor Shad... those pictures showing you first real plants with effects you describe and then real potions with the text "All these potions exist Shad...". Priceless!

[@mophia339]

In my setting potion craft is something anyone with a knowledge of chemistry or herbology can do, this is due to the fact that in order to make these potions you need to know what plant or material does what, and which is infused with naturally occurring aetheric energy, or magic, potions however work like normal medicine, drugs or alcohol, for example you need to dilute a healing potion because the body can't take rapid healing, a patient will expend too much energy and resources and die, a diluted one may take a day or two but all that will happen is you'll need to eat and drink more due to the potion speeding up your healing and metabolism.

[@ayaakovc]

Liquid luck can also be seen as affecting the body. In the book it is described as giving Harry hints that guide him towards his goal. One could claim that that is just the spell giving Harry better perception to the point that his brain subconsciously analyzes EVERYTHING and presents the best way to achieve his goal.

[@wolfkniteX]

I could imagine for a Healing Potion, rather than the magic healing injuries directly, the magic actually speeds up the body's natural healing process to insane levels. HOWEVER, it actually uses up the body's natural stamina or energy that it would've used to heal itself in the first place, so depending on how severe the injury is, the more you wanna think about where and when you want to drink it. Basically, if you have something like a cut from a sword or a broken leg, you'd get fatigue, but if you were on death's door or almost every bone in your body was broken and then drank the potion out of desperation, you'd end up in passing out from exhaustion. And to anyone asking, yes this is basically how Recovery Girl's Quirk from My Hero Academia works and this is where I'm getting the idea.

[@scotcheggable]

I've dabbled in writing, and one of my characters creates a health potion of sorts which speeds up the bodily process, and can't understand why some people just die. Until a more medically knowledgeable person informs them about cancer

[@thomaslevy7249]

Some things I thought about a few years ago: What if you take a healing potion after having your tonsils and wisdom tooths removed, and they unintentionally grow back? even if they were removed decades ago? What if you give a healing potion to your neutered / spayed dog, causing an unintentional regain of fertility? What if a pregnant woman takes a healing potion, and the potion classify the baby as a parasite, and unintentionally kills the baby? The same questions will also apply to healing spells.

[@thomaslevy7249]

NSFW: And what if I was circumcised as a baby, and I take a healing potion as an adult? (͡ ° ͜ʖ ͡ °)

[@thomaslevy7249]

I think that a healing potion / spell will have an effect on all the 4 scenarios I mentioned. 2 of those are meaningless: No one in fantasy would have their tonsils and wisdom tooths removed, everyone will have messed up teeth or perfect teeth due to devine genes. No one will get their pets neutered / spayed. As for circumcision: If it's done to slaves, it's meaningless because slaves won't get healing potions / spells. If it's done to everyone / just the clergy out of religious reasons, that would be a problem. But the real problem is pregnant women: As Shad said, If people in fantasy rely on healing potions and spells, then their medical science would be shit. And if healing potions and spells will kill the baby, and medical science is shit, than injured / sick pregnant women will have to choose between a very high chance of death, or a very high chance of stillbirth.

[@Merilirem]

This is why you should consider how your potions actually work. Like not what they are made of or used but rather what they are doing to accomplish the effect. Big difference between speeding up your healing process and turning your body back to a save point when you were healthy.

[@thomaslevy7249]

@@Merilirem That's a good point, thank you. I was thinking of healing potions as: Someone got his arm emputated, he drinks a healing potion and the hand grows back. But you are talking about: Someone got his arm emputated, he drinks a healing potion and the wound closes. This is something I haven't considered, and would explain how in fantasy there are always people with missing body parts even though they can use healing potions and spells. And you gave me a better idea: It would still be possible to regain missing body parts, but not through re-growing those part, but through magical transplants: taking a body part from a person / corpse and putting it inside someone else. The reason it would be done rarely is because that's necromancy, which is always seen as a forbidden art. But back to healing potions: I'd still say that those will be dangerous to unborn babies, because if they boost your body's natural healing, then they would also boost your body's immune system. Pregnant women are always sick because they have a weakened immune system, this is an intentional body function which prevents the woman's body from rejecting the "parasite" growing inside her. So unless the unborn baby absorbs most of the healing potion and uses it to stay alive, I'd say that a pregnant women who took a healing potion will have a stillbirth, or at least give birth to a disabled baby.

