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Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,<br />
For a charm of powerful trouble, <br />
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."''|'''The Three Witches''', ''[[Macbeth (Theatre)|Macbeth]]''}}
 
The [[Spell Construction|material (or immaterial) component]] you [[Ritual Magic|need to call forth a spell]] or activate a superpower. It's not as simple as just spending [[Mana]], though. You may need to burn a pinch of sulphur, or to sacrifice the soul of your first born child. Either way, you've got to pay the price before you can throw lightning from your fingertips. If the value of what's sacrificed ''has'' to equal the value of what's gained, it's [[Equivalent Exchange]].
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* [[Insubstantial Ingredients|Non-physical components]] - bottled moonlight or the sound of a cat's footsteps.
 
[[Black Magic]] often requires [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child|ingredients]] that are a [[Moral Event Horizon]] just to collect.
 
Sometimes this trope is used to justify [[Plot Coupons]] as necessary ingredients. Improbably specific requirements can be used to set up impossible challenges. If one of the 'ingredients' happens to be the caster's immortal soul, then it's a [[Deal Withwith the Devil]]. A reusable ingredient is a specialised form of [[Magic Wand]].
 
Compare with the [[Magical Incantation|actual words of the spell]], and associated [[Magical Gesture|Magical Gestures]].
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== Film ==
 
* Parodied in the movie ''[[Robin Hood: Men in Tights (Film)|Robin Hood: Men in Tights]]'', where Latrine is apparently putting together a scrying spell with all sorts of gooey ingredients, including "eyeballs of a crocodile". A moment later we learn she's not a witch at all; [[Squick|she's the cook]].
* ''[[Warlock]]'' used the body fat of a non-baptised child as a levitation potion. Baptise your children, people!
* You know that song the choir's singing near the beginning of ''[[Harry Potter]] 3''? Taken directly from [[The Scottish Trope|The Scottish Play]]. "In the cauldron boil and bake fillet of a fenny snake..." and of course the inevitable [[Inadvertent Entrance Cue|something wicked this way comes]] finish.
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== Literature ==
 
* ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' magicians sometimes need components to [[Equivalent Exchange|make sure their spells work within the laws of physics]]. When teleporting, for example, an equal mass is usually displaced from wherever the wizard plans to get to.
** In addition, we often see witch spells requiring ingredients, such as in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Wyrd Sisters|Wyrd Sisters]]'', a direct sendup of ''Macbeth'' which contains a scene parodying the above quote. The cottage Magrat lives in used to belong to a "[[Sufficiently Analyzed Magic|research witch]]", who asked questions like "it's all very nice to say 'eye of newt', but what ''species'' of newt? And would it still work if you substituted something less icky?" and wrote all her research down in dozens of volumes.
* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series many spells ''used'' to require hard to find physical components, but as successive generations of wizards improved the spells the components were changed to easier to find substitutes, and eventually the spells were perfected to the point where they needed no components at all. The modern-day characters which the series follows only rarely have to cast a spell which requires any sort of physical component.
* In the book ''[[The Princess Bride (Literaturenovel)|The Princess Bride]]'' we are told that they had to search for strange components before Miracle Max could do a miracle, but we aren't shown it because it would take too long.
* Ingredients in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' potions include a bezoar and bicorn horn, and the brewing of Polyjuice Potion involved particular parts of a lunar cycle.
* ''[[The Dresden Files (Literature)|The Dresden Files]]'' sometimes uses non-physical components gathered under specific conditions. E.g Harry had to be truly happy in order to gather sunlight into a handkerchief.
** Potions specifically need 8 ingredients. A base liquid, one for each sense as well as the spirit and the mind. A love potion, for example used tequila as a base, money for the mind, chocolate for taste, perfume for smell, lace for touch, a sigh for sound, candlelight for sight, and the ashes of a romance novel for spirit (though it probably would have worked a little less ''sleazily'' if they hadn't used substitutes for the original base, mind and spirit ingredients - champagne, powdered diamond and the ashes of a love letter.)
** Ordinary magic can be done without physical ingredients or foci, but no-one does it that way. You can just create the things you need in your mind, but if your mental image slips just a little, your spell will fail. Trying to do it that way, rather than with a physical object, is much more difficult and makes no difference in effect, so no-one bothers unless the midden hath hit the windmill, big time.
* [[Ethshar|Ethsharian]] wizardry uses ingredient like this - a raindrop caught in midair, the blood of an unborn child.
* One of the characters in ''[[Iron Council (Literature)|Iron Council]]'' is a monk from a special order that discovers secrets. To do so, however, the monk has to sacrifice one of his/her own memories or abilities each time he digs up new info.
* In ''[[The Neverending Story (Literaturenovel)|The Neverending Story]]'', Bastian discovers that every time he uses his amulet to "change" things, he sacrifices one of his own memories. Eventually, he develops full amnesia. {{spoiler|He gets better.}}
* In ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber (Literature)|Dream of the Red Chamber]]'', Precious Virtue's Cold Perfume Pill has a vast list of peculiar ingredients which are so rare they can only make a batch every twenty years or something.
* In the ''[[Enchanted Forest Chronicles]]'', Cimorene searches in vain for months to find some hen's teeth so that she can complete a spell to protect her against fire (she's employed by dragons). She eventually has to get them from a genie.
* A couple of books from ''[[KushielsKushiel's Legacy]]'' use this trope; the end of the first series ('Kushiel's Avatar' I believe) has the bone-priests that {{spoiler|only get their power by sacrificing someone that they love. The Mharkagir tries this with Phedre but she kills him instead; [[Monty Python and The Holy Grail|and there was much rejoicing.]]}}. 'Kushiel's Mercy' (end of the second series) has Carthage trying to take over Terre D'Ange with some pretty involved magic. The stone trapping the elemental has some pretty [[Nightmare Fuel|icky]] requirements ( {{spoiler|infanticide being the big one}}) and the needle that afflicts Imriel with madness (and thus saves him from the bigger spell the Carthaginians are casting) requires toad-bile, lunatic sweat and being left in the light of the full moon (and NOT being in any other light) for a full month. Wonder what the process was for finding all that out.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[A Witch Shall Be Born (Literature)|A Witch Shall Be Born]]" the title witch does not want this kind of magic.
{{quote| ''I could never endure to seclude myself in a golden tower, and spend the long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumbling over incantations written on serpent's skin in the [[Blood Magic]] of [[Virgin Power|virgins]], poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.''}}
** In "[[The Tower of the Elephant (Literature)|The Tower of the Elephant]]", the rope
{{quote| ''It was woven from the tresses of dead women, which I took from [[Grave Robber|their tombs]] at [[When the Clock Strikes Twelve|midnight]], and steeped in the deadly wine of the upas tree, to give it strength.''}}
** In "[[The People of the Black Circle (Literature)|The People of the Black Circle]]," they needed the king's hair.
{{quote| ''All discarded portions of the human body still remain part of it, attached to it by intangible connections. The priests of Asura have a dim inkling of this truth, and so all nail trimmings, hair and other waste products of the persons of the royal family are carefully reduced to ashes and the ashes hidden. But at the urgent entreaty of the princess of Khosala, who loved Bhunda Chand vainly, he gave her a lock of his long black hair as a token of remembrance. When my masters decided upon his doom, the lock, in its golden, jewel-encrusted case, was stolen from under her pillow while she slept, and another substituted, so like the first that she never knew the difference. Then the genuine lock travelled by camel caravan up the long, long road to Peshkhauri, thence up the Zhaibar Pass, until it reached the hands of those for whom it was intended.''}}
* In ''The Patchwork Girl of Oz'', one of [[L. Frank Baum]]'s [[Land of Oz (Literature)|Oz books]], Ojo is collecting the ingredients to restore people from [[Taken for Granite|statues]]. He is arrested for collecting a six-leafed clover; Ozma made it illegal to collect such ingredients because people refused to obey her anti-magic law. Later, he finds the hardest -- a drop of oil from a living man -- which is from the Tin Woodman. Alas, he also needs the left wing of a yellow butterfly, and the Tin Woodman refuses to allow a butterfly to be harmed for the spell. Luckily, Glinda the Good doesn't need these ingredients.
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[ProsperosProspero's Daughter]]'' trilogy, phoenix lamps, lit by phoenix feathers, and the Water of Life, retrieved from a well at the edge of world, are the first of many, many, many such items.
* In ''[[War of the Dreaming (Literature)|War of the Dreaming]]'' by [[John C. Wright]], magicians use symbolic objects to compel obedience from the spirits who respond to them--such as moon rocks from the Apollo missions.
 
== Live Action TV ==
 
* Obligatory ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' mention. Various ritual spells require various components, some even require the [[Eye of Newt]].
** Although in an interesting subversion?/aversion?/inversion? It is shown that it doesn't need to be an actual newt, since a frog's eye works just as well.
** In ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' Wesley is analysing a [[Fantastic Drug]] which has PCP-like effects on demons, and mentions that Eye of Newt has been added to improve the taste rather than the kick.
* Potion ingredients are the [[Plot Coupon|plot coupons]] in ''[[The Legend of Dick and Dom (TV)|The Legend of Dick and Dom]]''; to cure their kingdom from plague, they need to collect two seasons' worth of ingredients like a dragon's [[Bizarre Alien Biology|clack]], the mists of time, baby vampire vomit, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a pint of milk]].
* In ''[[Charmed (TV)|Charmed]]'', potions sometimes require these, but good ones usually use more benign herbs.
 
