Alchemy RP Planning and Signups

[Dragonheir he/him]

Hi everybody! 

I'd been writing a story, but my writing had stagnated. I had an interesting setting and conflict, but no ideas for characters or a resolution. After letting the story sit for a while, I had an idea; turn it to an RP! 

The premise of the world is that alchemy and related disproved theories (aether, four humors, spontaneous generation, ect.) are true. As I attempted to compile this worldbuilding, I kept coming up with more ideas. My in-depth notes will be in a compressible quote box at the bottom of post (it's not really that important for non-alchemist characters). 

The dawn of the second industrial revolution, the world is changing fast. All four pure elements have been refined, allowing new technologies. Plastic has been invented, allowing a more flexible counterpart to the newly invented alchemy-produced metals. Cars, airships, trains, and skyscrapers are made possible by alchemical means, as well as telegrams, improved firearms, and superior manufacturing lines. Not all is known, however. Reports of strange phenomena, typically discredited, abound. Confused, large animals appear where they have no purpose being; even humans with no clothes and no memory have been found wandering around in factories or wilderness. (People can play someone who appeared somewhere, if they want. If people want to help with other plot-related things, PM me.) 

Generally, alchemy and chemistry give the same results, through different methods. In fact, some prominent alchemists believed in chemistry. The same technologies and world mechanics, in most cases, are present in this world as in the real one, but the paralleled versions operate through alchemy: (Disclaimer: nearly everything I'm about to say is disproved pseudoscience. It's real in the world we're making up, but not in the real world.)

Quote

The four elements are the building blocks of everything, which makes them quite reactive in their pure forms. They're repelled by their opposite element, but will quite eagerly bond with their neighboring elements (which can act as an emulsifier), forming structures that parallel real world molecules. In order to contain them, they need to have their opposite element as the surface of the material their container (these containers are called [trappable element] valid container) is made from, otherwise they react alchemically. (I've got a currently incomplete table of reactions. I'll update it either on this post or the starting one for the actual RP. People can help with it, if they want) 

Vehicles and other machinery run off of pholestegen (bottled pure fire), which is responsible for all heat. Both electricity and light are traveling pholestegen, and it is released when things burn. It's the purest of the elements encountered normally, as any flame is made from it. 

Pure water [which I need to name. Any ideas?] is the opposite of pholestegen. It repels and is repelled by it, which allows for cooling things or containing pholestegen. It's also a superfluid, but that property isn't used for much. It is absurdly good for plants, though, making up many super-fertilizers. 

Adamant (pure earth) is a very dense ore that reshapes itself into the most stable crystal structure it can make. This can be used to form self healing weapons, but they have the unfortunate drawbacks of being ridiculously heavy, rather reactive, and tend to merge into polyhedrons when they touch other adamant or are otherwise perturbed. Adamant alloys, typically called [adjective] adamantium, are much more useful for most things. 

Levity (pure air) is a clear gas that is literally weightless. It makes up the vacuum of space, and is an important ingredient in almost every gas. It's used in anything that requires buoyancy, but it also can be pressurized to an incredible degree by reshaping adamant, and it gives humans and other animals boundless energy if inhaled, but also corrodes their lungs and everything else it touches, like any pure element. 

Four humors theory is true, and well proportioned pure elements can be used to balance them and cure many diseases. (Parallels real world prescription medicine) 

Spontaneous generation is real, requiring specific mixtures of elements as well as organic matter. This can be exploited to turn other materials into food, although few specific recipes are known. One time, an intern created a dodo bird by accident, but was unable to replicate the feat, so it lived its life out at a zoo, and the dodos we extinct once more. Natural spontaneous generation rarely occurs with anything larger than a mouse. 

The sun (which is a massive ball of pholestegen) revolves around the earth, the planets are mounted on crystal spheres, and space is full of levity. One levity airship made it to space, but fell apart due to levity corrosion from the outside. (The earth is not flat, though. I couldn't get that to fit.)