[@gregajohnson1985]

i know a man who i used to work with, who got stabbed in a street "altercation". he ran into the restroom at work, and did cocaine, and then left. he didn't end up going to the Emergency Room at a hospital or anything. apparently one of his friends fixed him up, but he got the energy to get to his friend's apartment from drugs. ...i STRONGLY recommend against this, but it's an example of chemical ingestion giving you the superhuman power to hold you over until you get lucky enough to have someone save you. ...it happens a lot.

[@liamjohnston2000]

Dream: * Drinks Fire Resistance * Bad: He's drinking a potion!! George: He's drinking, he's drinking!! Sapnap: RUN!!!!! George: What does he have? Bad: It's Strength, it's Strength. Just run, just run!!

[@SteelWolf13]

Brings a new meaning to Hit and run. Dang Shad your brutal.

[@andreassamoreno4252]

This is the best intro I've seen in a while.

[@Elyandarin]

In my pet setting, there are two kinds of 'potion'. Alchemical potions twist your aura, mimicking what a mage would do to cast a spell - it basically forces you to cast a spell on yourself. This is a efficient use of resources, because normal people have mana they're not using, but limited, because many spells requires knowledge and skill from the caster. A fighter won't know which areas to prioritize healing for - they don't even know they're casting a spell. The neat part is that overdosing on a potion can lead to your aura getting stuck like that, with various consequences, good or bad. Spirit potions on the other hand literally contain spirit constructs tasked to cast a spell when triggered. Having a quasi-sapient agent directing the spell makes it much more precise. But that's also pretty exclusive, since it can pretty much only be done by Deities through their priests. Plus, holy items might have restrictions or additional effects depending on the Deity involved. And remember not to clink the glass - it'll drive out the spirits!

[@Athorment]

In my setting, every living being has "Mana" (like Ki, Chi, chakra, spirit energy). The potions tap into this natural mana and cast the adequate healing spell. This makes a very interesting scenario where mages are less likely to use healing potions on themselves because they are trained to use Mana for combative spells. In my story the group manage to take on a corrupt warlock by making a mix of poison and healing potion on just the right amount that he wouldn't notice he was using Mana until it was time to fight and couldn't use the party-wipe spells. Having less training on the magic arts, Warriors had very little reason to worry about depleting their own mana so they drank with him and equalized the magic aspect out of the battle.

[@krzosu]

it wouldnt work as magic users would be able to detect that their energy reserve is dropping - as they are usually highly attuned to that kind of thing. Good idea though to drain energy from things that might be based on pure instinct though for magic usage say like magical creatures that breath magical fire for eg.

[@grantpflum6844]

That opening was PERFECT! Keep it up shad!

[@jessicav2031]

I always wondered why you can't just drink, say, half a +100hp potion to regain 50hp. It seemed like it is often an arbitrary restriction without any good reason.

[@wraithmoor5231]

Makes sense with the stored spell mechanics. You only activate the spell after drinking the whole potion

[@Bruno_Noobador]

I believe that a healing potion should have 4 affects: 1) It makes you bleed less; // To avoid any major blood loss immediately 2) You feel less pain; // Because having a spear inside your skin might be uncomfortable, just saying 3) Makes your body heal much faster; // So that the cut that is already there doesn't kill you eventually. For small cuts, in a few minutes it would already have healed itself. For large cuts, in a few days it would leave a scar, but you wouldn't need to care about any real damage in the future. 4) Makes you more awake/agitated; // To keep you engaged in fighting For making you bleed less, there are anticoagulants and painkillers out there. They aren't difficult to find, they just need to be 20x stronger and faster than they are in real life. But fast healing is a different story. In short, what makes your body heal itself is cell division, so you would need something that forces or stimulates cells to divide and do it faster. Something that increases your metabolism might work but I don't know (I am not a physician, I don't know if that's even possible). And last but not least, you need to be alert to keep fighting even with an open cut on your chest. It could work with either really concentrated caffeine, adrenaline/nora-adrenaline or even just good and old cocaine.

[@livy456]

*P O T I O N M A S T E R*

[@orion_x-000]

Hearing Shad mention Dragon's Dogma and showing artwork for Dark Souls me me so happy!

