Gothic 1 Remake Alchemy Guide: Permanent Potions, Recipes, and Herbs

Alchemy is a late-game power spike, not an early one

Alchemy in Gothic 1 Remake is one of the strongest investments you can make, but the game gates it hard. You cannot just walk up and start brewing healing potions in Chapter 1. You need to reach Chapter 3, clear the Old Mine, and have the ore and Learning Points to pay a trainer. Once you do, alchemy turns spare herbs into healing, mana, and a small number of permanent stat boosts that no other system gives you.

This guide covers how to learn the skill, what you can brew, the herbs that actually matter, and the trick most players miss with permanent potions. If you are still deciding where to put your points, read the best builds guide first, because every Learning Point you spend on alchemy is one you are not spending on a weapon line.

Learning alchemy: trainers, cost, and gating

Two trainers are firmly confirmed for the remake:

• Damarok sits in the Fire Mage building inside the Old Camp castle, in the mage quarters. He teaches alchemy for around 10 Learning Points plus 100 ore, and he is reachable in Chapter 3 after you have talked to Master Corristo.
• Cor Kalom at the Swamp Camp runs the Brotherhood’s alchemy path. If you side with the Sect, he teaches for the same rough cost and gives you the deepest progression.

You will not get near either of them early. The pages I checked agree you need to be in Chapter 3 with the Old Mine quest line behind you before alchemy training opens up. Some guides also list Cronos at the Old Camp and Baal Cadar at the Swamp Camp as alchemy options, but sources disagree on whether those two teach alchemy or just Mana, so I would treat Damarok and Cor Kalom as your safe bets. The full breakdown of who teaches what is in the skill trainers guide.

The brewing setup

You brew at an Alchemy Table by walking up and pressing the interaction key. Every recipe also burns a Lab Flask from your inventory as the base, so stock up on those whenever a vendor sells them. Most potions follow a simple pattern of Lab Flask plus a supporting reagent plus the primary herb. Funding all of this matters, since flasks and ingredients cost ore on top of the training fee. The ore farming guide covers how to bank enough to keep the bench running.

The healing and mana recipe tiers

Both the healing and mana lines come in three escalating tiers. The recipe sets below are the ones two separate remake guides agree on, so they are the most reliable published versions:

Healing line (restores HP):

• Essence of Healing uses a Mild Healing Herb
• Extract of Healing uses a regular Healing Herb
• Elixir of Healing uses a Strong Healing Herb plus Salt and Pure Alcohol

Mana line (restores Mana):

• Essence of Magic Energy uses Raven Herb
• Extract of Magic Energy uses Dark Herb plus Mercury
• Elixir of Magic Energy uses Dragonroot plus Mercury and Pure Alcohol

Of the roughly 25 potions in the game, only about 10 are brewable. The rest are loot, vendor, or quest finds, so do not expect to craft your way to everything.

Permanent potions: what you can brew, and what you can’t

This is the part that separates a strong character from an average one.

You can brew two permanent potions:

• Elixir of Life raises your maximum health for good.
• Elixir of Spirit raises your maximum Mana for good.

Both are gated behind golem drops, which is the real late-game bottleneck. The Elixir of Life needs materials including a Crystal Shard from an Ice Golem, and the Elixir of Spirit needs an Ore-Infused Root from a Stone Golem, each on top of a Lab Flask and Pure Alcohol. You will not be making these until you can actually fight golems, so treat them as an endgame reward for your alchemy investment.

You cannot brew permanent Strength or Dexterity potions. The weight of sources says those are loot only. You find them in leaders’ quarters, locked barracks chests, the deeper temple areas, and out in the wilderness, which means exploring, picking locks, and stealing. The lockpicking, stealing, and sneaking guide covers how to get into the chests where these end up.

Herbs worth knowing

A few ingredients are worth treating with respect:

• King’s Sorrel is arguably the most valuable herb in the game and a bottleneck for the strongest elixirs. Do not eat it raw for a tiny benefit. Save it.
• Goblin Berries are tied to permanent Dexterity, so archers and thieves should hoard every one they find.
• Dragonroot feeds the top mana elixir. Some sources claim it also goes into a strength recipe, but that is disputed, so I would not gamble a rare herb on an unproven formula.
• Healing Herbs come in Mild, regular, and Strong versions that map directly onto the three healing tiers above.

The rare permanent-stat herbs are hand placed and do not regrow, so once they are gone, they are gone for that playthrough.

The smart play

A clean alchemy plan looks like this:

1. Hold off on training alchemy until Chapter 3, when you can reach a trainer and afford the fee.
2. Stockpile Lab Flasks and herbs the whole way there so you can brew in bulk the moment you learn the skill.
3. Brew the healing and mana lines as soon as you can to cut your potion-buying costs.
4. Save golem materials for the Elixir of Life and Elixir of Spirit, and drink those once you have a stable build.
5. Do not eat rare herbs raw, and do not waste King’s Sorrel or Goblin Berries on guesses.

Because permanent stat gains stack on top of trained values, alchemy is how you push past what trainers alone allow. Pair it with the strength, dexterity, and mana guide to see how the brewable elixirs fit into your overall stat ceiling.

Recipes, trainer costs, and the golem-material requirements above reflect the 2026 remake as played post-launch, drawn from current community guides. A couple of points are genuinely disputed across sources, including whether Strength and Dexterity potions can be brewed at all (the majority say no) and exactly which NPCs teach alchemy beyond Damarok and Cor Kalom. Confirm ingredient lists at the bench before spending rare herbs, since some sites publish conflicting recipes.