Fantasy Chemistry

[Amanita]

Some form of alchemy is a common trope in many fantasy stories. Yet, most of the time, it's just a convenient way to get magical potions, poisons, mechanical gimmicks or artificial life. References to real-world alchemical practices are rare and modern chemistry even more so.
I have to admit that use alchemy without any connection to real life chemistry disappoint me, because I tend to expect something like that from the term. With its changing bonds, varying amounts of attraction and quite obvious changes in colour, smell and state of substances it is the branch of science most easily linked to magic in my opinion.
Does anyone agree?
And do any of you hint at actual chemistry somewhere within your magic or even use it directly there or in other parts of their worlds? Do you know works that do and how do you feel about them?

 

[Devor]

And do any of you hint at actual chemistry somewhere within your magic or even use it directly there or in other parts of their worlds? Do you know works that do and how do you feel about them?

For my worlds, I've developed a system of alchemy that's based on Medieval perceptions of the concept. But before I developed it, I looked for real-world magical applications. All I could find that seemed believable for a pre-modern setting were things like color-changing water and refrigeration that was done through a big room full of ice. Dry ice, glues and acid seemed a little bit possible. But a lot of premodern chemistry went into dyes, fermentation and similar endeavors that didn't seem like they would stand out as chemistry. I couldn't find anything that really seemed like it would have more than isolated use.

If you had some suggestions, though, I really would love to hear them. My knowledge of chemistry isn't very advanced, but I did try to do the research.

((edit))

When I was researching I made a short list, and I just went and found it in my notes. On top of the above, I wrote down Magnetism and Absorption, as well as Animal Scents for hunting.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I have never mentioned any Alchemy or even modern Chemistry system in my worlds, perhaps because that would be part of the societies of normal people while my entire stories are about Mages =)

However, the people have technology like advanced airplanes, artificial lights in the cities, artillery, missiles and other things, so the reader knows that sciences like chemistry and others have been developed in my worlds.

There are only two mysterious chemical substances that appear so far in the stories: One is a syrupy, very poisonous purple liquid that occurs naturally in my worlds forming lakes in isolated regions, and the other is a napalm-like substance that certain monsters spit to create devastating fiery attacks =)

Those are natural substances, not really a product of Alchemy... I think that the use of realistic Chemistry in a Fantasy story is a good and original idea, like I have described in my Chemical Weapons thread!!

 

[BeigePalladin]

Depends on the setting I suppose. If it's in a typical high fantasy world, where there most ommonly aren't people in the setting who would actually research into the science behind it rather than the methodology. It would be very anachronistic for the implied period of the piece to actually refrence direct science, especially since direct chemical knowledge is actually quite advanced science and it would lead to questions such as how they've managed X without Y, which would be calculated with the same base principles but be much more simplistic.

same applies for other pieces set in a sort of medival setting, or simmilar (heck, anything up to the wild west, and even then I'd accept quite happily few people knowing exactly how it worked, even if they where able to perform it.

On the other hand, in urban fantasy/steampunk/etcetera when there are actually scientists around, I'd be very upset if it was all pure magic with no link to actual science.

I also try to shown - and have often seen - actual substances that could work in a scientific mixture as components, for example. And many version of alchemy as something more than a workshop excericise in multiple forms of media require the alchemist to atually now some pertinent details about the materials, and really have them on hand, just using the magic as the proccess to create them the same way that would be done with nature/technology.

 

[ascanius]

I see a few problems arising when using chemistry in a fantasy setting. First it is much more complex than A + B --> C + B. There is a lot more going on in this chemical reaction than meats the eye. without going into detail about the complexities it all comes down to how much people actually know with the technology they have. Even for something as simple as the proton, electricity is need for a proper understanding and knowledge of chemical reactions. With out the proton,f bronsted-lowery acid base systems are not possible nor are the Lewis base systems. What about the H(subscript 2) or many other chemical phenomena. Technology determines the understanding one has of chem. It would be one thing to have a modern society with chem in magic but to have modern chem in a midevil setting could seem far fetched without a very well thought out explanation of how this knowledge came to be, back to electricity/cathode rays and the discovery of the proton, much less the electron which required a more complicated approach. Along with the basic technology one also comes into the problem of the mathematics needed to understand chemistry and it's related aspects. for instance without calculus reaction rates are impossible to determine if one goes beyond a zeroth order reaction. I think that is why modern chem has not been included in the fantasy setting. But this assumes the reader has an understanding of basic chem.

 

[Amanita]

There is a lot more going on in this chemical reaction than meats the eye.

I know.
But there's still much that does meet the eye and in medieval setting they'd have to limit themselves to that. Such as the fact that the substance that dissolves silver but not gold is corrosive and its vapours are bad to breathe in. Various acids have been known quite early and pottash has been used for soap-making by the ancient Egyptians alreasy.
The thing which I dislike is the completely random "alchemy" sometimes found. Put the green liquid into the red one and you get a blue poison, but no one has any idea why, neither in terms of real-life chemistry nor in-world. Even if the characters don't know I like the author to do so.
You have to try and find out what people could know with the amount of technology available and how they'd interpret it given their cultural background. One of the fascinating things about chemistriy is the fact, that there are plenty of different layers of explanation from simple to advanced where the simple ones aren't always "wrong" per se even though new discoveries explain it better.
Justus von Liebig for example didn't know anything about quantum mechanics or electrons yet but you could still repeat the experiments he made with his descriptions. (He's left plenty of texts telling students how to do basic experiments.) Knowledge such as he (or people like Lavoisier or Davy) had would be quite fitting for a steampunk setting. Goethe even wrote a story linking chemical reactions and human relationships in 1809.

 

[Steerpike]

The level of technology in the world is not necessarily a problem if magic also exists. Yes, in our world we need certain technologies to achieve extremely low temperatures, but if you're using magic to do so then you don't need those technologies. The same goes for the synthesis and handling of other chemical compounds that might be dangerous without technological safeguards in our world. No reason you can't make this work.

 

[Sheilawisz]

It seems that Amanita's thread is being confused with my Chemical Weapons thread!! This thread is about Fantasy Chemistry, could a Moderator please move the Ascanius posts so they are in the right thread, please? =)

 

[Reaver]

It seems that Amanita's thread is being confused with my Chemical Weapons thread!! This thread is about Fantasy Chemistry, could a Moderator please move the Ascanius posts so they are in the right thread, please? =)

Will do!

 

[Sheilawisz]

Thanks a lot, Reaver and Legendary Sidekick!! =)

Amanita: In my opinion, Fantasy stories featuring realistic Chemistry (or Alchemy that provides realistic results) could make a story smarter and more interesting than others where they just create some weird potions and stuff, like the Legend of Zelda games- I love Zelda, but when you mentioned "mix red and green and get blue" I thought about the classic Zelda potions.

Alchemists and the experiments that they did not really understand were the seed of modern chemistry, so you would not need to give complete and detailed chemical explanations in a Fantasy story that features these things =)

Have any of you ever watched the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist?? It's kind of dark sometimes, but it gives an interesting view about Magical Chemistry in a parallel world, where Alchemy is an effective magical science and powerful Alchemists work for the government and do very dangerous things...