Crafting

The simplest use of a cauldron, is simply to add items to a set recipe to create a new item. The first such recipe that a new witch must learn is that of Mutandis. This mutagen is required to mutate plants into new, undiscovered species, that have relevance for witchcraft.

To create Mutandis in a Witches' Cauldron, fill it with water and let it boil, then add, Mandrake Root, Exhale of the Horned One and an Egg. Then sit back and wait for a few pieces of Mutandis to be produced. You will likely need a full stack to get going.

There are many other recipes listed in the Crafting section of the book Witches' Brews, that are created in a similar way.

Brewing Potions

Potions can be brewed in a Witches' Cauldron, a potion can have a number of different effects that will be applied one after the other. A potion has a so-called dispersal mechanism (e.g. is it drunk, thrown with an instant AOE effect, thrown with a gas effect, etc.).

When a potion is complete, an empty glass bottle should be used on the cauldron to fill it with the potion. To start with much of the potion will be wasted when doing this and only a single bottle is likely to be acquired, but with practice and later the use of Witches' Gear, a Toad Familiar and special Potions it is possible to get up to 15 potions per brewing. There may even be very rare ways to get more!

It is possible to use a glass bottle-filled dispenser (that is not pointing at the cauldron), to automatically bottle potions when it receives a redstone signal. You may need a hopper to catch them though.

Capacity

A typical potion is made by first adding ingredients that provide "space" for effects to be added. These ingredients are called capacity modifiers. They must be added in order to increase the capacity the final potion has for holding different types of effects. Think of capacity like adding slots to your potion, each effect you add afterwards requires a certain number of free slots.

If we add Mandrake, we are adding one capacity slot to out potion, if we then add Netherwart, we are adding two further slots (for a total of 3), if we then add Tear of the Goddess, we further increase the slots by two (for a total of 5 slots). It is important to remember that adding the capacity modifiers must be done in-order, adding Netherwart after tear of the Goddess will do nothing.

Power and Duration

Before we start adding effects to the potion, we may want to add more power or increase the duration of the effect. This is done by adding power and/or duration modifiers. These again must be added in-order to increase the power (or duration) of the following effect form level I up-to level IV.

To reiterate, this must be done for each effect, before you add the effect.

So if we want to increase the following effect up to power level II, we would add Glowstone. To increase the duration of the following effect to level III, we would add redstone and then obsidian. Just like the capacity upgrades, the power and duration upgrades must be added in-order.

It must be noted that a potion can only have a certain number of boosts, spread over all added effects, so the witch must decide two level IV effects and the rest level I, or four effects at level II, for example.

Effects

Now that we have provided space for an effect, and decided on the power and duration boosts, we can add an ingredient that determines the effect. Each effect will require a differing amount of capacity slots depending on how complex (or powerful) it is. For example, the Tilling Effect only consumes one capacity slot, whereas Shifting Seasons (changing a biome) requires 8 slots. This obviously means that we can create a potion that has many "level 1" effects, but only very few high level effects.

After we have added an effect, we must then add power and duration boost before we add the next effect (if another effect is desired).

All effects and their level (i.e. number of capacity slots needed) are listed in the book Witches' Brews.

Let us assume we want to make a potion of fire resistance, damage boost III and long duration night vision. We would add ingredients as follows:

Set capacity, each of these effects require 2 slots, so we must make 6 slots available, add: netherwart, tear of the goddess and diamond vapor

Add fire resistance effect, add: magma cream

Set power for damage effect to level III, add: glowstone, blaze rod

Add damage effect, add: blaze powder

Set duration for night vision effect to level II, add: redstone

Add night vision effect, add: golden carrot

Now use a empty glass bottle on the cauldron to obtain the potion (practice, witches' gear, toad familiars, and other potion effects will determine how many bottles you can get from a specific cauldron).

Dispersal

By default a potion will be of the drinkable variety, there are however ways to change that. After the potion effects have all been added, it is possible to add further ingredients to set the dispersal. But before we do this, we may want to augment the extent and duration (lingering) of the dispersal method. To do this (in much the same way as we did with power and duration of effects, we must add the appropriate ingredients, before we add the dispersal method (these ingredients for extent and lingering differ from the power and duration  boosts).

The following dispersal methods can be added to a potion:

Splash - Adding either water artichoke or gunpowder to the potion will turn it into a splash potion, when thrown this potion will apply its effects to all creatures (and or blocks) near the impact point, to a range determined by the extent boosts. The further from the impact point the less effective the effects will be. Lingering boosts have no effect on this dispersal type.