There's no actual magic that can be performed, just strange chemistry, but alchemist characters and alchemy powered technological devices can perform incredible feats. There are also mysteries to be discovered, and perhaps *gasp* a plot. Either way, your characters can likely make a difference in this strange but familiar world. (I could probably use another GM or two, preferably one on a different time zone.) 

Character sheet: 

Quote

Name: 

Appearance and description: 

Personality: 

Occupation: 

A category I forgot about: 

Feel free to have your characters know each other. 

The one piece of lore I didn't come up with is where the RP takes place. I'll crowdsource a city for the RP to start in: feel free to state ideas. 

Complicated alchemy chemistry here: 

Spoiler

The four elements form crystal structures (explaining chemistry from an alchemy perspective), and mixing opposite elements requires an emulsifier, which would be a third element between them. The four elements are the building blocks of everything, which makes them quite reactive in their pure forms. They're repelled by their opposite element, but will quite eagerly bond with their neighboring elements (which can act as an emulsifier), forming structures that parallel real world molecules. The repulsion and reaction process means the easiest way to refine them from a substance is with their opposite element. In order to contain them, they need to have their opposite element as the surface of the material their container is made from, otherwise they react alchemically. These containers are called [element] valid containers; e.g pholestegen valid containers can contain pholestegen. 

Pure air, aka levity or aether, is a clear gas that weighs literally nothing. It makes up the vacuum of space, and is hard to detect with scientific equipment. It can be highly compressed by repulsion away from adamant, but still weighs nothing, so re-organisation of such a crystal can cause an extremely powerful blast of levity. It was originally distilled from cooled smoke in a levity valid container. 

Pure fire, aka pholestegen or caloric, is a liquid / plasma that continuously gives off heat and light, burning away slowly. Different concentrations of it are different colors, as it literally is flame. It easily reacts with levity, even pulling it out of the air, forming smoke. It catalyzes its own release from compounds, and when pure, often forms squiggles around the air. It is lighter than ordinary air, but still has weight. Pholestegen is the only pure substance that is commonly encountered, being released in any fire, but it is also the hardest to contain, as it is energy. Pure water can be used to trap it. However, it will slowly leak from even a pholestegen valid container (something cooling inside one can produce mostly pure pholestegen, which was how it was first refined; by putting the smoke experiment within a pholestegen valid container). 

Pure water, aka ???, is a superfluid that refracts light like a rainbow (in fact, anything shiny has Water in it). As a superfluid, it spreads around strangely, climbing walls easily. It also has a high cohesive and adhesive coefficient, which makes it move quite quickly in this way. It also repels heat as long as it’s kept pure, which makes it useful for cooling things. Pure water is an excellent catalyst for plant growth, because it is essentially a better version of water. It was originally refined through pholestegen repulsion. 

Pure earth, aka adamant, is a dark colored, metallic rock that is incredibly heavy. It attempts to form crystals, the form of which changes based on the amount of adamant, and is highly magnetic. When an adamant crystal of adamant comes into contact with additional elements, it tends to reshape itself into a new crystal. (This is responsible for earthquakes.) In some circumstances, the crystal’s shape can be influenced, forming self healing structures. However, these tend to reshape if perturbed, so adamant is alloyed with ordinary metals to form adamantium, which is lighter, can be made into more complex and useful forms, and is less likely to reshape, but also reforms much slower. It was originally refined from levity repulsion.

