The basics
Alchemy is Cooking's twin. It uses the same Cauldron (any tier, carried or worn) and the same campfire or bonfire, brews one potion per tick, and never fails. Set your travel mode to Alchemy, pick a recipe, and your wanderer walks to the nearest fire and keeps brewing until the ingredients run out.
Two things separate it from cooking:
- No fish, ever. Every potion is roots, herbs, berries and mushrooms. Where the dish it answers to leans on a catch, the potion leans on more forage.
- Every brew spends an Empty Bottle. A better cauldron rolls a free bonus dish when cooking; there is no bonus potion. Each one costs its own glassware.
Where bottles come from
The bottle is the errand most new alchemists miss, because it starts nowhere near a fire:
- Dig sand at the shoreline (Stonecutting).
- Smelt a Glass Bar at a furnace — Smelting 5, from 7 Sand and 2 Coal.
- Blow an Empty Bottle at a carpenter's bench — Woodworking 5, from 2 Glass Bars and 1 Beech Plank.
The Empty Vial (Woodworking 50, Fine Glass) is deliberately unused for now — it is the container for the deeper potions still to come.
The three potions
Each recipe answers to one of the percentage-healing dishes, asks for roughly twice as many different ingredients, and heals about 60% more than the dish it stands in for. Because the heal is a share of your maximum health, a potion is worth exactly as much at level 90 as at level 9.
| Potion | Alchemy | Heals | Alchemy XP | Answers to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roadside Tonic | 0 | 32% of max HP | 125 | River Trout Stew (20%) |
| Greenwarden's Draught | 20 | 40% of max HP | 375 | Pike & Glowcap Chowder (25%) |
| Deeproot Philtre | 45 | 48% of max HP | 955 | Golden Koi Harvest Feast (30%) |
Roadside Tonic — Alchemy 0
A cloudy green draught that tastes of pepper and wet earth. Eight kinds of forage, and the deepest of them needs Foraging 20.
- 2 Emberroot, 2 Boldleaf (Foraging 0)
- 3 Berries, 5 Forest Mushroom (Foraging 0)
- 1 Stoneheart Root, 1 Veilmint (Foraging 10)
- 1 Ironvein Root, 1 Sageleaf (Foraging 20)
- 1 Empty Bottle
Greenwarden's Draught — Alchemy 20
A still, blue-black brew with a single glowcap spore turning in it. Ten kinds of forage, reaching Foraging 30.
- 3 Glowcap, 3 Blueberries (Foraging 20)
- 2 Forest Mushroom, 2 Berries (Foraging 0)
- 2 Ironvein Root, 2 Sageleaf (Foraging 20)
- 1 Stoneheart Root, 1 Veilmint (Foraging 10)
- 1 Heartroot, 1 Hawkeye Thyme (Foraging 30)
- 1 Empty Bottle
Deeproot Philtre — Alchemy 45
A deep amber philtre, thick as sap, that smells of the whole forest floor. Fourteen kinds of forage, reaching Foraging 40.
- 2 Crown Cap, 3 Sunberries, 2 Spotted Toadstool (Foraging 40)
- 2 Glowcap, 2 Blueberries (Foraging 20)
- 2 Forest Mushroom, 2 Berries (Foraging 0)
- 1 Warroot, 1 Bastion Bloom (Foraging 40)
- 1 Heartroot, 1 Hawkeye Thyme (Foraging 30)
- 1 Ironvein Root, 1 Sageleaf (Foraging 20)
- 1 Emberroot, 1 Boldleaf (Foraging 0)
- 1 Empty Bottle
The real gate is Foraging
Alchemy itself barely gates you — the Tonic is brewable at Alchemy 0, on your first day. What actually holds you back is the reach of the ingredient list: only four things are forageable at Foraging 0, so doubling a recipe necessarily climbs the foraging ladder. That climb is the price of the stronger heal, and it is why an alchemist is a forager first.
Alchemy XP is weighted the same way: it scales with how hard the ingredients were to gather, so the deeper potions are worth far more per brew (125 → 375 → 955). The recipe picker shows the exact figure before you commit.
Brewing while you're away
Alchemy is a full travel mode, so it runs in offline catch-up exactly like the forge and the campfire: pick the potion, set it as your offline mode, and the brewing continues while the app is closed — until the forage or the bottles run out. If you tick Match offline movement mode, choosing a potion online sets the same one for offline in the same breath.
Common questions
Do I need a Cooking level to brew?
No. Alchemy is its own skill with its own XP. It shares the cauldron and the fire with cooking, nothing else.
Does brewing ever fail?
No. Like cooking and sawmilling, a brew you can start is a brew you finish. The anvil and the carpenter's bench are the stations that can fail.
Does a better cauldron brew faster or give bonus potions?
Neither. The cauldron tier's bonus roll applies to cooking only — every potion costs its own bottle and its own tick.
Will my potions get auto-sold?
No. Anything you deliberately brewed is exempt from the auto-sell food order, exactly like anything you cooked.
Are potions better than food?
For raw healing, yes — a Roadside Tonic restores 32% of your maximum health against the 20% of the stew it answers to. Food still wins where you want a timed bonus: potions heal and nothing more.