Gas - Adding Wool of Bat to the potion will turn it into a gas potion, when thrown it will explode into a gas cloud that will expand out to fill nearby air blocks. The effects of the potion will get applied (with a reduce effect) to any creatures in the gas cloud. The extent to which the cloud expands, and the amount of time it stays for is determined by the Extent and Linger boosts.

Liquid - Adding XX to the potion will turn it into a liquid potion, when thrown it will break, releasing a liquid onto the floor that will flow out (like water). Any creatures in the liquid, or blocks touched by it can have the potion effects applied to it. The amount of time the liquid stays is determined by the linger boost (extent has no effect on this dispersal type).

Triggered - Adding a Zombie Head to the potion will turn it into a triggered dispersal, normally used for cursing objects, when bottled, it may be thrown onto a button, level, wooden door or pressure plate, and when that item is next used, the potion effects will be applied to whomever used it. Multiple instances of the same potion may be applied to the same block to allow multiple charges.

Altar Power

The final element of brewing a potion, is the Alta Power cost of an ingredient. Each ingredient may require a certain amount of altar power to be used. If a cauldron is bubbline but there ar no particles flying out of it, then you do not have enough power in your altar.

Other Modifiers

There are other modifiers that may be used with a potion to achieve other general effects, such as reducing the drinking speed, changing the potions color, disabling an effect from applying to an entity or block, disabling particle effects, etc. A full list of these modifiers and corresponding ingredients can be found in the Witches' Brews book.

Casting Spells with Rituals

Instead of bottling a brew, it is possible to cast a full cauldron as a spell. This has a number of additional steps and caveats that must be considered.

Targeting

The first consideration is how to target the spell. This can be done in one of three ways, either:

Targeted at the location of the cauldron, for this to occur just add Tongue of Dog to the finished Brew

Targeted somewhere in the world (or another dimension) - First add a waystone bound to the location, then add Tongue of Dog

Targetted on a player or creature - Add a taglock kit for that player or creature.

Range

The second consideration is the range of the target from the cauldron. If a target is selected that is far away, the spell will often fail, the range of the spell can be increased by using a larger coven (whether Coven Witches or other players with familiars). Up to 7 witches can participate in total to increase the range up to anywhere in the same world. To cast a ritual across dimensions, a full coven is needed and a Shade of Leonard must be summoned.

Power boosts

Power boosts applied to effects will not apply unless a coven of sufficient size is present (up to a maximum of 7 witches).

Altar Power

In general, casting a brew as a spell, uses more altar power then bottling potions, so be prepared for this. It is possible to surround the cauldron with circle glyphs to reduce the power costs, white circles reduce the costs moderately, infernal circles, reduce the costs significantly (but increase the risks).

Please note these circles are different from those used in Circle Magic only rites.

Side Effects

Casting spells from cauldrons does carry the risk of side effects, such as aliments or worse, surrounding the cauldron with two white circles will mitigate these side effects, while using infernal circles (and obtaining cheaper power requirements) will increase the chance of a side effect. Casting with a Shade of Leonard nearby will always carry some risk of side-effects.

Dispersal

The dispersal method for a brew behaves differently when the brew is cast as a ritual (when using tongue of dog, an dispersal ingredient is always required):

Splash - Location targeted, general will only hit the targeted point, although the effect may differ.

Gas - This dispersal becomes an expanding wave from the targeted point, that applies the effect to any creature that it hits.

Liquid - This dispersal becomes a rain effects, droplets falling from the sky, applying their effects to whatever they hit.

Triggered - This will cause the effect to be added to an item that is put (thrown) on top of the cauldron when the ritual completes. If no item is above the cauldron the ritual fails. When this item is next used (right click), the applied effects will occur on the user. The same brew can be applied multiple times to the item. This method is the typical way to curse a book when read, or make poisonous apples, etc.

Failed Rituals

When a ritual fails, you will see colored smoke that will indicate the reason why it has failed. The brew will not be consumed in such cases and the ritual trigger (taglock kit or tongue of dog will be spat out).

Red Smoke - The circles around the target (and/or source) sites are incorrect

Blue Smoke - Coven witches are required

Yellow Smoke - Not enough altar power

Green Smoke - Target too far away

Purple Smoke - Generic other reason