Reactions (not sure why it pasted bold. I couldn't fix it without breaking the tables): 

	Levity	Pholestegen	Adamant	Pure water
Levity	Mixes, with no reaction	Light, traveling through the levity	Repelled, influencing the shape of the crystal formed
Pholestegen	Hot smoke forms, then disperses through the pholestegen	Burns brighter, potentially advancing in fire color	Melts to lava, which continues to reshape itself	Crunches in on itself, typically forming strange shapes of equilibrium
Adamant	Repelled, compressing the levity	Electricity travels through the adamant, reshaping it into lines	Violently reshapes into a new crystal lattice	Creates a softer crystal that is also harder to contaminate
Pure water		Repelled, potentially compressing into hotter fire	Forms a mercury-like superfluid with even stranger behavior	Mixes, with no reaction
Ordinary air		Forms smoke, absorbing one part levity per part pholestegen, leaving ash
Smoke
Water
Dirt
Skin
Glass

 

 

 

Elemental composition and containment 

 

Material	Composition	Surfaced by	Interesting reactions
Mercury	Mostly Water and adamant	Water and adamant
Gallium	Mainly adamant, Water, and levity	Water and adamant	Pholestegen binds with levity, increasing prominence of Water and causing it to melt
Aluminum	Adamant, Water	Water, some  adamant
Gold	Mainly adamant, pholestegen, Water,	Mainly adamant	Gold is good to refine to adamant
Lead	Almost all adamant	Adamant	Ironically, lead is purer than gold
Glass
Normal air

 

A preemptive thanks for people signing up!

-Dragonheir 

[J. Magi she/her]

 

Spoiler

don't say it

Spoiler

don't say it

Spoiler

don't

Spoiler

LIKE FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST???

Spoiler

okay okay it's not the same and I've embarrassed myself enough lol . . .

I'd love to be involved! This is a really unique and interesting idea.

I'll think of a character asap.

As for ideas on places, you could pull from real world places that have an alchemical history. For example, Nicolas Flammel lived in Paris France and is a famous alchemist (though most of it is made-up legend). Or Mühltal Germany, the location of Castle Frankenstien (famous for real alchemists and the book alike). It wouldn't have to be the exact historical locations, just a basis for general placement of new cities. 

In general I think Europe and Asia are more associated with Alchemy, but my knowledge is limited.

[Dragonheir he/him]

2 hours ago, J. Magi said:

In general I think Europe and Asia are more associated with Alchemy, but my knowledge is limited.

According to Wikipedia, four (or five) elements theory seems to have developed independently in Asia, Europe, and Asia. (Or maybe I misinterpreted something) 

2 hours ago, J. Magi said:

As for ideas on places, you could pull from real world places that have an alchemical history. For example, Nicolas Flammel lived in Paris France and is a famous alchemist (though most of it is made-up legend). Or Mühltal Germany, the location of Castle Frankenstien (famous for real alchemists and the book alike). It wouldn't have to be the exact historical locations, just a basis for general placement of new cities. 

Alternatively, we could pick a real-life city that was famous for science during the Second Industrial Revolution. 

Quote

I’ve actually not read Fullmetal Alchemist. I should probably do that. 

[J. Magi she/her]

24 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

According to Wikipedia, four (or five) elements theory seems to have developed independently in Asia, Europe, and Asia. (Or maybe I misinterpreted something) 

That's true, I was mostly looking at where 'alchemy' as a concept was used and practiced, not necessarily the specific theory's. Either way it's something to go off of.

Spoiler

fma is a god-tier manga, I absolutely would recommend it.

Edited August 21 by J. Magi

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ Male]

5 hours ago, Dragonheir said:

Hi everybody! 

I'd been writing a story, but my writing had stagnated. I had an interesting setting and conflict, but no ideas for characters or a resolution. After letting the story sit for a while, I had an idea; turn it to an RP! 

The premise of the world is that alchemy and related disproved theories (aether, four humors, spontaneous generation, ect.) are true. As I attempted to compile this worldbuilding, I kept coming up with more ideas. My in-depth notes will be in a compressible quote box at the bottom of post (it's not really that important for non-alchemist characters). 

The dawn of the second industrial revolution, the world is changing fast. All four pure elements have been refined, allowing new technologies. Plastic has been invented, allowing a more flexible counterpart to the newly invented alchemy-produced metals. Cars, airships, trains, and skyscrapers are made possible by alchemical means, as well as telegrams, improved firearms, and superior manufacturing lines. Not all is known, however. Reports of strange phenomena, typically discredited, abound. Confused, large animals appear where they have no purpose being; even humans with no clothes and no memory have been found wandering around in factories or wilderness. (People can play someone who appeared somewhere, if they want. If people want to help with other plot-related things, PM me.) 

