The Crucible

The Crucible is the heart of alchemy: things dissolve in it into currents, and from currents new things are brewed — fluxsteel, wax, opaline, quickdust, tonics and glints. It is neither forged nor put together on a workbench — it is woken. A pinch of quickdust on a plain cauldron, and the iron remembers that it once flowed: the cauldron grows heavy with old bronze, its feet turn into beast's paws, and opaline surfaces along the rim.

+Crucible

Pour a bucket of water into the Crucible — that is its full measure. A full bucket can be scooped back out, but whatever has dissolved splashes out as murk; a broken Crucible spills it the same way. To clear the Crucible without losing the water, use it with an empty hand while sneaking: the distillate sloshes over the rim, its currents sink into the land around as murk, and the water stays clean.

Without heat the Crucible is just a bowl: whatever you throw in lies on the bottom. The fire beneath decides what dissolves. Gentle heat — a campfire, fire, magma, a lit furnace — takes soft things: herbs, flesh, coal, dust, wax. Strong heat — lava — takes everything that has currents in it.

Hard things are those where Strata, Alloy and Prism make up half the currents or more: metal, stone, glass, gems. In gentle heat they do not sink — they bob up and leap over the rim. That way iron is never lost in a Crucible over a campfire.

StrataAlloyPrism

Water boils away: a bucket lasts sixteen minutes over gentle heat and eight over strong, and every thing that dissolves drinks a little more. Let it boil dry, and the distillate scorches and goes to murk entirely. A thing with no currents never sinks at all.

Crucible recipes call for a catalyst — the thing thrown in last, once the distillate holds what is needed. If it matches, the recipe's currents are spent, and the result bobs up and leaps over the rim. If not, the catalyst dissolves like any other thing.