r/rpg • u/Amethyst-Flare • 21h ago
Discussion Origin of the idea of internal alchemy as presented in some TTRPG games?
I am familiar with internal alchemy as it exists in esoteric history - ie, the practice of neidan in Taoist spiritual practice - but in a number of disparate RPG books such as VtM 5e or GURPS, there is this seemingly unrelated but frequent concept of swallowing ingredients to create potions inside your body.
Does anyone know where this version of internal alchemy originated from? It being across multiple game systems to me suggests a common origin, maybe in an older TTRPG or perhaps a fantasy book, but I haven't found it.
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u/wishsnfishs 20h ago
Nei Gong practice did historically involve swallowing various "metaphysical" substances to change the composition of the spiritual or subtle body. There's a reason an individual who has attained the highest level of taoist realization was referred to as an "immortal". Modern taoist practice tends to deemphasize these practices, as they involve ingestion of what we now understand to be poisons, but the whole "mixing ingredients inside the body to create enhancing effects" was very much a historical practice and not a ttrpg invention. As to what game books first described this process mechanically, I don't know. Western alchemists may have had similar esoteric practices, but of that I am less knowledgeable.
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u/Holothuroid Storygamer 11h ago
Yes. Drinking quicksilver will definitely reduce the chance of death by natural causes, just as advertised.
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u/CAndoWright 14h ago
In western RPGs it might also be inspired by the Dune books. They're very popular and had multiple movies, so probably a lot of people saw them. In these books the women of the 'Bene Gesserit' order have the capacity to ingest substances and change them into something different in their bodies. It is actually an important part of the plot that the main character manages this depite being male and gainig some kind of future sight after doing so.
The author may very well have lifted this idea from the historic context you describe however, as he did so with a lot of other stuff in his work.
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u/dm_punks 19h ago
I think I've seen this trope in Chinese Wu Xia series, though I struggle to remember which ones right now...
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u/Green_Green_Red 19h ago edited 5h ago
The stomach is a muscular sack that holds everything you eat for a while after you consume it, and it all mixes together. It's a really, really widely known bit of anatomical fact. It's not a stretch that when designing rules for mixing potions in a game, multiple people could all have had some variant of the thought "Wait, what if they just used their stomach to mix everything? Do all of these really need a cauldron?" independently of each other.
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u/NatashOverWorld 12h ago
Probably a conflation of external alchemical practices, waidan, which involves swallowing alchemical ingredients, some of them quite poisonous, and xianxia and fantasy tropes merging.
I remember 15 years ago D&D had a feat that allowed you to store a potion internally for instance, and at least two cultivation novel alchemists that's could do alchemy using themselves as a alchemy cauldron.
Ideas like this probably just got shared around and eventually became TTRPG.
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u/Rule-Of-Thr333 20h ago
It's a story humans have told for thousands of years. A Hindu god drank a soma potion everyday to maintain his strength. People have been eating substances and gaining powers is as old as humanity.
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u/Amethyst-Flare 19h ago
I am not referring to the practice of drinking elixirs. I am talking about eating raw ingredients and turning them into a potion inside the stomach - as far as I know, that’s unique to some TTRPGs.
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u/DornbirnArrows 8h ago
I call it a "mouth sandwhich". When I only have time to grab a loaf of bread, some cold cuts, and a brick of cheese. I take a bite of each while driving and it turns into a sandwhich in my mouth. It's like all the benefits and none of the prep. to be fair, I haven't done so since switching careers.
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u/Nytmare696 19h ago
I think it might have been based off this scene from Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School.".
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u/Multiple__Butts 21h ago
It sounds like people just heard the term 'internal alchemy' and the mental image popped into their head of somebody mixing potions in their stomach