[@stevenflowers857]

Not all healing potions are red for example, in Assassin's creed: the Ezio trilogy. You never see the color of the "healing potion" (it's called medicine, but it's a healing potion) but can assume the color is red. In legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, wind waker and twilight princess two or more other potions that heal are not red. In Ocarina of time, the blue potion or ultimate potion not only heals but restores Link's magic, in twilight princess Link can acquire other healing potions in the forms of blue chu-chu jelly, purple chu-chu jelly has a chance to heal or hurt Link, rare chu-chu jelly (gold color) and great fairy tears (light purple) heal Link and give him double strike power for the next 16 seconds or until he gets hit. In Snowpeak ruins, Yeto's superb soup heals Link with cheesy goodness for eight hearts and in Wind waker, Link can get the elixir soup from his grandma which heals him, restores magic and gives him double strike power until he takes damage. But like you said, each worlds lore of healing potions is different when it comes to how it's made and how it's effects work. Also, love your videos.

[@tomswiftyphilo2504]

this is an interesting idea. I'd love for you to bring in the personal angle: a lot of real-world 'potions' (coffee, alcohol, heroin...) have religious prohibitions against them. Would those prohibitions stand if the potion were literally life-saving?

[@potatoheadpokemario1931]

Pretty sure the religious prohibition is mostly using about using them to get high, so I see no reason why religions that prohibits getting high would prohibit health potions

[@tomswiftyphilo2504]

@@potatoheadpokemario1931 what if they have side effects?

[@MrEhcks]

It's neat seeing @Shadiversity talk about things a bit out of his wheelhouse. It's still excruciatingly pedantic and I love it.

[@bryanabbott6169]

Setting up a potion shop in between quest points seems like a great idea, until you find out that the shop keep ran out of potions because of all the times heroes ran away from monsters, inadvertently luring those monsters back to the shop keep. Alchemy was the beginnings of chemistry, but there was still a lot of 'magic' that was a part of it (incantations, diagrams drawn out, etc.). So in the fantasy setting, potions would be a mix of ingredients and magic as a catalyst.

[@chitin122]

I like how a few hardcore games have introduced things like potion toxicity which builds up to cause problems for your health. Its a clever way to make it so you can't just chug potions without side effects without some immersion breaking nonsense like cooldowns for potions. It also allows you to introduce new alchemical treatments around balancing your potion toxicity including blood filtration etc.

[@pixelitemc106]

Hey Shad, it might be interesting to see you analyze on corridor crew's attempt to create a realistic Light saber duel.

[@chukyuniqul]

A chemically functioning healing potion (that is to say, a potion that boosts the natural healing of the organism to superhuman levels for a while) would be an expensive tool to use, though. Not the potion itself, necessarily, but simply the amount of food an adventurer would need to carry. It would make for an interesting and dramatic 2nd wind, since now the drinker might have to wrap things up before they collapse due to lowered blood sugar (not to mention the shits they would potentially have afterwards). Additionally, there's no reason this potion wouldn't have a coffee-like effect too, so the crash would be monstruous after the fight. On top of that, a lotta tissue repairing kind of sounds like it's begging for people to get tumors from the thing. And if the potion is really strong it might even be addictive to some. I think a far better grounded health potion would be like an antiseptic bandage in a bottle, you pour it over the wound and it plugs it while sanitizing it and numbing the pain. Hell, maybe it promotes cell growth to a lesser degree by also acting as the fuel for the process.

[@AzureIV]

I enjoy those intellectual properties where there are various levels of potion. So there might be several different potions of healing, but some might be more "pure", or mixed with certain rare ingredients that enhances the potency, or perhaps the alchemist-wizard imparts some of their magical power into a potion to make it better, etc.

[@theexodeus]

This is probably a weird compliment to leave but your placement of the sponsorship and integration with the video was really smart and kept me genuinely engaged: love your videos Shad

[@violetopal6264]

16:00 Thinking of Curse of Silverthorn during the making of this video? Lol Excellent series, by the way!