Generally, alchemy and chemistry give the same results, through different methods. In fact, some prominent alchemists believed in chemistry. The same technologies and world mechanics, in most cases, are present in this world as in the real one, but the paralleled versions operate through alchemy: (Disclaimer: nearly everything I'm about to say is disproved pseudoscience. It's real in the world we're making up, but not in the real world.)

There's no actual magic that can be performed, just strange chemistry, but alchemist characters and alchemy powered technological devices can perform incredible feats. There are also mysteries to be discovered, and perhaps *gasp* a plot. Either way, your characters can likely make a difference in this strange but familiar world. (I could probably use another GM or two, preferably one on a different time zone.) 

Character sheet: 

Feel free to have your characters know each other. 

The one piece of lore I didn't come up with is where the RP takes place. I'll crowdsource a city for the RP to start in: feel free to state ideas. 

Complicated alchemy chemistry here: 

  Hide contents

The four elements form crystal structures (explaining chemistry from an alchemy perspective), and mixing opposite elements requires an emulsifier, which would be a third element between them. The four elements are the building blocks of everything, which makes them quite reactive in their pure forms. They're repelled by their opposite element, but will quite eagerly bond with their neighboring elements (which can act as an emulsifier), forming structures that parallel real world molecules. The repulsion and reaction process means the easiest way to refine them from a substance is with their opposite element. In order to contain them, they need to have their opposite element as the surface of the material their container is made from, otherwise they react alchemically. These containers are called [element] valid containers; e.g pholestegen valid containers can contain pholestegen. 

Pure air, aka levity or aether, is a clear gas that weighs literally nothing. It makes up the vacuum of space, and is hard to detect with scientific equipment. It can be highly compressed by repulsion away from adamant, but still weighs nothing, so re-organisation of such a crystal can cause an extremely powerful blast of levity. It was originally distilled from cooled smoke in a levity valid container. 

Pure fire, aka pholestegen or caloric, is a liquid / plasma that continuously gives off heat and light, burning away slowly. Different concentrations of it are different colors, as it literally is flame. It easily reacts with levity, even pulling it out of the air, forming smoke. It catalyzes its own release from compounds, and when pure, often forms squiggles around the air. It is lighter than ordinary air, but still has weight. Pholestegen is the only pure substance that is commonly encountered, being released in any fire, but it is also the hardest to contain, as it is energy. Pure water can be used to trap it. However, it will slowly leak from even a pholestegen valid container (something cooling inside one can produce mostly pure pholestegen, which was how it was first refined; by putting the smoke experiment within a pholestegen valid container). 

Pure water, aka ???, is a superfluid that refracts light like a rainbow (in fact, anything shiny has Water in it). As a superfluid, it spreads around strangely, climbing walls easily. It also has a high cohesive and adhesive coefficient, which makes it move quite quickly in this way. It also repels heat as long as it’s kept pure, which makes it useful for cooling things. Pure water is an excellent catalyst for plant growth, because it is essentially a better version of water. It was originally refined through pholestegen repulsion. 

Pure earth, aka adamant, is a dark colored, metallic rock that is incredibly heavy. It attempts to form crystals, the form of which changes based on the amount of adamant, and is highly magnetic. When an adamant crystal of adamant comes into contact with additional elements, it tends to reshape itself into a new crystal. (This is responsible for earthquakes.) In some circumstances, the crystal’s shape can be influenced, forming self healing structures. However, these tend to reshape if perturbed, so adamant is alloyed with ordinary metals to form adamantium, which is lighter, can be made into more complex and useful forms, and is less likely to reshape, but also reforms much slower. It was originally refined from levity repulsion.

