Everything in the cauldron

Alchemists' Guild is an arcade of alchemy games built around one NFT collection on Robinhood Chain: the Potions, and the Homunculi brewed from them. Every game is free to play in your browser. The collection is what ties them together. Potions are what you win, what you burn and what powers you up; Homunculi are the edge you carry into every game.

The games

• The Lair, the Genesis game: an idle game that brews while you sleep. It's the only game where playing itself mints new NFTs: every Grand Vintage you brew becomes a new potion.
• Cauldron Merge: drop potions into the cauldron and brew them up the ladder. Free play for a weekly prize, and it takes its turn as the Daily Brew.
• The Incantation: a rhythm game. Hit the runes on the beat across three electronic songs built to be hard. Free play for a weekly prize, and it takes its turn as the Daily Brew.
• More are brewing. Each new game gets its own leaderboards, its own prizes and its own Homunculus powers.

Two ways to play

• As a guest: free, in your browser, no wallet. Play every game and climb every leaderboard. To collect a prize, link a wallet to your name: one free signature, no transaction.
• As a holder: connect a wallet that holds a potion or Homunculus. Your potions power your Lair, your Vintages become real NFTs, your Homunculi bring their powers into every game, and you fight for your community in Guild Wars.

Every potion that enters the world after the Genesis mint is minted by a player, straight from the contract. There are two ways to earn one: brew a Grand Vintage in the Lair, or finish near the top of an Arcade leaderboard. The Lair is the only game where simply playing mints new potions; in every other game they're prizes for the best. Nobody hands them out.

Arcade prizes

The Daily Brew takes turns between the Arcade's games: everyone plays the same round that day. Every game also has its own weekly board for free play. A new game joins the rotation and brings its own weekly prize.

The Homunculus bonus

Hold a Homunculus when a board closes and every prize you win from it grows, by the tier of your best Homunculus:

Embers: what burning gives you

Every potion you burn in the Crucible, to brew a Homunculus or to feed one, gives your wallet Embers: 1 for a Tier I, 2 for a Tier II, then 4, 8 and 16. Spend them in the Arcade on extra lives and boosts. Each game's chapter says how. Embers never expire.

Claiming a prize

• A prize is the right to mint a potion from the contract, exactly like a Grand Vintage: a random school, with the same tier odds (60% I · 25% II · 11% III · 3.5% IV · 0.5% V). You only pay the network fee.
• Link a wallet to your Arcade name before the board closes. You don't need to hold anything to win. If a place has no linked wallet, it passes to the next player down.
• Prizes are settled a few hours after a board closes, once every run still in play has come in. Then they're waiting for you in Cauldron Merge.
• Prizes wait in the Arcade for 30 days.
• One player, one wallet. Runs from second accounts or bots are disqualified.

The collection began with 3,333 genesis potions. Every potion since has been minted by a player, from the contract, in one of two ways: brewing a Grand Vintage in the Lair, or winning a prize in the Arcade. Each potion has a tier (how rare, how strong) and a school (what it strengthens).

The six tiers

The five schools

Set bonuses

On top of each potion's own bonus, collections unlock production bonuses. A Homunculus counts as holding its potion.

• Alchemical Balance: one potion from every school, +30%
• Complete Ascension: one potion of every tier, +50%
• School Mastery: all six tiers of one school, +25% each
• Convergence: all five schools at the same tier, +10% (Tier I) up to +400% (Tier VI)
• Master Alchemist: one of all 30 potions, +200%

On the Crucible page, three identical potions (same school and tier) are burned into a Homunculus of that school and tier, in one transaction, straight to your wallet.

• In the Lair, a Homunculus gives five times its potion's tier bonus. The three potions only gave three times. It still counts as holding that potion for every set bonus.
• Burning is permanent. Every burn makes the remaining potions of that kind rarer, earns you Embers, and scores for your community in Guild Wars.

