Alchemy

Alchemy is an area of science describing a variety of mutable laws about how the universe works.  Although at its core Alchemy isn't compatible with Physics, for much of the early history in Poneren, it worked due to people's belief that it would work.  After the discovery of atoms, Alchemy began to decline and eventually died out, becoming a legend of "the crazy things people used to believe".  

History

A couple hundred years after the founding of the Teles Council, reports of alchemists began cropping up. The more reports, the more people tried, and the more that people tried, the more alchemists were able to do.   The discipline of Alchemy lasted for roughly two hundred years across Murriet before it was abolished along with all other sciences. Over the next several centuries, Berkham was the only nation to accept alchemists. However, the more they learned, the less they were seen to be "real" scientists.   By the time the Emswort/Berkham War ended, Alchemy had mostly died out in Berkham. With the end of the war and re-acceptance of science throughout the remainder of Murriet, Alchemy had a temporary resurgance.   Eventually, however, it fell into disfavor, with either pure magic or physics being a preferred means to the end that alchemy was attempting to reach.  

Skills

Alchemy is most known for the skills it teaches in transmuting matter of one type into another. Turning lead into gold is just one example, but probably both the most famous and lucrative such.