Reactions (not sure why it pasted bold. I couldn't fix it without breaking the tables): 

	Levity	Pholestegen	Adamant	Pure water
Levity	Mixes, with no reaction	Light, traveling through the levity	Repelled, influencing the shape of the crystal formed
Pholestegen	Hot smoke forms, then disperses through the pholestegen	Burns brighter, potentially advancing in fire color	Melts to lava, which continues to reshape itself	Crunches in on itself, typically forming strange shapes of equilibrium
Adamant	Repelled, compressing the levity	Electricity travels through the adamant, reshaping it into lines	Violently reshapes into a new crystal lattice	Creates a softer crystal that is also harder to contaminate
Pure water		Repelled, potentially compressing into hotter fire	Forms a mercury-like superfluid with even stranger behavior	Mixes, with no reaction
Ordinary air		Forms smoke, absorbing one part levity per part pholestegen, leaving ash
Smoke
Water
Dirt
Skin
Glass

 

 

 

Elemental composition and containment 

 

Material	Composition	Surfaced by	Interesting reactions
Mercury	Mostly Water and adamant	Water and adamant
Gallium	Mainly adamant, Water, and levity	Water and adamant	Pholestegen binds with levity, increasing prominence of Water and causing it to melt
Aluminum	Adamant, Water	Water, some  adamant
Gold	Mainly adamant, pholestegen, Water,	Mainly adamant	Gold is good to refine to adamant
Lead	Almost all adamant	Adamant	Ironically, lead is purer than gold
Glass
Normal air

 

A preemptive thanks for people signing up!

-Dragonheir 

This looks really really cool and fun. Can I fit it in? Ahhhh! 
What time zone are you in?

This looks pretty cool. 
We will see .

this is really cool.

[Dragonheir he/him]

Just now, ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ said:

This looks really really cool and fun. Can I fit it in? Ahhhh! 
What time zone are you in?

Eastern time, if I recall correctly. 

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

yes... i would love to join!

[Dragonheir he/him]

11 hours ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

yes... i would love to join!

Can you make a character? It’s in the post, but I can see how you could have missed that request. 

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

Quote

Name: Titan

Appearance and description: Short male sixteen-year-old, curly hair, strong.

Personality: Quiet but happy.

Occupation: Apprentice

A category I forgot about: *shrug*

 

[Dragonheir he/him]

3 minutes ago, Ancient Elantrian said:

Name: Titan

Appearance and description: Short male sixteen-year-old, curly hair, strong.

Personality: Quiet but happy.

Occupation: Apprentice

A category I forgot about: *shrug*

Apprentice for what? Other than that, looks good. 

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

30 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Apprentice for what? Other than that, looks good. 

What can I be an apprentice for? 

ALSO IS GREEK FIRE A THING?!?!??!?!?! PLEASE?

[Dragonheir he/him]

27 minutes ago, Ancient Elantrian said:

What can I be an apprentice for? 

ALSO IS GREEK FIRE A THING?!?!??!?!?! PLEASE?

Pretty much any profession you can think of. You’ll see. 

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

3 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Pretty much any profession you can think of. You’ll see. 

Okay

CAN I MAKE THE THINGS THAT GO BOOM?!

Okie

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

Quote

Name: Roy

Personality: secretive and Sus

Occupation: unemployed. He works in his basement and makes all sorts of alchemical products… he is trying to unlock time travel or multiverse travel 

A category I forgot about: 

 

[Dragonheir he/him]

6 minutes ago, Ancient Elantrian said:

Okay

CAN I MAKE THE THINGS THAT GO BOOM?!

Okie

Certainly! Apprentice what’s-it-called. Uh. Demolitionist? There’s several examples of things that go boom so far. 

Levity explosives are fun… 

5 minutes ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

Name: Roy

Personality: secretive and Sus

Occupation: unemployed. He works in his basement and makes all sorts of alchemical products… he is trying to unlock time travel or multiverse travel 

A category I forgot about: 

Neither of those things are known or even expected to be possible. Immortality is still a big quest, though. (Or Roy might believe everyone else is wrong about it.) 

