Complete Potion Entries
Core formulas, Backers' Brew, and patron-created potions from the Alchemist of a New Potion tier.
Deep Ark Games Presents
The Black Book of Potions The Alchemy Compendium for 5e Adventures
105 fully illustrated 5e potions across ten core families plus Backers’ Legacy — each with a primary effect, side effect, market price, and mixing rules your table can use tonight.
105 potion entries
10 core families + Backers’ Legacy
225 Kickstarter backers
Kickstarter Proven
225 backers funded the first Black Book.
The Potions campaign funded the core book, unlocked stretch material, and added Backers' Brew plus patron-created formulas from the Alchemist of a New Potion tier. The final book now holds 105 potions.
225
Kickstarter backers
105
final potions
11
families, including Backers’ Legacy
5e
table-ready rules
What You Get
A Table Tool Disguised as a Forbidden Book
The book is meant to be read, looted, printed, searched, and dropped into a session with almost no preparation.
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Primary + Side Effects
Every bottle has a clear mechanical use and a flavorful consequence.
Mixing Results
Pair formulas at the table and let chemistry become story fuel.
Card-Ready Format
Designed to work as book entries, discovery cards, and quick handouts.
Prices + Rarity
Market notes help GMs place potions in shops, hoards, guilds, and black markets.
Original Art
Every formula receives its own image language, no stock art and no repeated bottle template.
Book Preview
A Look Inside the Finished Pages
Use Previous and Next to browse real sample entries. Tap the page itself to open it full-screen and inspect the art, effects, side effects, and story hooks at reading size.
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Preview 1 / 5
Phoenix Tonic
A small taste of the layout and density inside The Black Book of Potions.
The Apothecary
Draw Your Potion
A taste of the Black Book of Potions. Draw one of 10 real potion reference cards and see which potion family welcomes you.
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The deck is waiting.
Potion Cards
Hand the Potion Across the Table
Unlocked as a stretch goal, every backer receives printable PDF card sets built for mystery, discovery, and fast table use.
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Discovery Cards
Mystery First. Answers Later.
Discovery Cards are player-facing potion handouts for unknown or partially identified vials. The front gives players the name, rarity, family, and artwork; the back leaves generous writable space for effects, duration, side effects, warnings, theories, failed experiments, and glorious mistakes.
Give a card to your players when they find a new vial. Let them test it, taste it, trade it, fear it, mislabel it, and slowly fill in what it actually does.
The book gives you the potion. The Discovery Card gives your players the object.
Reference Cards
Known Potions, Faster Play.
Reference Cards are made for fully identified potions. Each card includes complete effects and side effects, tasting notes, storage and handling information, market data, warnings, and possible mixing partners.
They do not replace the book. They complement it during live play, giving GMs and players a quick, table-friendly way to use known potions without flipping through pages.
STL Tokens
Family Symbols for the Table
Included with the Black Book of Potions pledge: STL tokens for the ten core potion families, provided in mono-color and multicolor AMS-compatible versions for groups that want the families to become physical table objects.
Visual Catalogue
The Art of Potions
Every formula is illustrated. No stock art. No repetition. These are artifacts from a world that bleeds, burns, and bargains.
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For Backers & Book Owners
Enter the Deep Ark Codex
Your digital companion to The Black Book Series. Explore potions and relics, follow ingredient links and relic resonances in the Black Book Atlas, and keep private notes for your adventures.
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Open the Codex
Sign in with the email linked to your book access.
The Shared World
The World Between Entries
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In the act of creation, the One was wounded. Creation bears the Wound. Sin deepens it; mercy heals it.
The Black Books share one grim-mythic world — intentionally incomplete, continuing across every volume. Fallen crowns, sacred bones, war offerings, forge-oaths, folk charms, hag-hoards, pact-bargains, grave-keepers, scholar-secrets, and the Nameless all leave marks on the same wounded world.
You are invited to use the world whole, borrow a single thread, or transplant every entry into a setting of your own. Each book stands alone. Together, they echo.
The Crown's Legacy
The Sacred Remains
The War Tribute
The Forge's Legend
The Folk Charms
The Hag's Hoard
The Pact's Bargains
The Death's Keeping
The Scholar's Secrets
The Nameless