[@Dmobley9901]

Honestly, I created this one character who made to be like an achemist/voodoo conjurer who primarily used potions as a base for all his powers, but the reason he could do so much was that his family was a long line of masterful alchemist and natural magic users, to the point that they had a family book of potions/spells that were invented and compiled over the course of centuries and possibly even millennium, the most basic alchemy being equivalent to natural remedies in our world, and knowledge compounded over hundreds of generations, to the point that the highest level alchemy is effectively reality bending ritual magic, and as a side effect to all these magically gifted people testing out various potions on themselves, it alterred their dna through repeated ingestion of high level magics, so that they learned that their own blood had unique magic properties if harnessed in a potion. Overpowered? Absolutely, especially how my character used it, but it was more of a thought experiment than a character made for a standalone story. I think it'd be interesting to see how ingesting a form of magic could physically change people over time, after all, not all potions in fantasy are temporary, so what does that mean for the descendents of those people? Edit because I'm typing while watching the video: In response to the example of if you drank a healing potion without being injured, I would actually imagine depending on the effects and duration of the potion, it would technically give increased endurance in addition to healing/regeneration, as your body gets tired and muscle failure kicks in, one part of that is due to muscle fibers in the body forming micro tears due to being strained, so theoretically, a healing potion wouldn't just mend wounds, but it may also act as a performance enhancer, similar to how steroids and other substances are used for recovery in real life, although with the recovery ability of healing potions being insanely more powerful, there's actually potential that say an athlete or a highly trained fighter, may actually use healing potions not just to heal from injuries better, but to push their body for longer and more intense than they would otherwise, depending on duration, people may be able to go into berserker like states under the effects of healing potions and perform superhuman feats, simply because they'd be able to push harder without worry for long term injury (so long as the potion lasts and is potent enough).

[@JonarusDraconius]

This was an especially useful video for me since I'm in the process of 'worldbuilding' a D&D setting right now! And differentiating 'alchemy' (potion making), from magic (magical healing), is something I hadn't actually though about! Anyway, just in the course of watching this, I have come up with the following: 1) Magic works almost intantaneously, but potions deliver their effects over time. 2) Magic doesn't linger long, where potions can be kept 'on the shelf' for an extended period (they get weaker over time, but VERY slowly, and even one found in a long-abandoned location can still have *some* effect. 3) Magic produces a guaranteed result, the same spell will work the same way every time (unless you're a wild-magic Sorc :P ). Potions however, are more affected by circumstance, the quality of ingredients, the exact measurements, etc. 4) Specifically in terms of healing, potions have a much greater maximum capacity than almost all magical healing (save that performed by the Gods themselves). Finally, my setting is a 'limited magic' setting, where not everyone can do magic, not matter how hard they try, or how much they study. The ability to 'do magic' is like a weird genetic on/off switch, some people are born "on" (but may well never realise it), and some people are born "off". Pursuant to that, 'alchemy' is considered a magical art - because even though they don't produce the magic themselves, the practitioner still needs to be 'magically able' in order to get the potions to actually WORK. As is, a normal person can follow the exact same recipe, but not get the same result, because being "Mana-born" somehow provides some strange intangible effect that changes the ingredients as they are 'refined' into the potions. Anyway, just spit-balling! Feel free to give feedback (that goes for everyone)!

[@SCP.343]

Fun fact; Rowling once commented that the liquid luck potion doesn't actually boost an individual's luck, it just boosts their situational awareness, emotional intelligence and confidence. It doesn't increase someone's chances of success by increasing the odds that things will play out in their favor, it just increases their ability to do something successfully.

[@JagEterCoola]

Potions in my D&D campaigns have a few general rules and a few specific ones; 1. They always apply the MAXIMUM effect plausible. So a healing potions always heals for the same amount, no RNG involved. 2. All potions are mildly addictive and generally bad for long-term health. They're not toxic and are safe if bought from an actual alchemist, but mass made potions have an extreme amount of artificial flavouring like sugar to make them more appealing (Think energy drinks) 3. All potions inflict fatigue on the drinker. There's then potions that negate this for a set amount of hours, but worsens the fatigue when that wears out. For healing potions specifically, any health they heal over the maximum cause painful lumps around the injured area. It literally starts giving you cancer.

[@chenoaholdstock3507]

I do know what you mean by mana, but I keep thinking of the bread God gave the Israelites. XD

[@jasonfurumetarualkemisto5917]

Funny enough I believe some languages translate the word Mana into power/force/energy. It makes sense when you think about it that way, mana to cast spells, mana to feed the Israelites. Its Power.

[@GirishManjunathMusic]

That's manna surely? With a stressed long n?

[@Marinealver]

I wonder what was the first game to use "mana" as a set of magic/Energy points. Was it D&D or Diablo?

