Make Poison

MAKE POISON IS ROGUE-ONLY. Only rogues can learn it (they gain the skill at level 20), and every poison combine is restricted to rogues. It works in the other direction too: you make the poisons, but Apply Poison is a separate skill (rogues get it at 18) that controls whether you can actually get the poison onto your weapon in the field. You need both.

Where to combine

• Mortar and Pestle — the poison container; the Marble Mortar and Pestle is the recommended one.

The governing stat

Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom — whichever is higher — governs your chance to gain a skill point on a combine. Rogues stack Dexterity anyway, so max it with gear and buffs before a skilling session. High Charisma (115+) also helps your prices with vendors, and you'll be buying a lot from them.

The recipe shape

Every poison is the same shape: a vial + a suspension + one or two reagents in the mortar and pestle. Lined Poison Vials for the early poisons, Sealed Poison Vials from Calcium Rot onward. Failed combines return the vial, so your real costs are the suspension and the reagents.

Train the first 21 points at a rogue guildmaster with training points. Then:

The cheap alternative

Fine plate dye extracts are also made with the Make Poison skill in a mortar and pestle (reagent + Empty Vial + Water Flask, trivial ~36), and the shop-bought components cost barely more than 2 gold — versus about 5 gold per suspension on real poisons. If your vials are costing you ~1.5pp each, the dye path is dramatically cheaper for the 21–36 stretch.

Where to buy

• Gildin Toxfodder in Western Karana — the classic early poison merchant. Bring coin if you're grinding.
• Ennixy Frennor in Steamfont — your King's Thorn source for the mid-game.
• Cronium Darkblade at Dagnor's Cauldron — buy supplies and combine on the spot.

The classic progression — five poisons take you from 32 to 250+. Same shape every row: vial + suspension + two reagents (Spine Break excepted). All combines in a Mortar and Pestle:

Notes on the stretch

• Your skill cap scales with level: roughly (level − 10) × 5. You can't out-skill your level, so this path paces itself with your adventuring.
• Sealed vials are the cost wall. Calcium Rot and Spirit of Sloth need Sealed Poison Vials, which are pricey — this is where a potter friend (or your own pottery skill) earns its keep.
• Sell back everything. Vendors buy your finished poisons; every poison you make and sell back softens the cost of the next combine.
• Farming reagents is not recommended — the time is worth more than the savings.

What you're actually making — and which ones matter beyond the skilling grind:

• Spine Break (trivial 32) — the entry poison. Cheap, weak, and fine for training Apply Poison.
• Athropic Sap (trivial 98) — the workhorse of the early path.
• Aching Blood (trivial 108) — a contact poison with real bite; usable, not just a stepping stone.
• Calcium Rot (trivial 172) — a solid mid-game damage poison and your apply-skill trainer through the 130s.
• Spirit of Sloth (trivial 250+) — the end of the classic path; a debuffing poison worth using at the top end.

The ones that make you money

Spider's Bite and Scorpion's Agony are usable by any class — you can trade or sell them to non-rogues. That's your whole server as a customer base: make batches, mail them to guildmates, and give the group extra damage they can't get anywhere else.

High-end poisons

Beyond the classic path sit poisons like Anemone Feedback (trivial 180), Amnesic Lolium (trivial 236), and Acidic Dissolver (trivial 258) — Larent Suspension and Sealed Vial recipes for the rogue who pushes past 250.

Making poisons is only half the trade — Apply Poison is the separate skill that gets them onto your weapon, and it can fail. The classic approach:

• Put a few training points into Apply Poison early — just 2 or 3 is enough to start practicing.
• You don't have to fight to train it: you can apply a poison to your weapon, let it sit, and apply a new one over it. Just keep laying your cheap early poisons on thick.
• Around 100+ Apply Poison skill, application is near-perfect. Train it with the cheap poisons you make skilling up — don't waste the expensive ones on practice.

By the time your Make Poison is in the 130–150 range from applying everything you craft, your Apply skill should be riding along right behind it.

Honest framing first: most rogues make poisons for themselves, so the rogue-to-rogue market is thin. The money is in everyone else:

• Spider's Bite and Scorpion's Agony are usable by any class — your only real mass-market product. Sell batches to guildmates heading into hard content.
• High-end poisons (Calcium Rot, Spirit of Sloth, and the 180+ line) for raiding rogues who don't craft — convenience buyers pay for not doing the grind.
• The dye sideline: your fine plate dye extracts feed the guild's blacksmiths — a steady, low-margin wholesale relationship. See the trade web below.
• Sell back everything you don't use. Vendor resale is the classic cost-recovery loop for this trade.

Make Poison is a small trade with two big relationships:

• Pottery → Poison: your vials. Sealed Poison Vials are expensive from vendors, and pottery makes them far cheaper (stackable Zombie Skin is the classic vial material). A potter is a poisoner's best friend — or train pottery yourself.
• Poison → Blacksmithing: fine plate dye extracts are made with the Make Poison skill in a mortar and pestle, and the guild's smiths need them for fine plate dyes. You're the dye supplier for the Blacksmithing guide's armor trade.
• Poison → everyone: Spider's Bite and Scorpion's Agony go to any class — you're the only trade that can hand the whole raid a damage consumable.

• Vials: Lined Poison Vials early, Sealed Poison Vials from Calcium Rot onward. Vendor-bought, or pottery-made for much less.
• Suspensions: Constrict Suspension (most of the path), Ethereal Suspension (Spirit of Sloth), Larent Suspension (the 180+ poisons).
• Reagents: Delphinium, Thorny Ergot, Alocasia Root, Lactera, King's Thorn, Creeper Ivy — buy from poison merchants; don't farm them.
• Classic price trick: sneak behind vendors when buying to get better Charisma-based prices — it adds up fast when you're buying in bulk.
• Key merchants: Gildin Toxfodder (Western Karana), Ennixy Frennor (Steamfont), Cronium Darkblade (Dagnor's Cauldron).

Step-by-step and reference

• EQL Wiki: Skill Make Poison — the EQL poison page (unreachable while writing this guide; try it first for EQL-specific trivials).
• Project 1999: Skill Make Poison — the classic-era poison guide this page's progression follows.
• EQTraders: Learn Make Poison — getting started and trophies.
• EQTraders: Poison Recipes — the full recipe tables with trivials.
• EQL Patch Notes (official) — tradeskill rules change; check here first.

Guild references

• Guild Blacksmithing Guide — the fine plate dye trade your extracts feed.
• Guild Alchemy Guide — the shaman potion trade.
• Guild Tailoring Guide — bags, armor, and the guild's supplier trade.
• EQL Crafting hub — all twelve trades, skill-up mechanics, and platinum strategies.