There are many, many types of Grist, which are used to build various kinds of stuff and things. Roughly speaking, there are two categories of Grist:
- Build Grist, which is always available, and
- Strife Grist, which is specific to certain Lands.
You choose what kind of Grist is available on your Land during Entry. Each Land has three types of Strife Grist on it, plus Build Grist, for a total of four options when you go Grinding. Bear in mind that, if you have unlocked access to another player's Land, you can get Grist from their Land as well as from yours.
Build Grist is used to make House Features, which are described in more detail in the chapter on your House.
Strife Grist is used both for House Features and for Alchemy. Each kind of Strife Grist also has an associated stat, which you picked during Entry. This is relevant for Alchemy, so be sure to write it down.
Grist can be gathered by Grinding--taking some time to fight various smaller enemies so that you can gather lots of little bits of Grist. You can also receive large supplies of Grist from defeating major bosses, but for the most part, you'll rely on Grinding to acquire more Grist.
Grinding can only be done if everyone in the party agrees to it. If someone wants to do something important, that comes first! Grinding can always wait for later.
Once everyone's agreed to grind, everyone gains an amount of Grist of any type equal to their Strife Score plus their Abilitech Score. You can split this between any number of Grist types, as long as you have access to them (i.e., they're on your Land or on a Land you can get to).
Bear in mind that Grinding will not always be free. Depending on what's going on in the session, the GM may decide that something has happened while you were out grinding, or may inform you that a terrible fate is creeping closer…
Once you've added the Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe, Alchemiter, and Punch Designix House Features to your House, you can start using Grist to alchemize things.
Most of the time, you're going to be Alchemizing some kind of equipable item--something you can put in your Strife Specibus, some new clothes to make you look cooler and harder to kill, or something that grants you some kind of tangible benefit. Whatever the case, these items are all grouped together as your Portfolio. Items in your Portfolio contribute bonuses to your Base Stats, which then increase your Derived Stats. Note that you don't have to decide what you have equipped--every item you've made provides its bonus at all times. You're always juggling between weapons in combat, after all--this is SBURB.
Whether you're making clothes, weapons, or something else, everything needs a name. If you can't come up with something, try picking a random object around the room and thinking of how to combine it with something you've already made.
Your equipment is going to give you various stats when you've finished Alchemizing it. These stats are determined by what kinds of Grist you add to the recipe--and are capped by your Alcheminsignia Rank.
For every 10 Grist you add to a recipe, you add +1 of that Grist type's stat to the final stats of the item. The maximum amount of Grist you can add to each weapon is 100 times your Alcheminsignia Rank--so at Alcheminsignia Rank 1, you can add up to 100 Grist of each type, for a total of +10 to that Grist's stat.
Once you've finished creating the recipe, you can now spend the Grist, which enables the item. Once you do this, add the bonuses to your stat sheet--you should keep track of item bonuses for each stat separately from the base stat, so you can tell the difference between the stats you've gained from the Echeladder and the stats you've gained from your items.
If you get to this part and realize you don't have enough Grist, don't throw out the work you've done so far. You can simply mark the item as Not Finished, and save the recipe for when you've done some more Grinding.
If you want to make something that doesn't give you any mechanical benefits (like bonus stats), you can make it for free. It's assumed that you simply killed a couple imps or something to get the grist for it. It's not necessary to track grist costs for things that don't affect your numbers or give you access to new gameplay stuff.