[@chenoaholdstock3507]

@@jasonfurumetarualkemisto5917 interesting thought, but I think Manna (as in the food of Israel) actually means: "what is it?" Still a really cool correlation

[@chenoaholdstock3507]

@@GirishManjunathMusic yeah, but Shad put the emphasis on the wrong bit, so it sounded really similar

[@Harry-x4n]

You can also do the "relic" approach where it's something that isn't readily available, and is more of a precious single-use tool. usually takes the role of a plot item in this case. Like the hero trading the important potion he was to deliver for someone elses life at great personal cost. Like holy water in the last crusade. I also like the idea that potions work differently externally than internally. Like pouring it directly on the wound vs Ingestion, and how does this change things.

[@dominosdomino9617]

In my “Story” healing is based almost like Deathstrokes healing factor where he can heal from loads of different wounds but as soon as a limb or body part is gone well you cannot heal what’s not there so spells and the potions which are very expensive so having an alchemist as a ally would be super useful making potions but healing someone takes a lot of energy unless it’s a potion but that’s what I’m doin and broken bones can’t be just healed there’s spells and potions for that with my “story”

[@dylandepetro4187]

Part of the world building that I’ve been working on with a friend, there are potions yes, but you can only stack the effects of ten of them at a time before the power overload starts producing physical burns on the body. There being several categories. Transformation Temporary, Transformation Tailored, Enhancement Temporary, Enhancement Tailored. There are no healing potions, but there is healing ice and healing fire, both are part of a completely different system from the potions. A temporary potion is usually a 24 hour to one month duration. A tailored potion is a bit more complicated and way more powerful. To create a tailored potion, you need to add a Phoenix feather, and a strand of your hair. The Phoenix feathers being the hard part as it’s basically a double quest. Well…. Triple quest if ya count the choice you can make. Ya first gotta find the Phoenix, and you can choose to do a favor for the Phoenix, and in return it gives you a feather, or you can kill the Phoenix at which point you won’t be able to find any more of them and ya still only get one feather. A typical Phoenix quest/favor is usually freeing another Phoenix from captivity, finding a rare item, or protecting it from hunters. So far in the world building there are several potion ingredients. An electrified rock/crystal called Currentate, Sage Root, Crushed Dragon Scales, Ginger, Phoenix Feathers, Gryphon Feathers, Gryphon Talons, Elemental Wolf Claws, Elemental Wolf Tooth, Naga Fangs, Naga Scales, Blood of a Gifted Morph, Tooth from a Gifted Morph, etc…. The list actually does get very long. Especially since enhancement potions usually can have boosted or watered down effects depending on the ratios of ingredients you put in them. Transformation potions on the other hand…. They are a whole different beast all together. Transformation potions usually require the DNA of whatever it is you want it to turn you into. And it usually requires the DNA of a creature able to transform naturally making transformation potions difficult to make. And because the is a limit to the amount of potion effects you can have at once, there are Neutralizing Potions that will remove all potion effects from you. One of the loopholes with transformation potions is, if you mix it with a neutralizing potion, you’ll basically gain the ability to swap back and forth between your normal form and the form of whatever creature the potion turned you into.

[@MrAngryThing13]

The intro alone earns my thumbs up 😂

[@carbonscythe]

"Why potions?" was a question Shad asked. What if potions are used by those that can't use magic? Kind of like how the military can create any kind of weapon that the common folks can't and suddenly they start making explosives from fertilizers. Also, in a lot of anime it is a well known fact for the inhabitants that everything has a source of lifeforce and things like that. Could it be like like chemistry but with magical properties instead (I guess this could be alchemy), like oxygen and hydrogen, two gases that are very flammable but once combined, becomes a liquid that humans can't live without and that puts out fire (water).

[@BiteSizedProduction]

Just to summarize the wall of text: KIDNEY STONES. Certainly potions would take a lot of time to work since you need to consume the liquid, if they don't work like spells. In my setting I made some one-use injections that work kind of fast since they have a high quantity of platelets, minerals, diluted glicose, small traces of sedative, etc so that you can basically send someone with a few off for a couple of days and you don't have to worry about food or long term healing, since both take some amount of time to prepare, however they are a trade secret of an order of beast hunters (I also made the hunters always carry a couple of leafs like coca from south america so they have something to chew since the body still feels hunger), but then again, it's not a instant healing, it just makes an injury that would take a week to a couple of days which is still crazy potent, but since you are injecting a bunch of stuff in your body, you need to drink (roughly) 1 liter of water per dosage. Otherwise, it's also a great learning tool for kidney stones.