Alchemical Distillation
Alchemical distillation turns magical material into stable essence.
A harvested monster part, magical plant, venom sac, spirit residue, alchemical organ, or similar reagent may contain useful magic. Distillation extracts that magical principle and stabilizes it into a form that can be stored, traded, and used in crafting.
Creature harvesting rules are found in Creature Harvesting. Plant gathering and preservation rules are found in Herbalism.
Raw Materials and Essence¶
Harvested materials may be used in two ways: as raw materials or as distilled essence.
Raw Materials¶
A raw material is a specific physical part taken from a creature, plant, or magical source.
Raw materials retain their identity. A basilisk eye, troll heart, dragon scale, Silver Root bundle, and fire elemental core are not interchangeable unless a recipe says they are.
Use raw material when the recipe calls for a specific body part, plant, shell, scale, horn, eye, heart, or other physical component.
Use Raw Material When¶
- the recipe calls for a specific body part;
- the physical nature of the part matters;
- the item is made from the creature’s hide, bone, scale, shell, wing, horn, silk, or similar material;
- the player wants to sell, preserve, wear, mount, cook, or craft with the part directly.
Essence¶
Essence is what remains when a harvested material is rendered down into its magical principle.
Essence does not remember where it came from. It only remembers what it does.
For example:
- Fire distilled from a CR 12 red dragon is Potent Fire Essence.
- Fire distilled from a CR 12 fire elemental is also Potent Fire Essence.
- Fire distilled from a CR 12 salamander is also Potent Fire Essence.
Once distilled, they are mechanically the same.
A recipe that requires Potent Fire Essence can accept fire essence from any valid source of that potency.
A recipe that requires red dragon scales cannot accept fire elemental essence, because the recipe needs the raw material, not the distilled effect.
Use Essence When¶
- the recipe calls for a magical tag;
- the exact creature source does not matter;
- the material is being rendered into potion base, ink, oil, powder, salt, resin, crystal, ash, tincture, or alchemical reagent;
- the crafter wants the magic, not the body part.
Essence Formula and Tags¶
Essence is described by yield, potency, and tag.
Essence Formula¶
When a creature is distilled into essence, use the following formula:
[Yield] units of [Potency] [Tag] Essence
Examples:
- 4 units of Lesser Transmutation Essence
- 2 units of Lesser Petrification Essence
- 4 units of Potent Lightning Essence
- 8 units of Greater Necromancy Essence
- 1 unit of Minor Poison Essence
A creature can only produce essence for tags that match its actual traits, features, attacks, defenses, or supernatural nature.
Standard Essence Tags¶
Essence tags come from three categories:
- Damage/Healing Tags
- School Tags
- Condition Tags
These are the only standard essence tags.
Damage/Healing Tags¶
Damage/Healing tags are used when a creature deals, heals, resists, embodies, produces, or is strongly associated with that damage type or restorative force.
| Damage/Healing Tag |
|---|
| Acid |
| Cold |
| Fire |
| Force |
| Healing |
| Lightning |
| Necrotic |
| Poison |
| Psychic |
| Radiant |
| Thunder |
Slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning are normally handled through raw materials such as claws, horns, teeth, bones, spines, tails, shells, and hides. They are usually not distilled into magical essence.
School Tags¶
School tags are used when a creature’s abilities clearly express a school of magic.
| School Tag | Common Uses |
|---|---|
| Abjuration | protection, resistance, warding, magic resistance, defensive auras |
| Conjuration | teleportation, summoning, planar movement, extradimensional effects |
| Divination | detection, sight, prophecy, telepathy, truth, supernatural senses |
| Enchantment | charm, domination, fear, command, influence, compulsion |
| Evocation | elemental blasts, destructive energy, radiant force, thunderous power |
| Illusion | invisibility, displacement, false appearance, concealment, glamours |
| Necromancy | undeath, life drain, curses, soul manipulation, necrotic power |
| Transmutation | shapeshifting, petrification, growth, regeneration, movement, physical alteration |
A creature may have more than one school tag.
For example, a vampire might produce Necromancy Essence, Enchantment Essence, or Necrotic Essence, depending on which part is harvested and what the crafter is trying to distill.
Condition Tags¶
Condition tags are used when a creature can impose, embody, resist, or magically manipulate a condition.
| Condition Tag |
|---|
| Blinded |
| Charmed |
| Deafened |
| Exhaustion |
| Frightened |
| Grappled |
| Incapacitated |
| Invisible |
| Paralyzed |
| Petrified |
| Poisoned |
| Prone |
| Restrained |
| Stunned |
| Unconscious |
A creature does not need to literally inflict a named condition in its stat block if the connection is obvious, but the DM has final say.
For example:
- A basilisk can produce Petrification Essence.
- A ghoul can produce Paralysis Essence.
- A medusa can produce Petrification Essence.
- A ghost may produce Frightened Essence.
- A giant spider may produce Poisoned Essence or Restrained Essence.
- A displacer beast may produce Illusion Essence, but not necessarily Invisible Essence, because it displaces rather than turns invisible.
