im new to Morrowind, only Level 2 Alchemist/Thief.

But ive been given a Jouneymans Alembic. Unfortunatly I dont have a manual or anything. Can anyone tell me what exactly this thing does? Who would this be useful to?

Thanks guys.

Before we answer your question we need to know why you haven't got 'a manual or anything'.

One would hate to think that you were using anything other than a LEGITIMATE copy of the game!!!

well its because I bought a copy off amazon and its one of those naff "Prima Games" boxes. The manual comes on a disc and uses Adobe Acrobat to read it apparently. Unfortunately I havent purchased Adobe Acrobat.

So....whats this Alembic anyway?

p.s. I did infact once read through the Xbox versions manual, but didnt ever see it mentioned. Either I missed it (quite likely) or it wasnt there.

Can anyone help?

Okay, I'll believe you. Though as far as I know Abode Acrobat is a free download just go into their website. An alembic is a piece of alchemical equipment used by alchemists and by you if alchemy is a skill you wish to practise. There are four pieces of such equipment - mortar, alembic, retort and calcinator varying from apprentice to grand master in quality.

If you mean what specifically was it used for then it was apparatus for distilling.

apparatus for distlling?

Okay...again i'll stress how new I am before asking this.....

I am skilled in Alchemy. So what and why would I need to distill anything? What benefits does distilling give me? Do you distill the potions you create? does it make them stronger?

You stand a better chance of making potions with all four pieces of equipment. Go to the mages guild in Caldera, climb the tower and steal a full set. When you practice alchemy you'll see them appear. The mortar is for putting stuff in to be ground (by a pestle), the retort is for purification and the calcinator for reduction by heating. As far as MW is concerned as far as I can see it is the number (one piece to all four pieces) and quality of the items rather than their original use that signifies.

Is this clearer?

yes, thanks for your help Malchik. Much appreciated.

I think that a mortat is the minimum requirement for making any alchemical potions but may be wrong. So at a minimum you will need to get that to use your alembic. I think the retort, calcinator and/or alembic will improve your potion in various ways but aren't required and may well not affect the chance of making a potion successfully. I'm sure you can find more information by searching the forums at any rate.

You need a mortar and pestle. There are other things -- like an alembic -- that make your potions more potent and less toxic. With all four pieces of the alchemical equipment, you'll be much better an alchemist than you would be with just a mortar and pestle.

It would have made more sense if it worked like this:

First you mix the ingredients with the mortar and pestle, then you use the Alembic to distill/clean it, which rids it of any bad effects like paralyze, drain strength, etc., Calcinator should make the weaker effects a bit stronger, but make the potion weight heavier as well.

... That's a good mod idea, but how to do it... That would be a hard thing to script.

Or would it?

From Stevmill's Morrowind Alchemy Potion FAQ:

Alchemy Equipment

There are 4 types of equipment that are used in creating Alchemy potions.
(Descriptions are from the manual)
1: Mortar and Pestle- Required to mix a potion, and determins the
initial potion strength.
2: Retort - Increases the magnitude and duration of all
positive effects in a potion.
3: Alembic - Decreases the magnitude and duration of all
negitive effects in a potion.
4: Calcinator - Increases the magnitude and duration of all
effects in a potion
Note: you only need the Mortar and pestle, the other items just
increase the effectiveness of the potion.

There are also different levels of Quality of these items, they are:
1: Apprentice
2: Journeyman
3: Master
4: Grandmaster
5: SecretMaster
The higher the quality of the apparatus the more it effects the
outcome of your potion.

(You can also find this on page 40 of the manual, if you still have the chance
to look into the X-Box one - provided the X-Box version is not different )