u/No-Candy-4554

I've always thought: man, potions deserve way more love than what they usually get in fantasy, here's my attempt at an alchemical magic system for a low fantasy world. There are no other forms of magic but potioncraft.

In Ardum, everything is magic, meaning all matter has an inherent potential to be used in an alchemical preparation. Plants, minerals, animals, fungi. All of course being subject to processing methods, drying, heating, cold pressing, combining etc.

The problem is that the consequence space is exponentially combinatorial, while 99% of combinations produce nothing more than an inert or unstable mixture. Viable effects are rare islands in a vast sea of failure. The system is deterministic and repeatable: the same combination always produces the same result, no exceptions. As a result, trial and error are your best friends.

Recipes are some of the most valuable things in the world because they often represent generations of experimentation. A recipe might have taken the lives of countless scholars to stabilize and turn useful at scale. If that knowledge is lost, it's not just the loss of information, it's the loss of literal lives that were spent carving a path through the combinatorial space.

Power scaling follows naturally from this. The better your understanding of alchemy, the larger your library of recipes and the better your mental model of what's possible to achieve with them. You don't necessarily win because you're stronger. You win because you know one thing your opponent doesn't. An experienced alchemist can often look at an unfamiliar ingredient and make an educated guess about how it might behave, but they're still guessing.

The current best theory in-world is that of elemental essences, bioaccumulation of compounds in food chains, and a relatively ugly table of modulators, inhibitors and activators. The interesting part is that none of these theories are actually *the* explanation. I'm trying to build a world where multiple metaphysical and ontological theories are all very plausible at explaining why magic exists, while each has sticking problems that clearly break it at the edges. Something framework A can't explain should be load-bearing and completely mundane in framework B. And vice versa. Every framework has a demonstrably true thing that exists somewhere else but clearly shouldn't if that framework were true. The blind men and the elephant, basically.

Ultimately there *is* a mechanism behind everything. The problem is that I am forbidden from fully stating it, because it's a sort of anti-meme, a piece of information that seeks to destroy everything that comes close to grasping it. It is possible to know it, and even brew a potion using that principle, but trying it then gives you god like power for a few seconds and wipes you and the memory of you from the world. So the ultimate rule is fairly easily describable. You can point to the rule-shaped hole where it should be. The precondition is simply that it has to remain unknown. If the God potion exists, it actively tries to escape being known.

So if I had to summarize the philosophy of magic in Ardum, it'd probably be:

- Everything in Ardum is magic.

- Everything is knowable.

- Trial and error are your best friends.

- Local rules are extractable.

- General principles always contradict themselves.

What does this inspire you, I'm curious for feedback guys, thanks !

A Free Course About Selling Courses About Selling Courses About Selling Courses

What if I told you, that the industry for selling courses about selling courses is quietly undergoing a massive shift 😱⤵️🤫

Alright, so one thing I noticed while browning courses about selling courses is that, as an industry, we're betraying the niche advice.

Remember — find your niche and your 1000 true fans? Well I realized that this niche is getting too crowded.

There's fantastic people out there (and remember to check them out, sending love out there always compounds back even if it's performative) [list of creators], but here's one thing they're all missing out on.

And remember to comment "CROWDED" in the comment section to receive your free ebook about selling courses to people selling courses about selling courses.

So the thing everyone doesn't want you to know about — what all these wonderful creators (remember to check them out, they helped me a lot in my early years) are all missing — and remember to stay til the end for 3 advices.

That's right.

Some people give one. Two bonus advices if you're lucky. You're in luck today. It's 3 whole advices about the hierarchy of needs. And a secret one about how to weaponize it and become the most dangerous person in your galaxy.

Alright, hear me out. The current industry needs to understand — and you're early if you click on the notification bell —

I would be nothing without you guys. Thanks for everything.

*shot of a sports car, a swimming pool and a perfect lawn*

Alright guys thanks for watching, remember to comment CROWDED below to receive your free ebook.

© All rights reserved. The hierarchy of needs will be addressed in the paid tier.

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The Screaming Crystal – a grimoire entry

"Excerpts from the Potion and Ingredient Grimoire of ————”

Entry No. 156 — The Screaming Crystal

Valdrian Islands, Technomancer Testing Grounds

Early crystallization research on Valdria saw experimenters attempt to concentrate a stunning shriek potion into a crystalline matrix. Hundreds of liters were poured. The crystal emerged. It has been continuously producing an ear-bursting shriek ever since, with no known method of interruption.

The research team buried it seven feet beneath the testing grounds. There was no other option discussed in any surviving record.

Some say that on particularly quiet nights, you can still hear it.

— Cross-reference: entries 203 (continuous expression and the halting problem), 44 (crystalline matrix fundamentals)

Context: this is a grimoire entry from a world where potioncraft is the only form of magic. Crystallization is a recent Valdrian innovation that concentrates potions at a 100:1 ratio. The problem is crystals never stop expressing their effect. This is an early experiment that went wrong.

What do you think of the concept, the execution and the voice from the grimoire ?

That goes something like this:

"The self is the differential between what is and what you wish to be, there is nothing to do, go ahead."

Do you think it's corny ?