Choosing Essence Tags¶
A creature may have several possible tags, but each unit of essence usually has only one tag.
For example, a young blue dragon might be able to produce:
- Potent Lightning Essence
- Potent Evocation Essence
- Potent Abjuration Essence
But each unit distilled should be assigned to one of those tags.
If the carcass yields 4 units, the crafter might choose:
- 4 units of Potent Lightning Essence
or
- 2 units of Potent Lightning Essence
- 1 unit of Potent Evocation Essence
- 1 unit of Potent Abjuration Essence
The DM may limit which tags are available from which parts.
For example:
- Dragon breath organs are excellent sources of damage and Evocation essence.
- Dragon scales are excellent raw material for armor and may distill into Abjuration essence.
- Dragon blood is a flexible alchemical source and may distill into several tags.
- Dragon wings are better used raw for flight-related items than distilled into fire, lightning, or cold essence.
The system should remain simple: when in doubt, choose the most obvious tag.
General Distillation¶
Distillation turns harvested material into essence.
Distillation Tools¶
Distillation requires appropriate tools. The tool determines how the essence is physically extracted, refined, stabilized, and sealed. When a skill or secondary proficiency can aid the check, it represents the knowledge used to understand, prepare, or safely handle the material being distilled.
| Essence Type | Common Tool | Common Aiding Skill or Proficiency |
|---|---|---|
| General magical essence | Alchemist’s Supplies | Arcana |
| Elemental, planar, or spell-like essence | Alchemist’s Supplies | Arcana |
| Poison, venom, paralysis, toxins | Poisoner’s Kit or Alchemist’s Supplies | Nature, Medicine, Arcana, or Poisoner’s Kit |
| Plant essence, herbal essence, natural medicine | Alchemist’s Supplies | Herbalism Kit, Nature, or Survival |
| Undead, spirit, curse, or soul residue | Alchemist’s Supplies | Arcana or Religion |
| Celestial, fiendish, sanctified, or profane residue | Alchemist’s Supplies | Religion or Arcana |
| Construct cores, runes, and magical mechanisms | Tinker’s Tools or Alchemist’s Supplies | Investigation or Arcana |
| Flesh, organs, blood, glands, and anatomy | Alchemist’s Supplies | Medicine |
| Oozes, acids, mucus, slimes, and unstable fluids | Alchemist’s Supplies | Investigation or Nature |
The DM chooses the most appropriate tool and aiding skill based on the material, source creature, and desired essence tag.
As a default, Alchemist’s Supplies + Arcana is used for general magical essence.
Distillation DC¶
The base distillation DC is determined by potency.
| Potency | Base Distillation DC |
|---|---|
| Minor | 12 |
| Lesser | 15 |
| Potent | 18 |
| Greater | 21 |
| Mythic | 24 |
The DM may increase the DC by 2 to 5 if the material is volatile, cursed, unstable, poisonous, incorporeal, divine, fiendish, or poorly preserved.
On a successful distillation, the harvested material becomes essence.
On a failed distillation, the material is spoiled, weakened, contaminated, or lost, at the DM’s discretion.
Distillation Time¶
Distillation takes time based on the potency of the essence being produced.
| Potency | Distillation Time per Unit |
|---|---|
| Minor | 1 hour |
| Lesser | 4 hours |
| Potent | 1 workday |
| Greater | 3 workdays |
| Mythic | 1 workweek |
A workday is 8 hours of careful labor. A workweek is 5 workdays.
Distillation time is calculated per unit of essence.
Distillation Time = Essence Units × Time per Unit
For example, a Huge CR 8 hydra can provide up to 8 units of Potent Healing Essence. Potent essence takes 1 workday per unit to distill, so fully distilling the hydra blood takes:
8 workdays
The DM may allow multiple characters to assist if they have access to sufficient tools, space, containers, and raw material. Assistance can reduce the total time, but it does not reduce the distillation DC.
Containers and Reagents¶
Distilled essence must be stored in a suitable sealed container, such as a vial, stoppered bottle, waxed packet, folded spirit paper, resin-sealed capsule, or alchemical ampoule.
A character must have one suitable container for each essence unit produced.
The DM may also require minor reagents, alcohol, oil, salts, charcoal, wax, clean water, or binding powder. These costs are usually negligible for Minor or Lesser essence, but may matter when distilling Potent or stronger essence in the wilderness.
Distilling Plant Essence¶
A harvested plant unit may be distilled into essence with Alchemist’s Supplies.
Distillation extracts the plant’s magical principle and stabilizes it into a sealed vial, packet, resin bead, tincture, powder, oil, or other suitable container.
This process is alchemical rather than herbal. The Herbalism Kit is used to recognize, harvest, and preserve the plant correctly; Alchemist’s Supplies are used to separate, concentrate, bind, and stabilize the essence.
