Wizards: the Enlightened Order of the Silver Rose

The Enlightened Order of the Silver Rose are chartered wizard order number four and last in Belswick. (There's two more orders that I want to write up, but they're decidedly less legal.)

Alchemical practices.
  Alchemists Revealing Secrets from the Book of Seven Seals, The Ripley Scroll (detail), ca. 1700. 950053
Source: Getty.edu

THE ENLIGHTENED ORDER OF THE SILVER ROSE

("Order of the Rose, the Silver Rose, Rose Wizards, alchemists")

The Silver Rose (a symbol of purity and transmutation) specializes in understanding and then changing the material world. As such, their students tend towards careers in hedge wizardry with a sideline in potion selling - quite profitable indeed. Their theories and practices revolve around purifying base elements and creatures and incorporating the essences of more noble creatures and materials. The Rose's understanding of base and noble elements makes them ideal alchemists, but also attracts lead-to-gold hucksters. They maintain a bulletin board with all the letters from crackpots who claim they've transmuted metals to gold.

Professional alchemists (fishling, birdling and otterling)
From

Relations and views

• Ancient and Orthodox Order of the Unbroken Circle: dabblers in the transformative arts but they excel in shutting down runaway experiments.
• Exquisite Lodge of Augurs and Diviners: they hear a lot. But then they use that information for gain instead of taking matter into their own hands. Why?
• Fraternity of the Comet: yes, fine, you've transmuted something to ash again. So proud.
• Brotherhood of the Violet Cloud: what they create is powerful but impermanent. Our way is surer.
• Hollow Tree: vile warlocks and heretics. What has become base matter should not live again.

Cures gout, scrufola, algae and overabundance of gold.
From

Typical gear
Formal wear for the alchemists is not a charred leather lab suit.

(For how exciting lab work can get, check out these brilliant posts on mercury azides, chlorine trifluoride (which can burn sand and asbestos), Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane, and the awe-inspiring FOOF)

Rose gear does tend to be very practical. The Order is relatively new but spread wide, and advancement is based more on ability than on dry following of the correct traditions. For formal occasions, the Order of the Rose wears a silver brooch of a rose pinned on a pale blue robe. Their arcane implement is a wand or a cup.

Benefits: specialties, spell access and lore

• exclusively Transmutation specialists.
• Students start with an alchemist's kit and recipes for two alchemical items.
• A member in good standing (and not behind on their payments) receives access to one transmutation spell they can cast per level. In addition to levels 1-6 of Transmutation, the Order's library also contains spells from the schools of Abjuration (levels 1-2), Divination (levels 1-2) and Evocation (levels 1-2). Higher level spells than these can be obtained from the Unbroken Circle on an individual basis and at 50% higher prices.

Favors for the Rose

The Order of the Rose can teach wizards how to cast Cantrip spells without expending magical energy, and can provide training as a Transmutation specialist.

Learn to cast Cantrips without spending spell slots at level 3:
You are given two potions. One is deadly poison, the other an alchemical potion. Which is which?   

Learn Transmutation school features

level 2: the Oil of Transfiguration
To temporarily transmute elements, you will need a base oil worth 100 gp. In addition, gather the following ingredients, fresh as possible:

• pure iron (unrusted), copper and silver
• a twig or leaf from a Dryad or Treant
• a chip of living stone

Dragon of the Transmutation of Metals
From

level 6: the Transmuter's Stone
Perfecting your Transmuter's Stone will take base ingredients worth 250 gp. In addition, obtain the following ingredients, fresh as can be:

• an owlbear's eye
• a vial of pixie dust
• a bezoar from a basilisk's stomach
• a troll's heart

While compounding Philosopher's Stone, take care
not to inhale gaseous expulsions, as these may
prove hallucinogenic. From

level 10: the Inconstant Form
To learn the secrets of Polymorphing, you will need brew a potion out of valuable ingredients worth 500 gp and infuse it with the essence of creatures that merge different beasts in themselves. Obtain the following, live or pure as you can:

• the roiling flesh of a gibbering mouther
• a mimic's heart
• a lycanthrope's tooth
• three eyes of a chimera
• a griffon's claws
• a hippogriff's mane
• a pegasus' hoof
• three spikes from a manticore, given by the beast with its blessing
• a live frog and a sheep's skin

Obnoxious rabbitling go bye-bye now. From

level 14: the Magnum Opus
No less than 1000 gp of base ingredients are needed to attempt this complex transformation. As you progress through the Magnum Opus ('great work'), you will add the following to your transmuter's stone to purify its very essence. To gain each separate ability of the Master Transmuter power of a Transmutation specialist, gather the following:

• major transformation:
• a salamander's tongue
• a rust monster's antenna, straight off the beast
• a will-o-wisp's light
• panacea:
• wrappings from a mummy out of the Far Lands
• the song of a false hydra
• a live black lotus flower
• restore life:
• a phoenix feather
• a medusa's tears
• a shadow's caress
• restore youth:
• a high elf's first memory
• a nymph's kiss
• a naga devouring itself