One of the alchemist's most important tools is the alembic. When you combine the alembic with a potion, you get an infusion which you can then make health and magic potions plus special oils with. These are great to do things like make frost arrows or lightning bolts!

Use an Alembic + a potion to make an infusion. You then mix the infusion with aqua incanta to create the oil, or with neutral balms to make the potions. Fletchers can use the oils on arrowheads to make really neat arrows. An ideal character would have alchemy, fletching, and bow knowledge!

Here are the potions and the resulting oils they make.

For dunking arrowheads into:
Brimstone - acid
Cobalt - lightning
Colcothar - frost
Quicksilver - bloodseeker
Realgar - victual
Turpeth - fire


For cooking:
Vitriol - health
Realgar - victual
Gypsum - mana


Don't bother buying the Alchemist's Guide, it hardly tells you anything. It barely tells you that you can use a mortal to grind gems into powder. You'd rarely want to do this - you can by powder cheaper than gems, usually.

Asheron's Call walkthrough