Feeding and the three stages

A Homunculus grows. In the Crucible, feed it potions of its own school. Each potion adds its tier bonus as nourishment: a Tier I adds 1, a Tier II 2, then 4, 8, 16 and 40.

When a Homunculus grows, its name, picture and Stage trait change on OpenSea within a few minutes. Fed potions stay locked in the Cauldron forever, so feeding counts as burning too.

Powers in the Arcade

Before each round, choose one of your Homunculi to bring. Three things about it matter:

• Its school sets its power. Every game gives each school a different power.
• Its stage sets how strong the power is. Hatchlings have it; Ascended ones have it at full strength.
• Its tier, or rather your best Homunculus's tier, sets your prize bonus.

Each power works once a round, on every board, Daily Brew included. The powers in each game are listed in its chapter.

The first game in the Guild, and the one that never stops. The Lair is an idle game: easy to start, and it never quite finishes. It brews while you sleep and the potions you hold make it stronger.

Playing

Stir the cauldron for Essence. Five quick stirs start a combo that builds up to ×3. Every so often a Golden Potion floats through the room: catch it for a Frenzy (×7 everything for 25 seconds), a lucky lump of Essence, or an Aether Mote. Folded Whispers offer a choice of three small permanent boons.

Buildings

Twenty buildings, from the humble Apprentice to the Philosopher's Stone, brew Essence every second. Each has a chain of Masteries (×2 output at 1, 5, 25, 50, 100 … 500 owned) and gains +10% at each ★ milestone.

Research & Rites

Research is a list of one-off discoveries: stronger stirs, global ×2 production, and synergies where each building boosts the next. Rites never run out: every level costs more than the last, and there's always another.

Away from the cauldron

The Lair keeps brewing while you're gone: 60% of normal production for up to 8 hours. Skills raise both.

Ascension & the Skill Tree

When a run slows down, Ascend. Your Essence, buildings, Research and Rites reset, and you gain Aether Motes: roughly the cube root of this run's Essence divided by 100,000. Each Vintage you brew makes Aether 30× harder to distil (100,000 becomes 3 million, then 90 million…).

Every mote you earn powers all production, even after you spend it: 25 motes ×2, 500 ×5.5, a million ×200. That count starts again after each Grand Vintage.

Motes are spent in the Skill Tree: 381 skills on ten paths spiralling out from the Heart of the Guild. Small skills stack, notables are bigger, a Keystone waits at the end of every path, and each path has three unique skills that change how you play.

The unique skills

The Grand Vintage

The goal of every run, and how the Lair mints new potions. Gather enough Aether Motes and Essence in one run and the Grand Vintage fills. Then brew it:

• All production doubles, forever. Vintages stack.
• A new potion is brewed, of a random school. Tier odds: 60% I · 25% II · 11% III · 3.5% IV · 0.5% V. Tier VI is never brewed.
• Your run resets completely: Essence, buildings, Research, Rites, Aether Motes and the Skill Tree. You keep potions, Homunculi, achievements and Vintages.

The first Vintage needs 250 Aether Motes and 1M Essence in one run. Each Vintage multiplies the next one's needs (×10 motes, ×1,000 Essence), but every Vintage also doubles production, so the brewing never stops. There's no cap on how many you can brew.

Claiming your potion

Holders claim each Vintage as a real Potion NFT, just like an Arcade prize: the Lair asks the Guild's server to sign it, and the contract mints it to your wallet, rolling its school and tier on-chain. The server signs at most one Vintage an hour per wallet. A guest's Vintages are kept safe until they hold a potion, and can be claimed then.

A quick drop-and-merge puzzle. Drop potions into the cauldron, and when two of the same kind touch they brew the next one up the ladder: eleven potions, from a Crimson Fine Elixir to an Amber Genesis Vintage. Two Genesis Vintages brew the Philosopher's Stone. The run ends when the brew spills over the rim.

Two ways to play

• Play: new pieces every run, on a weekly board that runs a week at a time. The top 3 win a potion each.
• Daily Brew, on Merge's days: the same pieces for everyone. Play it as often as you like; your best run counts, and #1 wins a potion. Share your score card when you're done.

