History Main / ClandestineChemist

These characters are likely to overlap with MadScientist, especially if they've been [[GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply dipping into their own supply]]. On a sliding scale of criminal unpleasantness, this character is usually placed slightly higher than the PlayfulHacker, probably because DrugsAreBad. (And [[OurLawyersAdvisedThisTrope messing around with chemicals unsupervised is usually a bad idea]], for both legal and safety reasons.)

* One of the biggest LSD manufacturers in US history was William Leonard Pickard, who had a background in bacteriology and worked officially as the deputy director of the Drug Policy Research Program at UCLA. Pickard and associates had build a large facility to produce a number of psychedelic drugs in an old nuclear missile silo. Before Pickard, the most prolific manufacturer of LSD was Owsley Stanley, who also worked as sound engineer for Music/TheGreatefulDead and even designed their logo.

* Alexander Shulgin made a carreer at Dow Chemicals, and having invented a biodegradable pesticide, was left mostly to his own devices and a large budget. He then spent the rest of his life researching, synthesizing, and personally testing psychedelic compounds, and is credited with the popularization of MDMA. In an inversion of the trope, Shulgin never produced product for sale, and even worked with the DEA to help them understand new compunds, although the relationship ended after Shulgin published ''[=PiHKAL, a Chemical Love Story'', a book detailing how to produce many of the compounds he had Known and Loved.

* Alexander Shulgin made a carreer at Dow Chemicals, and having invented a biodegradable pesticide, was left mostly to his own devices and a large budget. He then spent the rest of his life researching, synthesizing, and personally testing psychedelic compounds, and is credited with the popularization of MDMA.

A character whose passion is fiddling about with chemistry sets... has taken a dark turn. In RealLife, the term "clandestine chemistry" refers to any chemical science that's being done in secret for illegal means -- usually (in fiction, almost exclusively) manufacturing drugs. Less commonly, the underground chemist may make explosives or chemical weapons. Expect the Clandestine Chemist to work out of a dingy little lab -- trailers and garages seem favorites -- and to broker his wares to the local [[TheDon crime kingpin]], with all the drama and [[DeadlyEuphemism "unplanned retirements"]] that typically accompanies a career in organized crime. However, it's not impossible for heroic types to have a need for their illicit services.

A character whose passion is fiddling about with chemistry sets... has taken a dark turn. In RealLife, the term "clandestine chemistry" refers to any chemical science that's being done in secret for illegal means -- usually (in fiction, almost exclusively) manufacturing drugs. Less commonly, the underground chemist may make explosives or chemical weapons. Expect the Clandestine Chemist to work out of a dingy little lab -- trailers and garages seem favorites -- and to broker his wares to the local [[TheDon crime kingpin]], with all the drama that typically accompanies a career in organized crime. However, it's not impossible for heroic types to have a need for their illicit services.

A character whose passion is fiddling about with chemistry sets... has taken a dark turn. In RealLife, the term "clandestine chemistry" refers to any chemical science that's being done in secret for illegal means -- usually (in fiction, almost exclusively) manufacturing drugs. Expect the Clandestine Chemist to work out of a dingy little lab -- trailers and garages seem favorites -- and to broker his wares to the local [[TheDon crime kingpin]], with all the drama that typically accompanies a career in organized crime. However, it's not impossible for heroic types to have a need for their services.

* ''Film/TheSerpentAndTheRainbow'': Mozart makes poisons and paralyzing devices that he sells to kill people, although the "clandestine" part is downplayed, since whole bars full of people in the poorest part of town observe him making deals.

* The Leech playbook in ''TabletopGame/BladesInTheDark'' naturally gravitates towards this archetype, between their default starting ability Alchemist (which allows them to research and to mix alchemical concoctions) and their signature item being a pair of bandoliers for carrying vials with alchemical substances for every purpose. The "clandestine" part comes from the fact that player characters in ''Blades'' are members of a criminal gang working under the authorities' noses.

* Another kid-friendly example from ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}''. For a school project, Doug has to interview the family members of another student in his class, and he gets assigned the Sleeches. Mr. Sleech is rumored to be a MadScientist conducting all sorts of strange experiments in his basement. And he sort of is...except that his "experimentations" consist of donut recipes. It turns out he's a baker: he works at a bakery, and appears to be trying to start his own business. Since he works at night, he's rarely seen during the day. Al and Moo tried to stop Doug from conducting the interview because they're embarrassed that he's ''not'' actually a MadScientist.

* Subverted by those Russian drug addicts who cook Krokodil ''without having the faintest idea of what happens in that process''. The result is an impure and tainted concoction, which causes lesions, gangrene and deaths. The sad thing is that the good stuff in it - desomorphine - could be purified with two simple operations, of which the cooks have usually no idea.