Brewery System

Brewery is the lore and art related to the creation of potions, drugs, infusions, poisons, alcoholic beverages, and all sorts of weird concoctions.

Ingredients

To make any of these concoctions, you will need a set of ingredients found in nature, some of them abundant and easy to find, while many others are very rare and even extremely dangerous to get. They may be herbs, plants, fruits, seeds, leaves, barks, mushrooms, lichens, animal glands, and even some kinds of minerals.
Each ingredient may have one or more effects, of varying intensities.

Effects

Below you have the list of potential effects.

• Hallucinogenic - Causes hallucinations.
• Relaxing - From stress relieving, to anesthetic.
• Analgesic - Takes your pain away.
• Stimulant - From coffee to cocaine.
• Laxative - Yup, lotsa shitting and vomiting involved. May help purging poisoned food or water.
• Microkiller - Kills microscopic living things that make you ill.
• Antidote - Neutralizes poison, stops their action, but it doesn't cure the damage already made.
• Antiinflammatory - Stops inflammatory processes.
• Mild Poison - See Poison.
• Paralyzing Poison - See Poison.
• Knockout Poison - See Poison.
• Lethal Poison - See Poison.
• Coagulant - Increases blood clotting. It may help a wound to heal... or cause thrombosis.
• Anticoagulant - The opposite, if you have thrombosis it may help you... in excess it may cause internal bleeding.
• Regeneration - Factors that help regrow damaged tissue. The main effect to cure open wounds.
• Accelerants - Stuff that makes other effects work faster.
• Retardant - Stuff that makes other effects work slower.
• Taste - Most ingredients have a weird or awful taste.

Brewing

You need 10 handfuls of the same or different ingredients to make a dose.
For each effect, you add the intensities of it found in all 10 handfuls, and then divide the result by 10, rounded to the nearest integer. Yup, an average.
Synergy:
For each extra ingredient displaying the same effect, you get a bonus point in the resulting potion intensity in that effect, due to synergy between the ingredients. You can add up to 3 bonus points due to synergy. If you have 2 ingredients with the same effect, you get 1 bonus point, if you have 4 different ingredients with the same effect, you get 3 bonus points.

Example:

You want to make a potion to cure an infection, so you gather ingredients that have the Microkiller effect.
You have 2 types of ingredients:

• "Exemplary Root":
  • Microkiller: 8.
  • Retardant: 5.
• "Forinstance Flowers":
  • Microkiller: 4.
  • Laxative: 4.

You decide to combine 3 handfuls of Exemplary Roots with 7 handfuls of Forinstance Flowers:

• Microkiller: (3*8 + 7*4)/10 = (28+24)/10 = 5,2 -> 5 + 1 bonus synergy point -> 6.
• Retardant: (3*5 + 7*0)/10 = 1,5 -> 2
• Laxative: (3*0 + 7*4)/10 = 2,8 -> 3

Hence, the final potion will have a moderate Microkiller effect, but it will be a bit slow, and as a side effect, the user will get the shits, but nothing to worry about.

If, on the other hand, you brew the potion using only Exemplary Root, you would have:

• Microkiller: 10*8/10 = 8 (No synergy)
• Retardant: 10*5/10 = 5 (No synergy)

Hence, you would get a potion that is a stronger Microkiller, but is slower in its effect.

Speed of the Effects

How fast a brew starts doing its intended effects is highly dependent on the way it is administered.

• Drinkable potion: 4 hours.
• Apply directly over the surface of the affected tissue: 15 min.
• Injected: 5 min.

Each point in the Accelerant effect means 20% less timeto start working, additive.
If you have 2 Accelerant points, it means 40% less time: If you inject the brew, it would take only 3 minutes to start working.

Each point in the Retardant effect means 20% more time to start working, additive.
If you have 3 Retardant points, it means 60% more time: If the brew is to be drunk, it would take 4 + 2,4 = 6,4 hours to start working.

If you want something to have an instant effect, it would take 5 points in Accelerant.

Intensity of Effects

This parameter reflects how strong is the effect contained per handful of the ingredient.
It is measured in a scale of 1 to 10.
Diseases, poisons and the like have a specific strength, in a scale of 1 to 10.
If you want to combat a disease caused by a micro, you would need a potion with a Microkiller effect of equal or higher intensity.
If you want to cure a Lethal Poison of an intensity of 9, you would need an Antidote Poison of intensity 9 or 10.

About some specific Brews

About Wound Healing Potions

It is possible to make a potion to heal open Wounds. To make a potion to cure 1 Wounds level, you need the following combination of effects:

• Regeneration: 3
• Coagulant: 2
• Antiinflammatory: 2

If you want to be able to cure 3 wound levels, it would be necessary to multiply the previous values to a factor of 3 (Regeneration: 9, Coagulant: 6, Antiinflammatory: 6).
Bear in mind how quick the brews act. If you want a brew to have an instant effect, remember you need at least an intensity of 5 in Accelerant.

Tools of the Trade

Brewer's Equipment
You need brewer's equipment to brew stuff. The brewer's equipment is a fancy name for an assortment of metal pots and glassware of different types, hoses, mortar, pestle and the like. You need at least water and fire to brew.
If you don't use a brewer's equipment, you suffer penalties. If you improvise with stuff you can find in a household, all effects are reduced by a third (rounded down), and if you just have boiling water, all effects are halved.
The brewer's equipment is by no means easy to transport. You would need to box your stuff and put it in a mule.
Solvents
Solvents are liquids that have a pungent smell, such as concentrated alcohol, vinegar, ammonia, and the like. See the section below.
You can brew them too (see the section below), by fermenting easily available starchy or sweet raw materials, such as potatoes, corn or fruits.
You get 1 liter of concentrated alcohol or vinegar per 20 kg of raw material you process, and that's the maximum batch size you can process with a standard Brewer's Equipment.
To produce one batch of solvent, you need 1 week, working a full day at the beginning, and a full day at the end. During the days in the middle, you only need to spend an hour per day.
With one liter of of solvent, you are able to purify one single effect from a potion, but it loses as many intensity points as effects you remove. The solvent is lost in the process.
Example:
You want to remove the Retardant and Laxative effects from the previous Microkiller potion. So you use 1 liter of alcohol, and you end up with a potion that has a bland Microkiller intensity of 4, but lacks side-effects. You lose the alcohol in the process.

Other stuff you can do

Aside from solvents, provided you have enough time, and you have the right ingredients (and are familiar with them), you can produce other "standard" products, that do not have any of the aforementioned effects:

• Concentrated alcohol: Any sweet or starchy raw material.
• Concentrated Vinegar: Any sweet or starchy raw material.
• Ammonia: Urine... yup. pee.
• Wine: Grapes, sugarcane, or any other fruit. Rice, barley, millet and other grains would do too.
• Beer: Barley or wheat, hops.
• Mead: Honey.
• Spirits: Barley, wheat, rice, grapes, sugarcane, any fruit. Even potatoes would do.
• Cheese: Milk, a cow's stomach (or some herbs).
• Bread: Flour, preferably made of wheat.
• Pickled Food: Edible Vegetables.
• Jerky: Meat, salt.
• Ham or Bacon: Meat, salt, smoke.