== Tabletop Games ==
 
* A number of spells in many versions of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' (AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, and D&D Third Edition) require use of material components. For standard spells, like ''fireball'', this requires something trivial and commonplace (like bat guano and sulfur rolled into a ball) that one can BS away by having a spell pouch on them. For more powerful spells, like Raise Dead, you're expected to pay cash money to use them (in the form of a pile of diamonds worth 5000 gp).
** Bat guano as seen in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html this] ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' webcomic (see the image at the top of this page). 5000 gp worth of diamonds mentioned in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0286.html this] one.
*** Toyed with in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0677.html this one], with the valuation being crucial to the spell.
** Still, if that sort of thing isn't easy enough for you, there are feats like Eschew Materials (which is [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]], for material components that don't mention a money cost), prestige classes like the runecaster, which allow you to replace expended material components with permanent rune-carved objects (one wonders what the replacement for ''fireball'' is...a little stone ball with "bat poo and sulfur" carved in Draconic?), and others.
*** Why not "Burn!" or "[[Girl Genius|Everything goes boom!]]" on Ignan?
** D&D Fourth Edition has removed this from standard spells, but the more powerful rituals require material components.
* Similarly, material components, while not ''needed'' for most spells in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]]'', did provide a (generally trivial but) much appreciated bonus to your spellcasting attempt.
* In ''[[Mage: The Awakening|Mage: the Awakening]]'' extended spellcastings are made easier by the sacrifice of a 'sacrament'; an item metaphorically relevant to the spell being cast (for example, burning a map to create a portal).
** Also, for Archmasters to cast an Imperial (i.e. godlike) spell, they require a 'Quintessence', a metaphorical component, such as an ingredient or event.
** "Gross matter", substances which can be imprinted with magic (effectively making potions) can only be manufactured by gathering materials thematically relevant for the kind of gross matter you are trying to make (different kinds can be imprinted with different spells; for example, spells that affect perception need to be imprinted into eye drops), before using a spell to transform it.
* In ''Urban Arcana'', the modern day [[Dungeon Punk]] variant for [[D 20D20 Modern]], a special variant of spellcasting called "Incantations" are available. These Incantations are lengthy yet powerful procedures that require materials appropriate to the spell in question. For instance, demon summoning would likely require a virgin sacrifice and an obsidian knife, whereas the consecration of a building would require holy water and a recitation of prayer.
* Ritual magick in ''[[Unknown Armies (Tabletop Game)|Unknown Armies]]'' has this as its great drawback. Rituals may need anything from a scratched brass doorknob to [[Eye Scream|your own eyeball]] to "acres and acres of burning tires".
* ''[[GURPS (Tabletop Game)|GURPS Magic]]'' mostly handwaves these away: most spells require some sort of unspecified material components, but wizards usually have what they need on hand. The [[Game Master]] is advised to elaborate on this if a shortage of a component would help [[Game Breaker|curb abuse of a problematic spell]], or just provide plot hooks. ''GURPS Thaumatology'' provides optional elaboration on this, and its alternate magic systems go into detail about the use of material components in folklore and fiction.
 
== Theatre ==
 
* The [[Trope Namer]] comes from the witches song in ''[[Macbeth (Theatre)|Macbeth]]''.
 
== Video Games ==
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** ''The Elder Scrolls'' also has a whole alchemy system that allows you to use ingredients with set effects to make potions with those effects. Or you can just eat them and get their effects for a brief time, even though some of the ingredients are plainly inedible. (Raw Glass, anyone?)
*** You still need to have a high enough alchemy skill just to get all the effects of eating it directly. It's [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]] that it has to do with a specific way you chew it.
* According to [[Wario Ware (Video Game)|Ashley]]'s theme, an eye of newt is a component of one of her favorite hexes.
** And Grandma's wig and kitten's spit!
* [[Ninja|Ninjas]] in ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' require ninja tools to perform their ninjutsu spells. The sheer amount of tools used to [[Stone Wall|tank]] (No, Really), as well as the cost of the other tools make Ninja one of the most expensive jobs in the game.
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== Western Animation ==
 
* An episode of ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures (Animation)|Jackie Chan Adventures]]'' dealing with a [[Jiangshi]] had what's probably a parody of the third type - to permanently banish the hopping corpse, Jackie and colleagues were required to take a toadstool from a graveyard, place it in the Jiangshi's own left sock (which, of course, it wasn't about to just hand them), and throw the sock into a river.
** That's not a parody, people actually believed that, though usually the sock was filled with rocks or soil from the vampire's grave. And yes, Chinese vampires hop.
** A lot of Uncle's spells in general follow this theme where certain items are needed. The animal location spells each required an item going along with that animal.
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