Plant Units Required¶
| Plant Rarity | Essence Produced | Plant Units Required |
|---|---|---|
| ★ Common | 1 Minor Essence | 8 units |
| ★★ Uncommon | 1 Lesser Essence | 4 units |
| ★★★ Rare | 1 Potent Essence | 2 units |
| ★★★★ Very Rare | 1 Greater Essence | 1 unit |
| ★★★★★ Legendary | 1 Mythic Essence | 1 unit |
Plant Distillation Time¶
Distilling plant essence takes one 4-hour alchemical shift per batch.
A batch is the number of plant units required to produce 1 essence unit of that plant’s rarity.
| Plant Rarity | Batch Size |
|---|---|
| ★ Common | 8 plant units |
| ★★ Uncommon | 4 plant units |
| ★★★ Rare | 2 plant units |
| ★★★★ Very Rare | 1 plant unit |
| ★★★★★ Legendary | 1 plant unit |
During one distillation shift, a character may process one batch.
All plant units in a batch must come from the same plant and must be distilled into the same essence tag.
At the DM’s discretion, a character may process multiple batches in the same shift if they have a proper workshop, abundant containers, and assistants.
Plant Distillation DC¶
At the end of the distillation shift, the character makes an Intelligence check using Alchemist’s Supplies.
| Essence Potency | Plant Rarity | Distillation DC |
|---|---|---|
| Minor | ★ Common | 12 |
| Lesser | ★★ Uncommon | 15 |
| Potent | ★★★ Rare | 18 |
| Greater | ★★★★ Very Rare | 21 |
| Mythic | ★★★★★ Legendary | 24 |
Choosing a Plant Essence Tag¶
Before making the distillation check, the character chooses one valid essence tag from the plant’s listed tags.
The chosen tag must be one of the standard essence tags:
- Damage or Healing
- School of Magic
- Condition
If the distillation succeeds, the batch becomes one essence unit with the chosen potency and tag.
For example, a ★★ Uncommon plant with the tags Necrotic and Necromancy may be distilled into either Lesser Necrotic Essence or Lesser Necromancy Essence.
A single plant unit cannot be split between multiple tags.
Plant Distillation Result¶
At the end of the distillation shift, the character makes an Intelligence check using Alchemist’s Supplies.
| Result | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Success by 5 or more | The batch produces 1 essence unit, and one minor reagent or container is preserved. |
| Success | The batch produces 1 essence unit. |
| Failure | No essence is produced. Half the plant units in the batch, rounded down, are spoiled; the rest may be preserved and used again. |
| Failure by 5 or more | No essence is produced, and all plant units in the batch are spoiled. |
Herbalist Assistance¶
If one character harvested or preserved the plant units with an Herbalism Kit and another character distills them with Alchemist’s Supplies, the herbalist may assist the distiller if they are present for the process.
At the DM’s discretion, a character proficient with both Herbalism Kit and Alchemist’s Supplies may gain advantage on the distillation check when working in a proper laboratory or workshop.
Essence in Recipes¶
Essence is used when a crafting recipe calls for a magical effect rather than a specific creature part.
For example:
| Recipe Requires | Valid Ingredient |
|---|---|
| Minor Fire Essence | Any Minor Fire Essence |
| Lesser Transmutation Essence | Any Lesser Transmutation Essence |
| Potent Lightning Essence | Any Potent Lightning Essence |
| Greater Necromancy Essence | Any Greater Necromancy Essence |
| Mythic Radiant Essence | Any Mythic Radiant Essence |
The creature source does not matter unless the recipe specifically says it does.
A recipe may call for:
2 units of Potent Fire Essence
This could come from a red dragon, fire elemental, salamander, efreeti, or any other suitable creature of the correct potency.
A recipe may instead call for:
adult red dragon scales
In that case, generic Fire Essence is not enough.
Rules for higher-potency essence, essence substitution, specific component alternatives, crafting supply units, and item-specific recipes are found in Magic Item Recipes.
Essence Potency Is Not Currency¶
Distilled essence cannot normally be combined into higher-potency essence or divided into lower-potency essence.
Each essence unit is one stable crafting dose of a specific potency and tag. Potency represents the strength, density, stability, and metaphysical significance of the source, not the physical volume of liquid, powder, salt, oil, or crystal in the container.
A higher-potency essence may be used in place of a lower-potency essence of the same tag when a recipe allows it, but the excess potential is normally lost. A Mythic essence is not a purse full of Minor essences.
The DM may create specific rituals, facilities, artifacts, or recipes that refine, dilute, fracture, or recombine essence, but these are exceptions, not a general crafting option.
Optional Advanced Rule: Essence Refinement¶
At the DM’s discretion, an advanced alchemical laboratory, arcane institution, divine forge, or similar facility may refine essence across potency tiers.
This process is never efficient, never portable, and never available as ordinary field or basic settlement crafting.
Final Rule¶
Raw materials retain identity. Essence retains function.
Use raw material when a recipe needs the body part, plant, shell, scale, horn, eye, heart, or other specific physical component.
Use essence when a recipe needs a magical principle expressed as potency and tag.
Or, in its shortest form:
Raw Material = specific source.
Essence = potency + tag.