I always saw alchemy as separate to magic. Utilizing the extraordinary/supernatural properties of mundane substances to produce powerful (magic like) effects. This idea seems to be what is presented in the system...until the alchemist entry. He has a magical aura that he uses to imbue his extracts. Bleh!
Why can't he radiate a mundane alchemical aura. If he is going to radiate anything, why not make it radiation. Make the alchemist a living alchemists/philosophers stone.
Thank you for giving me an excuse for posting this again:
Alchemy has always been about the magic involved... it is not chemistry. It is not mundane, it never has been. It uses supernatural means to change things and the person working it into other things. It isn't even pseudo-science in the same way that cold fusion is... it's flat out magic.
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So what you're saying is replace the magical aura with mythical scientific aura that might as well be magic for all purposes?
Well, the business with alchemy being the great work and the philosopher's journey and all that is well and good, but the fact is that to finance that part of the art, the alchemists generally had to deal with "lesser alchemy" as it was called, in particular the brewing of potions and so forth.
I've got one of my alchemy texts somewhere that has an amusing quote about one of the lesser elixirs (this was Chinese alchemy) that would make your ears grow as long as a rabbit's but also made you as light as thistledown.
My trouble is that the alchemist isn't as good as making potions as I think he should be. A second-rate alchemist doing second-rate alchemy shouldn't be the one to complete the great work at the end and achieve immortality anyway.
The history of Chemistry may lie in Alchemy, that doesn't mean the two used the same methods, shared the same goals, or had the same beliefs.
Chemistry is based on the scientific method... something the alchemist didn't subscribe too. Chemistry also had the "advantage" of having several very important scientific breakthroughs that refuted certain base assumptions of alchemy.
Yes saying that chemistry has it's roots in alchemy is true -- that doesn't mean that alchemy is rooted in chemistry any more that astrology is rooted in astronomy (while the opposite is true).
Just because a square is a rectangle doesn't mean each rectangle is a square.