Adventuring Gear
A growing selection of adventuring gear, character-specific items, and dungeoneering accessories to further personalize your character!
RPG Series
Illustrations by the inimitable Julie Dillon.
PERFUME OIL BLENDS
Presented in an amber apothecary vial
“You all meet at an inn.…”
Pen and paper role-playing games have been a tremendous influence in my life since my formative years. My parents bought me the magenta D&D boxed set back in 1982, along with the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. My lifelong passion for fantasy, science fiction, war games, and mythology was well-channeled through RPGs, and I credit playing D&D with helping me sustain my imagination and sense of wonder through adulthood.
I played with one particular group through the bulk of my late teens and early 20s, and this series — along with the atmosphere tools that Black Phoenix Trading Post has introduced — was inspired, specifically, by the time that we spent campaigning together. Our group was somewhat prop-driven in our gaming: we felt that setting a mood was conducive to our style of gameplay. Little things like changes in lighting, minor sound effects, and music made a world of difference, and we found that utilizing miniatures, model railroad scenery, and other tools in order to physically illustrate strategies and provide visual cues was tremendously useful. How much more immersive would it have been if we’d been able to smell the crypt we were crawling through? Or the stench of steel and blood that permeates a warrior’s cloak? What do the wizard’s spell components smell like? What does winter in the desert smell like? Or spring in a druid’s sanctuary?
Pen and paper role playing games are, to me, dynamic stories that are propelled by the active participation of many individuals. You can’t have a strong storyline without creating characters of some depth. When you create a character, you generally have their personalities, priorities, and history in mind, along with a clear vision of what your character looks and sounds like. But how does she smell? What does the world around her smell like?
In most pen and paper fantasy RPGs, three of the primary attributes that you must choose for your character are race, class, and alignment. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s RPG scent series was designed to emulate the character creation process, and are meant to be layered in order to create a character concept. In short: you layer your class, race, and the two fragrances that compose your alignment to construct your character scent. RPGs in all their myriad forms — CRPGs, MMOs, and old school pen and paper — have brought me immeasurable joy. This is my homage. This series is dedicated to my first DMs — my parents — for laughing off the nutter-perpetuated AD&D Satan Scare of the 80’s. Thanks for taking the time to play with your little girl. I miss you, and I love you.
Mary Josphine Havlak Gray –
Wet: Earthy and very foody, somewhere between potting soil and pumpkin pie. Applied to inner wrists. A very sweet, yet very masculine scent.
Dry: gets just a hint less foody, more of the earth, warmth, and spice come out to play. A little amber, but now more towards an underground thanksgiving. Definitely one of the few masculine food scents I’ve tried– very autumnal. At first, I thought the throw was limited to the skin, but over an hour, I’d get little whiffs of it as I work, like there’s a secret dwarven feast going on in a neighboring apartment. The details morph over an hour, but it remains autumnal, earthy, and delicious smelling.
c.morelock35 –
of the 8 scents i bought this one is quickly becoming my favorite for the holidays. its warm and sweet and spicy without being too cloying and candy like. another review mentions midnight on christmas eve and that really is the perfect descriptor. its what i imagine bilbos kitchen smelled like while entertaining his uninvited dwarven guest.
Jennifer –
It’s very similar to Halfling’s smell, it’s very foody. Not my type of thing but I’m hoping if it sits for a while I’ll try it again after a few months.
Jae –
This debaucherous scent has me intrigued. Its very layered and changes frequently. Like Willy Wonka and his five course meal gum, it goes from wet smashed pumpkins, to fresh apple cider, to form a musty rich amazingly enchanting autumn fragrence. I love it!
salissev –
This scent is thick, heady, and deliciously sweet. It is an autumn festival where everyone is invited. It is drunken singing, lively dancing, and non-stop feasting on harvest-time sweets. I almost want to eat this scent!
Natalie –
This oil, like so many of BPALs offerings, is best left untouched for a few months. If you’re unsure of anything from these wonderful people, leave it, leave it, leave it(!), for at least 3 months before you give up on it!
When I first received this frimp (free imp, for any new folks-it took a while for me to figure that out), it was just overwhelmingly sweet. Like all the horrors of a pumpkin spice Frappuccino. I let it sit (thank you so much, fellow BPAL lovers for this invaluable advice), and used it yesterday. It is still lingering, so it is incredibly long-lasting.
My boyfriend says I smell like Autumn, like Halloween. The fact that this is a good thing is saying something, as he also despises all things pumpkin spice. It smells warm, cozy, with the promise of cold winds, snuggling up in a blanket by a fire, needing an extra blanket in the bed, the slipping away of sultry heat, and the longing for soup, hot cocoa, and hot toddies.
Janna –
I love, love, love this scent. It’ll be a shame when I’m all out.
I love the fact that it is overwhelmingly heading when first applied, because then I’m the one that gets to enjoy the scent for a strong hour or so. By the time I’m visiting folks or running around completing errands, however, the scent isn’t so strong it’s offensive to all I’m come in contact with, yet still good enough that I can get a whiff now and then, leaving a smile on my face (as good Ale should. 😉 ).
Please, don’t change a thing about this recipe! 😀
Kyndra –
In the bottle, this blend is extremely intimidating. A cloying sweetness pretty much gave me a stiff right hook to the senses.
Applied wet, the sweet scent is powerful and not all together unpleasant but definitely not for those looking for something more subtle. It was potent enough for me to have a hard time distinguishing scents.
However, when it dries it’s positively lovely and has quite a bit of staying-power on my skin. It’s almost powdery sweetness and the honey really pulls through with a musty scent that invites me to sniff my wrists frequently.
Autumn –
When I first opened this scent, I was taken aback. The smell was too strong, an overwhelming spiciness that I couldn’t take out of the bottle, much less on me. 9 months later, however, I re-opened the bottle, and tried it again. Now, it smells a lot like a spicy, rich, dark Christmas cake. Wet on the skin, it takes a moment to get used to, but it smells like midnight on Christmas eve. Dry, and it has an enticing, subtle ginger cookie smell.