Scoring

Every merge scores more the higher up the ladder it brews, and the Stone is worth 500. Merges in quick succession build a chain that multiplies points, up to ×3.

Homunculus powers

Once a run, in every run. The stage sets the strength:

Catalysts and Embers

In weekly runs a Catalyst boils away every piece of the two smallest kinds. Holders get one free each run, and you can spend Embers for more: one Ember each, up to three a run. If the brew spills while you still have a Catalyst, it fires by itself: an extra life. Runs that used Catalysts are marked ⚗ on the board. The Daily Brew has no Catalysts, only Homunculus powers.

Back to the Lair

A good run sends Essence to your Lair: 30 seconds of production for every Epic Reagent or better, 5 minutes for a Stone, up to 10 minutes a run and an hour a day. The Lair pays it out the next time you open it.

Fair play

The Guild's server replays every run, drop by drop, with the same game, and only the score it gets back goes on the board.

A rhythm game, and a hard one. Runes fall down four lanes toward the circle; hit each one as it lands, on the beat. On a computer you play with the arrow keys (or D F J K); on a phone you tap the lanes. Some runes are long and must be held. Two at once means both. Miss too many and the spell breaks.

Three songs

• Quicksilver: electro house, 150 BPM. A hook built to stick in your head, then a drop full of jumps and stair runs.
• Transmutation: half-time bass, 140 BPM. The runes follow a bass that wobbles in eighths, sixteenths and triplets.
• Philosopher's Fire: drum and bass, 174 BPM. The hardest of the three: fast streams and rolls.

Two ways to play

• Play: any song, as often as you like. The weekly board adds up your best score on each of the three songs over the week, so topping it takes all three. The top 3 win a potion each.
• Daily Brew, on the Incantation's days: everyone plays the same song. Your best run counts, and #1 wins a potion.

Scoring

Every hit is judged to the millisecond: Perfect (within 38ms of the beat) is worth 1,000, Great (76ms) 600, Good (115ms) 250. A held rune finished cleanly adds 500. Hits in a row build your multiplier: ×2 at 20, ×3 at 50 and ×4 at 100. A miss or a dropped hold resets it.

Misses also drain your Focus, and Perfects restore it. If it runs out, the spell breaks and the song ends: what you scored up to then still counts.

Homunculus powers

Once a song, whenever you choose (Space, or the power button). The stage sets the strength:

Catalysts and Embers

In weekly runs, a Catalyst in hand restores your Focus the moment the spell would break: an extra life. Holders get one free each run, and you can spend Embers for more, up to three a run. The Daily Brew has no Catalysts, only Homunculus powers.

Timing

Every screen, speaker and keyboard has its own delay. If your hits feel early or late, the results show your average timing and can shift it for you in one tap, or use the tap test in Settings. You can also set how fast the runes fall.

Back to the Lair

A finished song sends Essence to your Lair by its grade: 5 minutes of production for a flawless SS, 4 for an S, 3 for an A, down to 30 seconds for a D, up to an hour a day across the Arcade.

Fair play

The Guild's server replays every song from the moment of every keypress, with the same rules, and only the score it gets back goes on the board. Timing too perfect to come from a person is turned away.

The Hall of Fame keeps every board in the Guild: the live standings of each Arcade game, the week's biggest burners, last week's winners, and the Lair's legends (the most Homunculi, the most Vintages, the rarest shelves, and where all twenty Genesis Vintages live today). Everything about the collection on it is read straight from the chain.

Guild Wars

Guild Wars is a weekly race between ten NFT communities on Robinhood Chain. If your wallet held one of their NFTs at the community snapshot, you fight for that guild, or for several.

• A guild scores one point for every potion its members burn that week: 3 for each Homunculus brewed, plus every potion fed in the Cauldron.
• Rounds run a week at a time, from Thursday 02:00 UTC.
• The winning guild's members brew +10% faster in the Lair for the whole of the next round.