Essence Crystals are distilled magical energy in a solid form. Each crystals weights one-half pound and contains an amount of magical energy depending upon how it was created. Essence crystals are used primary in magic item creation and because of their nature are often used as a substitute for currency (or as trade goods).    In addition, essence crystal replace material components, providing an additional boost of magical power.

Essence Crystals can only be created by a spell caster or someone with the Innate Magic feat (a non-spell caster with the Innate Magic feat can only create level 1 essence crystals). This process requires an hour of uninterrupted work, any interruption will cause failure and the crystal will not be created.  Alternately, essence crystals can be distilled from a recently deceased creature, the process must be started within one minute of the deceased creature's death (requiring a Spellcraft check to complete successfully).

Essence Crystals have two different values,  the first is used for magical item creation (and when replacing material components) and the second the average gold price when buying and selling essence crystals.  Because of their nature, they can not be masked or altered: detect magic will always reveal the true stats of any given essence crystal in spite of any physical or magical attempts at deception.  Each type of essence crystal has a different color (see the table below).

Essence Crystals Stats
    Red (Level 1): 100 gp enchantment value, 1 gp sell value
    Green (Level 2): 250 gp enchantment value, 4 gp sell value
    Blue (Level 3): 500 gp enchantment value, 9 gp sell value
    Gray (Level 5): 1000 gp enchantment value, 25 gp sell value
    Black (Level 10): 2500 gp enchantment value, 100 gp sell value

---

Essence Crystals can be created either by a spell caster or from a recently deceased creature.   Creating an essence crystal from scratch requires one hour.   The creator must either expend the appropriate spell slot (if spontaneous) or sacrifice a prepared spell (if not).   Refer to the Essence Crystal Infusion table below for specifics.  Note that a spellcaster can prepare only the number of Essence Crystals up to their spell casting attribute modifier (Intelligence for Wizards, etc) per day.

Essence Crystal Infusion
    Red (Level 1): Level 1 Spell/Spell-Slot.
    Green (Level 2): Level 2 Spell/Spell-Slot.
    Blue (Level 3): Level 3 Spell/Spell-Slot.
    Gray (Level 5): Level 4 Spell/Spell-Slot.
    Black (Level 10): Level 7 Spell/Spell-Slot.

---

Creating an essence crystal from a recently deceased creature required only one minute to complete.  In order to be a suitable target for essence crystal creation, the creature must have both an Intelligence score and a Charisma higher than 2.    To be successful, creation of the essence crystal must begin within one minute of the creature's death; making a Spellcraft skill check at the end of that time.  The results of the skill check are compared with the table below, creating the appropriate type as shown below.

Essence Crystal Creation
    Red (Level 1): Spellcraft check, DC 20.
    Green (Level 2): Spellcraft check, DC 25.
    Blue (Level 3): Spellcraft check, DC 30.
    Gray (Level 5): Spellcraft check, DC 35.
    Black (Level 10): Spellcraft check, DC 40.

Essence Crystals do not require a gold expenditure to create.   They do replace gold in creating magical items and enchanting equipment.

Esssence Crystals replace material components of 50 gps in value or higher: material components of less than 50 gp cost are ignored.  Always round up for determining which essence crystal to use: A level 1 essence crystal replaces up to 100 gp material component with a level 2 essence crystal for a 101 gp component and so forth.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:04, Sat 18 Mar 2023.

Magic Item Creation Feats (modified).

Brew Potion
Prerequisite: Caster level 3rd.
Benefit: You can create a potion of any 3rd-level or lower spell that you know and that targets one or more creatures or objects.   When you create a potion, you set the caster level, which must be sufficient to cast the spell in question and no higher than your own level.   Unless consumed immediately, a container of sufficient volume is requires for storage.

Brewing a potion takes 2 hours and requires an essence crystal of the same level as the potion being created.    Brewing a potion uses an essence crystal as the same level as the potion being created.   When you create a potion, you make any choices that you would normally make when casting the spell. Whoever drinks the potion is the target of the spell.   Up to three potions may be created at one time, however you increase the time required by 1 hour per additional potion created (to a maximum of 4 hours).

Scribe Scroll
Prerequisite: Caster level 1st.
Benefit: You can create a scroll of any spell that you know.  To scribe a scroll, you must use up one or more essence crystal with the enchantment value equal to the base price and the process of scribing a scroll takes 2 hours.     No additional materials are required, the scroll and ink are created as part of the scribing process.

Potions and scrolls have no enchantment cost to create.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:46, Sat 18 Mar 2023.

Magic Item Creation (modified)

The costs of creating a magical item fall into two categories: Enchantment value and Materials cost.

1) The Materials Cost of an item can vary based on the type of item being created.

• Potions and Scrolls have no material cost, though a suitable means of storage (assuming the item isn't used immediately) must be available.
• Arms and Armor already have their material costs spelled out, as per the Magic Item Creation rules.
• Wondrous Item and Rings have a material cost (in gold) equal to 1% of the Enchantment Value.
• A prepared Wand costs 1 gp, a prepared Rod costs 6 gp, a prepared Staff costs 10 gp.

2) The Enchantment Value is determined as per the rules in the Pathfinder rule set.   A sufficient amount of Essence Crystals must be available for item creation to cover the Enchantment Value.


Magic Items: Buying and Selling (modified).

Unless otherwise specified...
A magic item will have a gold price equal to 5% of it's enchantment value plus the cost of weapons/armor (including special materials and masterwork).
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:47, Sat 18 Mar 2023.

Spell Specific Essence Crystal Costs (non-standard)

Bless Water: Level 3 Essence Crystal.
Continual Flame: Level 10 Essence Crystal.
Masterwork Transformation: Level 10 Essence Crystal.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:11, Tue 16 May 2023.