ToME WikiNo spoilers here, please.
NO SPOILERS HERE!
Alchemists are the only class that can harness the abilities of the essences found in the dungeon. They can add these essences to staves, rings, wands, rods, and sometimes weapons and armor to create new items or recharge old ones. They can also extract essences from magical items they find. Using these abilities, Alchemists can get very good items at low levels. The trouble is getting them to survive later on.
Alchemists are extremely proficient with all kinds of magical devices, and have made a fine art of extracting, storing, and using these objects' magical energies. Because they neither fight well nor cast powerful spells, alchemists rely on their craftsmanship to cope with the dangers of the dungeons. They will quickly learn to create damage- dealing wands, rods, and staffs, forge powerful weapons and armour, make highly useful objects of other kinds, and eventually, at great cost to other knowledge, they can learn the perilous art of artifact creation itself.
Starting stat modifiers, starting Skills, innate abilities and starting equipment: Please see the in-game help.
For more information on the Alchemical Powers, see this page.