Stonehaven Alchemist's Guild

**WIP**

## Leadership

* Master Alchemist Myra Gray
* Professors
* Assistants (Magnus)
* Students

## Day to Day Life

Most of the work done in the guild starts early in the morning, but there are people active at all hours. Natural light makes reading, working, and gathering components much easier, so most students are up at dawn to get started. Students and assistants begin their day with a communal meal in the mess hall, professors dine in a separate hall with the Master Alchemist. Teachers hold classes on a variety of subjects - such as identifying alchemical ingredients, the study of spells and magic, proper preparation and storage of ingredients and potions, and even a small (elective) glassblowing studio. The students can practice their spells in a special room warded against damage (though there is still some risk and only more experienced students may enter), help out in the rooftop garden, or practice making simple potions. The guild makes a little of its money from the students, charging them a small fee for classes and for their own ingredients. The guild has been known to take in those who cannot afford to come to the classes on their own if the student shows great talent, sometimes those students are supported by the academy's patrons, which number among the nobility of the city. More experienced alchemists are sent on missions to collect ingredients, deliver speciality potions, or missions of cataloguing and discovery.

## Points of Interest

The guild hall is quite large and the building itself is a little more detailed and fanciful than most of the simple, square buildings in Stonehaven. It looks a little unusual as the building was slowly built on to in the architectural style of the time. There are rooms for housing students and apartments for professors and their families. The front hall houses the public alchemy shop - a magical and beautiful place filled with decanters and potion bottles of all sizes and colours. Most of the Guild is not open to the public, only the shop and the meeting rooms near the front. The guild is well-protected with glyphs and wards, and no thief has ever broken in - in fact few have ever even survived an attempt to. The top floor of the guild hall is a greenhouse filled with the plants used in potions and poltices, a beautiful place filled with green. The public are not permitted to visit the greenhouse, however, as there are dangerous and poisonout plants inside, it may only be viewed from the street.

## History

The alchemy guild is nearly as old as Stonehaven itself, the building having been added on to and grown over the centuries. It was begun 823 years ago by a master alchemist named Lavanya Puneet Vibiana Radulf Michelakakis as a small shop and laboratory. Her skill and renown were such that the shop quickly grew very popular, and as the small town grew around it, the shop grew in to an academy. She lived long beyond her expected human lifespan (no one knows how old she was when she arrived in Stonehaven, but tales usually put her at around 150 years), some saying she'd discovered some sort of anti-aging elixir, and she passed on the leadership to her daughter. The leaders since have not followed strictly in the family line, but rather chosen by and out of the professors of the academy. The guild has many customers and patrons who support scholarships for students, supply equipment, and send their own children to be taught there. Mistress Gray creates custom potions for these patrons, the recipes to which are closely guarded secrets known only to the master alchemist. The guild is law-abiding and rather strict, anyone caught divulging secrets, stealing, or otherwise interfering with the guild is punished to the full extent of the law. While the guild operates somewhat independently of the city, it obeys Stonehaven laws and has several military members on the board.

## Rumors

Those who live or interact with the guild know of the drow family who are professors there, but to others they are not often seen.

They say that the guild experiments with new potions that do strange and impossible things.

Locals say strange lights, explosions, and odd people or animals are very common in and around the guild. Seasoned locals hardly even bat an eye when a plume of pink smoke pours out of a window, or one of the professors has been turned in to a toad.

If someone betrays the guild's secrets, they will be assassinated or silenced, or so the teenagers like to scare each other with saying.

## Interactions

The guild trades with many local and international merchants and kingdoms, and their potions are said to be of the highest quality. The full list of those with whom the guild has interaction with is secretive, but most of the major cities in the region are supplied by the Stonehaven Guild. They trade with some places the rest of the kingdom does not, but overall they support the same communities. Sellers of goods to the guild are well vetted before they purchase, and the guild's reputation is extremely important to them.