Alchemical Dusts

Alchemical dusts are enchanted powders with spell-like powers. Like toxic powders they can be thrown in vials, scattered by hand or blown through a tube, and one dose sprinkled over an area covers 10x10x10 feet. Most last an hour, and victims of harmful dusts get a save vs Constitution where it applies.

Every dust starts from 5 drams of Rare Earths, 4 of sulphur and a dram each of platinum, gold and silver. Each takes two weeks and succeeds 75% of the time plus 2% per level; working alongside a wizard, sorcerer or magician adds 10% and halves the time. There is always a 5% risk of a serious accident on the Alchemical Mishap Table. When available, dusts cost 500-1,000 GP.

Many are broader versions of potions, elixirs or powders: blindness, charming, control, desire, emotional influence, disappearance and its opposite appearance, hallucination, nausea, paralysis, sleep, slowness, vertigo, itching and poison. Others are unique. Dusts of illusion and magic detection make illusions or enchantments glow briefly on contact; non-detection hides a trap or object from magical searches until countered; panic makes victims drop what they hold and flee; petrification turns those who fail a save to stone for a day; half-weight lightens non-living things by half; instant ice freezes, and water evaporation removes, 1,000 cubic feet of water; and trail-erasure permanently wipes tracks from a path 10 feet wide and 100 feet long.