Fleshcrafting
Growing a stable living creature through fleshcrafting takes two weeks in most cases, and takes resources dependent on how complex your creation is. The most important part of most fleshcrafting, is that you do need access to something with the trait that you're wanting to give to the creature you're creating. This means to make a mammal, you would need blood, bones, or fur from a Mammal. If you wanted a snake's venom spitting capability, you would need some of the physical body of a snake with that capability. For most common traits, this doesn't really require any additional effort, but if you're working on creating a large number of creatures, or you are adding an unusual capability, you may need to make a deal with someone to bring in samples of exotic animals.
Fleshcrafting does have some other limitations. Even creatures with a very high mind-stat tend to be more clever, or skilled, rather than sentient, though some particularly advanced alchemists have overcome this. The other restriction is that fleshcrafted creatures are almost universally sterile. There are very few who have overcome this restriction, and all who are known are highly sought-after instructors.
Types of Fleshcrafting
Genisis
This is the creation of living creations to serve you, or to be sold to others. These creatures are extremely valuable, and after their creation are generally self-sufficient. They eat, breath, etc. Just like a normal creature, and continue their existence with or without your input. These checks take two weeks, and follow the general Fleshcrafting rules listed below. These creatures live slightly shorter lives than their normal counterparts, and are almost universally sterile.
Symbiosis
This creates short-lived creatures with a very specific goal in mind. The creatures are bound do you and your innate magic, though with your aid they can easily be transferred to another alchemist. If you are killed, or your magical powers depleted, they wither and die. You have more control over these creatures, but they are still limited by their own skills. These are often used by alchemists to complete a specific task, or to be kept in reserve as personal servants/pets. The creatures are generally easier to make, though they are far shorter lived. This is also the skill used for creating temporary growths or changes in a living creature. Growing claws for a while, or sprouting wings for an expected journey. Symbiotic creatures (attached or not) follow the normal fleshcrafting rules below, but at half the difficulty (rounded up). Creations of symbiosis can be left in kind of stasis for up to a year, but once activated they last for only 24 hours. There is also a special trait available for symbionts that adds 1 day to their life span, and can be added any number of times, as per the normal rules for traits.
Flesh-warping
The process of modifying and improving already living creatures. This process is painful, and difficult, and even more difficult when working with an unwilling subject. Most Fleshcrafters perform this on themselves, or their own creations, but those that are particularly skilled can do so for natural creatures, or even on other sentient beings. These kind of modifications are permanent, but some may have unexpected side-effects when you're actually living with them. Extra-muscle mass may make you slower to react, or leave you muscle-bound for example. In addition to the obvious physical complications, this also tends to have an unusual effect on the mind and soul of those that are warped. This is often considered to be the most difficult of alchemical skills, and many of its masters slowly are driven insane by their self-modifications. Flesh-warping follows the normal rules for Fleshcrafting below, but the DC starts at 25, and is increased by all the previous traits added in past fleshwarping as well. Checks always take at least a week no matter how well you roll, and the subject will be in a weakened state for at least two weeks (including any time spent on the actual crafting), and should certainly be in bed-rest. The only checks they should make in that time are the Flesh-Warping check if it's an alchemist warping themselves. At the end of two weeks, if the target amount hasn't been reached, the creature must make a Body+Soul check. If their result makes up the difference, then they will heal over the next week, and they need no further assistance (other than bed rest). If that check is not sufficient to make up the difference, the fleshwarping can continue, however the recipient may develop a psychosis or other negative traits. The Fleshwarping Alchemist may also choose to end the process early, though this could apply negative traits to the recipient as well, up to and including death.
Fleshcrafting Rules
Fleshcrafting Rules
Fleshcrafting, is a Fleshcrafting+Soul check for biological creatures, Fleshcrafting+Mind for Elementals and golems, though there are likely to be exceptions. When creating a creature, the difficulty starts at 12, and will give you one base template, and one associated talent. So for instance you could go to create a dog-like creature, and start with a Mammal, and simply add the Natural Weapon Universal Talent, that creature would be free, and any starting alchemist would stand a semi-reasonable chance of completing it. You could also make that creature look more like a small bear, though obviously it wouldn't truly compete with a bear in any real way. Each additional trait added, adds to the difficulty. The first trait adds 1 to the DC, the second trait adds two, the third trait adds 3, etc. A check takes 2 weeks to complete, but each point by which you beat the DC, lowers the time-frame by 1 day. On any project, you can make a number of rolls equal to your ranks of Fleshcrafting, though after the first check any '1' on the roll can cause some unexpected problems. Furthermore you can reduce the time needed for a check by up to 5 days, but each day you reduce the check causes the creature to have a 'Partially Formed' defect. All creations will always take at least 24 hours, and all other checks during the creation time-frame suffer a -3 penalty due to exhaustion.
Specializations will let you ignore penalties, and in some cases allow you to access traits normally not available, or at least not available easily to your creature type. Most Specialties will allow you to ignore 4 points of difficulties added by your trait, or 1 full trait's penalty. So if you specialized in claws, you could give a creature rank 2 claws for free, or rank 3 claws for only 2 points in the difficulty. Or if you'd already added at least 4 other traits, you could give it an extra rank of claws, with no penalty, even if that penalty would have been much more than 4 points.
Difficulty Table
Number of Added Traits → Difficulty Class
0 → 12
1 → 13
2 → 15
3 → 18
4 → 22
5 → 27
6 → 33
7 → 40
8 → 48
9 → 56
10 → 66
11 → 77
12 → 89
13 → 102
14 → 116
15 → 131
16 → 147
17 → 164
18 → 182
19 → 201
20 → 221
Copying a living creature (with sufficient examples) adds +6 to your base roll.
Fleshwarping a currently living creature adds a +13 to your roll.
Adding a secondary template costs 1 trait, and adds a flat +6 to the DC as well.
Mixing in something unrelated to one of the creatures templates also costs 1 Trait, and a +6 DC.
If you add a trait that uses one of your other Alchemical Schools, you can add that school to your roll.
In some instances you may need to make another roll as part of the creation (Engineering, visual arts, etc) as long as that roll can be completed in the time allotted to creation, you can make it with no penalty.