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Feedback ยท Change the description of Alchemy to actually describe Alchemy (implemented)

The Alchemy (litphoria.com) interest currently has a weird description, which is:

Expresses an interest in the creation or use of alchemical substances. These may be either magical or mundane and have a variety of effects.

... which sounds like it was written with the pathfinder alchemist in mind, who's basically a potion brewer and bomb maker with a glorifying name.

Real life alchemy is so much more than that: it was concerned with transmutation, immortality, and health. (Heard of the philosopher's stone? It did those first two things.) It was also a science that developed beside our development of what we now call chemistry.

The description of alchemy as being about "creating alchemical substances" is kinda like describing biology as being about "looking through microscopes".

So, here, let's have a description that actually captures that:

Expresses an interest in one or more of the alchemical sciences, including transmutation, alchemical medicine, the creation of magical or mundane substances, and the pursuit of immortality.

meta info

endorsement points: 20

created: 02 February 16 at 09:22 AM (build: 10/1/2015 4:20 PM beta)

closed: 23 May 16 at 12:27 PM (build: 5/22/2016 7:22 PM beta)

Samus

This applies to me fairly strongly since I'm going to be creating an alchemist character who's very much about the medicine part of that.

Kirari

While this doesn't apply to me I do think it's straight up pretty important.

Desdemona Fireheart

Explaining alchemy by "the use of alchemical substances" is like explaining Chemist by "someone doing chemical things". :)

Horen Teyro

Not applicable to me, but I support the proposed revision

Solara Silverdawn

Maybe make that "Expresses an interest in one or more of the alchemical sciences, including transmutation, alchemical medicine, the creation of magical or mundane substances, and the pursuit of immortality." Just a few tweaks for sound. But yes, I definitely support this.

Samus

Damn, that's actually really good tweaking. Leaving this comment to mark the change in proposal from this:

Expresses an interest in practice of the alchemical sciences, including transmutation, creation of magical or mundane substances, alchemical medicine, and possibly the pursuit of immortality.

to

Expresses an interest in one or more of the alchemical sciences, including transmutation, alchemical medicine, the creation of magical or mundane substances, and the pursuit of immortality.

Desdemona Fireheart

"Expresses an interest to practice alchemy, the old and magical version of chemistry, especially aimed to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects. Examples are the transmutation of lead to gold and the creation of an elixir of immortality or the famous philosophers stone."

Samus

That one's a different kind of inaccurate. :( Alchemy wasn't the predecessor of chemistry, and wasn't aimed at purifying/maturing/perfecting objects - though something like that was one facet of it.

Lich Community Manager

I added some of Desdemona Fireheart's details. The description has been updated to:

Expresses an interest in one or more of the alchemical sciences, including transmutation, alchemical medicine and purification, the creation of magical or mundane substances, and the pursuit of wealth and immortality.

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