Field Manual

A fictional primer on the chemist warrior's craft: the reagents, the three measures, and the safety rules. Story-world reference — nothing here is real chemistry.

Read this first. Every reagent below is invented. "Doses" are story units. Nothing on this page is a real recipe, a real instruction, or real chemistry of any kind.

The reagent table

Reagent	Color	Nature	Used in
Vitriol teal	Brilliant teal	Clinging liquor; burns cold and bright	The Vitriol Arc
Nightshade violet	Deep violet	Heavy vapor; deadens sight and sound	Marrowmist Veil; the Quiet Distillation
Kingswater	Pale gold	The dearest draught on the Row; total reaction	The Quiet Distillation
Gallowglass	Smoky grey	Slow, patient; eats armor and locks	Gallowglass Etch
Marrowmist	Violet-grey	Sinking fog	Marrowmist Veil
Sunfall salt	White-gold crystal	Ignites in air; blinding flash	Sunfall Flash

The three measures

Phialguard craft recognizes three measures, and Orin is famous for never skipping one:

The measure of the hand — know your throw: range, arc, wind, rain. (The slate wall's ten thousand chalk arcs.)
The measure of the mind — know your reagent: what it does, what it costs, what it won't do.
The measure of the moment — know whether the throw is needed at all. The hardest measure; the one Holt drilled with empty phials.

Safety rules of the Row

Never carry a phial you haven't compounded yourself or watched compounded.
Never throw what you haven't measured — twice.
The seventh cup stays filled until the question demands it.
Eels bright violet: stand down. (See Creatures.)
Moths absent from the salt: don't buy the salt. (See Creatures.)

marginalia, in Voss's hand: "rule zero, which i never wrote down: come home."

Source notes

The reagent table, the three measures, and the safety rules are original inventions of this codex (2026-09-26). The canonical basis is only the app card: "chemist warrior". Nothing here describes real substances or real procedures.