Potion

You know what can make a man move faster, think quicker and become stronger by just ingesting it? That's right Timmy, drugs. But we also know that drugs are kind of bad; they harrow the body, may make you addicted to them and they're just overall not that cool, despite what your freeloading, cocaine snorting rich bitch friends may say. But the effect sure is pretty nifty... So what do you do if you want something similar in your fantasies? You create a potion!

Pretty much any setting with just a modicum of magic within it has potions; translucent flasks with weird, often chromatically colored fluids that, when ingested, provide some sort of powerful effect on the user. It's not even unique to /tg/'s interests - comics like Asterix prominently feature magical potions that can give superpowers to ordinary, if crazy Gauls.

Depending on the specific setting, they can be anything from fire-and-forget performance enhancers in the same way energy drinks is in our world, to incredibly rare, risky and powerful concoctions that can completely change your life. Potions in High Fantasy and Heroic Fantasy settings are commodities; technically usable by anyone, even if some of them are a bit on the pricey side. Low Fantasy settings usually requires stupid-complicated "eye-of-newt and a sprinkle of faerie dust"-like recipes to complete, or you have to talk to the morally ambiguous witch that might boil you alive for a slight.

There are two major variants of potions. The first is magical substances brewed together. The second is ordinary liquid that is magically enchanted. While these rarely have differences mechanically, the flavor differences can be vast, especially the literal flavor: Enchanted water should theoretically taste like water, while eye of newt doesn't sound tasty.

An Alchemist is typically a master of potions. The iconography of a Witch with a bubbling cauldron makes them a solid second place for classes most likely to make potions.

Common Potion Types

• Healing Potion: The archetypal potion, this handy thing gives you your lifeforce back by ingesting it. Chances are it is colored red as well. Even settings without potions generally have healing potions.
• Power Potion: Made popular by the Asterix comics but used in various legends before that, this is the "you can now do the thing"-potion. Whatever it does, it will always give the power to defeat whatever obstacle in their way. Bonus points if you glow after drinking it.
• Spell-Equivalent Potions: Another archetypal potion type, as they are easy to template. They're simply a spell but in a bottle, causing whatever effect the spell would normally do, but in a convenient carriable form. These are almost always buff-type spells in D&D, like Haste or Enlarge/Reduce. However, it's fairly easy to do the same for offensive spells like Fireball to make fantasy fragmentation grenades.
• Transformation Potion A potion that transforms the drinker into something else (most frequently an animal), often until a cure is found. Relatively rare as a game mechanic, but frequently appearing as a plot device. What practical purpose these could have other than as traps for those who mess with a potion brewer's stuff is unknown.
• Potions of Love: Simply put, a potion of love makes one person become infatuated with another person (usually the first person they see) for an amount of time. These tend to be a plot device used by the GM to set up courtly intrigue scenarios and dastardly backstabbings, and less towards adventurous romps because when you get down to it, they're basically just magic roofies. Used sparingly though, a player can use these to make interrogations easier.