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

5 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Certainly! Apprentice what’s-it-called. Uh. Demolitionist? There’s several examples of things that go boom so far. 

Levity explosives are fun… 

Neither of those things are known or even expected to be possible. Immortality is still a big quest, though. (Or Roy might believe everyone else is wrong about it.) 

YESSS

EXPLOSIVESSS

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

7 minutes ago, Dragonheir said:

Certainly! Apprentice what’s-it-called. Uh. Demolitionist? There’s several examples of things that go boom so far. 

Levity explosives are fun… 

Neither of those things are known or even expected to be possible. Immortality is still a big quest, though. (Or Roy might believe everyone else is wrong about it.) 

hey who says he doesnt have a philosophers stone hidden away? jokes aside I think roy could be working on all 3. complete control over space and time...

[Dragonheir he/him]

2 minutes ago, RoyalBeeMage said:

hey who says he doesnt have a philosophers stone hidden away? jokes aside I think roy could be working on all 3. complete control over space and time...

That’d make him a believer in old theories like time and space being mutable. Not like that’s true in real life or anything…  There are some fundamental revelations to be made, though. 

7 minutes ago, Ancient Elantrian said:

YESSS

EXPLOSIVESSS

All four elements are good for breaking things, but levity compressed in adamant makes the best actual explosive. And you’ve got bottled pholestegen (the spelling of which I apparently butchered. It’s supposed to be phlogiston…), which can set fire to stuff. 

[J. Magi she/her]

Quote

Name: Catelin

Appearance and description: Straight, long dark brown hair, large black eyes, olive skin. A simple shirt and pencil skirt with her favorite eyesore of a pied jacket on top.

Personality: manic pixie dream girl

Occupation: Demolitionist apprentice (ELAN CAN I BE YOUR PEER/ FELLOW APRENTICE?? I THINK THAT'D BE COOL UNLESS YOU HAVE OTHER PLANS)

A category I forgot about: When her own interests didn't align with the direction her parents wanted her to go in, Catelin was 'banished' to a random apprenticeship as a failure of the family. She tries to make the best of situation, even if it's a little alien to her. Anything was better then being the ceo for mom's skincare company.

@Ancient Elantrian

Sorry for procrastinating lol

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

13 minutes ago, J. Magi said:

@Ancient Elantrian

Sorry for procrastinating lol

YES!

YOU CAN!!!

[J. Magi she/her]

1 minute ago, Ancient Elantrian said:

YES!

YOU CAN!!!

YAYAYYAYAYAYYAY

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

2 minutes ago, J. Magi said:

YAYAYYAYAYAYYAY

We just need someone to apprentice under

OR

We together make a snobby annoying UGH master dude.

[J. Magi she/her]

3 minutes ago, Ancient Elantrian said:

We just need someone to apprentice under

OR

We together make a snobby annoying UGH master dude.

YES

[Ancient Elantrian Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan/Elan]

6 minutes ago, J. Magi said:

YES

HAHAHA

[Dragonheir he/him]

11 hours ago, J. Magi said:

Name: Catelin

Appearance and description: Straight, long dark brown hair, large black eyes, olive skin. A simple shirt and pencil skirt with her favorite eyesore of a pied jacket on top.

Personality: manic pixie dream girl

Occupation: Demolitionist apprentice (ELAN CAN I BE YOUR PEER/ FELLOW APRENTICE?? I THINK THAT'D BE COOL UNLESS YOU HAVE OTHER PLANS)

A category I forgot about: When her own interests didn't align with the direction her parents wanted her to go in, Catelin was 'banished' to a random apprenticeship as a failure of the family. She tries to make the best of situation, even if it's a little alien to her. Anything was better than being the ceo for mom's skincare company.

Approved. And yeah, the two demolitionists knowing each other makes sense.