Items: Consumables¶
"The first lesson of the road: carry more bandages than you think you need. The second lesson: carry one more than that."
The shape of it: Consumables are the items you spend to fix problems - HP, mana, hunger, thirst, fatigue, light, status effects. They're cheap individually, expensive in bulk, and the difference between a runback and a corpse.
At a glance¶
| Categories | potions / bandages / food / drink / poultices / torches / scrolls |
| Where to find | apothecary, general store, tavern, herbalist, vendor stalls |
| Cost tier | cheap (bread, torch) → mid (health potion) → pricey (mana potion, greater HP) |
| Stack size | yes - most stack in inventory; weight per unit still applies |
| Use verb | use <item> / drink <item> / eat <item> / light <item> |
How to read a consumable¶
examine <item> shows what it restores, how much, and any side
effects. /inventory lists stack sizes. The relevant fields:
- Effect - what stat / resource it restores or modifies.
- Tier - minor / standard / greater (potions); crude / clean / treated (bandages); cheap / quality (food).
- Side effects - drunk-state penalties on ale, addiction on some alchemical brews, fatigue debt on stim-style consumables.
use bandage
drink health potion
eat bread
light torch
The big categories¶
Health restore¶
| Item | Restores | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Linen bandage | low HP | Out-of-combat; starter |
| Clean bandage | mid HP | Apothecary stock |
| Treated bandage | high HP | Herbalist-craftable |
| Minor health potion | low HP | In-combat use; one turn |
| Health potion | mid HP | Standard mid-game |
| Greater health potion | high HP | Endgame |
| Poultice | mid HP + bleed cure | Bleed status check |
Bandages are out-of-combat healing - they're cheap, but you can't use them mid-fight. Potions are in-combat healing - pricier, but they work in a turn.
Mana restore¶
| Item | Restores | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Minor mana potion | low mana | Common in caster towns |
| Mana potion | mid mana | Standard for Mage / Cleric |
| Greater mana potion | high mana | Endgame; Collegium stock |
| Reagent crystal | spell-component, not a potion | Some casts require it |
Mages burn through these. Buy in threes.
Food + drink¶
| Item | Restores | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bread | hunger ~30% | Cheap, common, won't spoil fast |
| Dried meat | hunger ~50% | Travel-friendly |
| Cheese | hunger ~40% | Common |
| Stew (tavern) | hunger ~70% + small buff | Hot food bonus to morale |
| Waterskin | thirst ~80% | REFILL at any tavern or well |
| Ale | thirst ~50% + drunk | Drunk = flirt + combat debuffs |
| Wine | thirst ~40% + light drunk + Charisma small | Social-coded |
Eat at dawn. The free SP gain on a full belly is real, and the stamina ceiling drops when hungry.
Light + utility¶
| Item | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Crude torch | ~30min light | Starter; light it on entry |
| Quality torch | ~1hr light | Some shops sell upgraded |
| Oil lantern | ~3hr refillable | The actual upgrade |
| Tinder + flint | starts fires | Camping, cooking, signal |
Status + alchemical¶
| Item | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Antidote | poison cure | Carry one in snake/spider country |
| Antitoxin | strong poison cure | Pricier; for boss venom |
| Stim brew | stamina restore + fatigue debt | Hangover later |
| Holy water vial | undead damage / consecrate | Cleric + Paladin scenario |
| Smoke bomb | break-line-of-sight | Rogue escape tool |
Scrolls (one-shot magic)¶
Scrolls are consumable spells - a single cast burned from a piece of parchment. Anyone can use a scroll regardless of class (you're not casting, the scroll is). Cost is mid-to-pricey; scrolls of higher-tier spells run expensive.
Common scrolls: fireball, heal, light, identify, mage-armor, scroll of return (teleport-to-bound-stone).
Carry-many vs craft-on-demand¶
The economic tension on consumables:
- Buy ready-made - fast, vendor-stocked, scales with your gold. Pay the markup, save the time.
- Craft your own - Herbalist brews potions, Tinkerer assembles bombs, Cleric blesses water, Scholar inks scrolls. Cheaper per unit, slower to produce, gates on reagents.
Every adventuring class benefits from carrying healing and light. Crafting classes flip the economy - they consume reagents instead of coin, and they sell the excess.
The progression curve¶
| Hour | Typical loadout |
|---|---|
| Hour 1 | 3 bandages, 2 torches, bread + waterskin (starter shopping list) |
| Hour 5-10 | Add 2-4 minor health potions, antidote if forest-bound |
| Hour 10-20 | Greater potions for dungeon runs, scroll of return as panic button |
| Hour 20+ | Herbalist self-sufficiency or stocked reserve of mid-tier potions |
| Hour 50+ | Specialty scrolls (raise dead, dispel magic) for set-piece fights |
Edge cases¶
- Stacks expire weight-by-weight - eating 1 of 5 bread drops your carry by one bread's worth. Heavy stacks (5 bottles of wine) are not free to carry.
- Spoilage - fresh food (fish, raw meat) spoils on a real-time schedule. Dried meat doesn't. Bread holds up. Cheese is forgiving.
- Drunk math - multiple ales stack. Past 3, your flirt and combat rolls take a real hit. Wine is gentler; spirits are not.
- Mid-combat use - potions cost a turn. If you're at low HP and the enemy is at low HP, finishing the kill is usually correct.
- Crafted vs bought potency - a Herbalist's treated poultice beats a vendor's standard every time. Quality is per-craft, not per-recipe.
- Scroll failure - some scrolls require a small Arcana / Intellect check; a failed read consumes the scroll for nothing. Casters get a bonus, anyone can try.
- Light is a real resource - running out of torches mid-dungeon is a foot-gun. Buy 2 minimum even if you "won't be out long."