ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Overall, I like the way these quest lines function, but...

Once I learned where they all were after my first couple characters I now just immediately go receive all of them, as it seems like a waste not to do since the quest items only drop once you start the quest. Considering how easy it is to move around the world map, there's not even any real danger from doing this early. This feels like a chore on all my new characters.

Maybe have it so that only one of the alchemist quests can be active at any one time? Alternatively, let the monsters drop their quest items before the quest is even undertaken (but not after completion).

1 Is a straight nerf. Yes, doing that feels like a chore, disabling it doesn't mean you 'have to' do a chore less, but you CAN'T DO something that makes things easier.
2 would be nice and make these quests far less annoying but...it hard to justify narratively as things are now - you happen to be looking for the parts of some specific monsters right from the start? That would only makes sense to me if you actually started with the alchemist quest or had 'heard' of it'.
Like, before becoming an adventurer, you heard some alchemists are interested in body parts and thus you could eventually put them to use. Bit hard to justify for undead and yeek, however.

Easy solution: add the brotherhood of alchemists to one of the towns (probably last hope). Going into it should inform the player of this year's applicants (currently 4 alchemists), should allow you to select an alchemist, and look at help the alchemist is seeking, etc

You could still get the quests normally, but this would allow veteran players to get all the quests in one fell swoop.

To prevent new players from missing out on seeking/finding the alchemists, you could keep the brotherhood of alchemists from awnsering their door untill you help one of the alchemists or complete the whole quest with one of your characters.