The Potion Class Notebook — A Keycap Set That Was Never Just a Keycap Set
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There’s a product in our store that most people scroll past.
That ends today.
It Starts With a Book
The Half-Blood Legend Potion Class Notebook keycap set looks exactly like what it claims to be: an old, worn notebook. Weathered pages. A metal-bound spine. A necessary instruction sheet tucked inside.
This is the design language we’ve committed to across the Great Writers Series — every set presented as a book. It started with 221B Baker Street. Once I made that first one, I couldn’t stop. A book felt right. It matched the world we were building.
So every set since has arrived the same way: bound, annotated, with a place for everything.
The Palette
Parchment and deep navy. Dark grey that leans almost black. The colors of a notebook that’s been through something.
Scattered across the surface: traces of potions. Stains. Residue. The kind of thing you’d find in a textbook that’s actually been used.
The Keys
This is where it gets serious.
The 24-key novelty row is the centerpiece — 14 individual potion keys, each one a different formula from the wizarding world’s most demanding class.
- Draught of Peace — calm in a bottle
- Elixir to Induce Euphoria — exactly what it sounds like
- Aging Potion — handle with care
- Amortentia — a coffin-shaped vial with a rose at its center
- Wiggenweld Potion — life and death in one dose
- Polyjuice Potion — and every key in the set is a step in its brewing process
That last detail matters. The Polyjuice sequence isn’t decoration. It’s a functional brewing manual, broken across the punctuation row. You can swap any of these novelties into your F-row or number row — they’re interchangeable, and every one has a source.
The Snake Key
One key deserves its own paragraph.
A snake moves across the surface of a single keycap — not printed flat, but rendered with enough depth that it feels like it’s passing through the key itself.
My design principle has always been: maximum effect, minimum cost. A flat surface that reads as three-dimensional. That’s the goal. The snake key is the clearest example of what that looks like when it works.
The Rest of the Novelties
Each key is named. Each name has a source.
- Troll’s Bile — on stone
- Phoenix Ash
- Mermaid Scale
- Dragon Blood — with the feeling of thunder
- Mandrake Root — wood grain texture, a close-up of the root itself
- Phoenix Feather — no explanation needed
- Venomous Tentacula — wings like a butterfly
Every single one is documented in the instruction sheet. Cross-reference at your leisure.
The Arrow Keys
This is the part I’m most proud of.
The Escape key is a thick, heavy notebook — the kind that holds everything.
- Up key: a spellbook, open
- Down key: a ritual circle
- Right key: a directional marker
- Left key: a memory
Four keys. Four objects. Each one a different kind of navigation.
The F-Row
Eighteen impossible potions. That’s what the F-row contains — a visual index of recipes that shouldn’t exist, rendered in the style of a potion class textbook.
Gothic lettering throughout. Alchemical symbols in the corners. Every symbol sourced from actual occult and alchemical tradition.
The Purple Key
One key breaks the palette entirely.
A single purple novelty, placed deliberately to interrupt the dark harmony of the rest of the set. I do this often — one color to crack the surface of a monochrome world. It creates tension. It creates interest.
Why purple? I think you already know.
What It Looks Like on a Keyboard
Mounted on our Great Writer 75 keyboard, dressed in black leather finish:
The Half-Blood Legend Potion Class Notebook looks like a keyboard that was once a book — and still remembers it.
That’s the idea. It was always a notebook. It just had a spell cast on it.