Crafting & economy
Make something
worth trading.
A handful of herbs becomes a healing potion. A hide becomes a travelling bag. Ore becomes a tool. Learn a craft, choose your materials and put your work into someone’s hands.
From the wild to the workshop
Turn what you gather
into what you need.
You can follow a material through every stage, or specialise in the part you enjoy. A gatherer supplies a craftsperson; a craftsperson equips another adventurer.
Gather
Gather herbs and mushrooms, skin a hunt, fell a tree or work a mine. Bring the right tool and learn to recognise what you have found.
Refine
Prepare recipe ingredients, tan a skin, hew and saw wood, or smelt ore. Skill and care shape the material you will work with.
Make
Brew from a learned recipe, choose a leather item, or follow a design or smithing plan. Make something with a purpose.
Use or sell
Carry it on your next outing, offer it to another player, or find a shop or settlement that needs it.
A hide becomes a travelling bag.
- 1. Bring back a skin
For this example, obtain a fresh moose skin from a hunter or a successful hunt. If you gather it yourself, a knife or dagger, skinning and craftsmanship help recover the hide.
skin corpse - 2. Prepare the leather
Tanning preserves and softens the skin. Train the skill and use a suitable tanning workshop.
use tanning at moose skin - 3. Work the piece
Set up leathercrafter’s equipment and estimate the skin before committing. A bag needs a large enough hide; the skin from an ordinary wolf is too small.
setup equipment
estimate moose skin for bag
make bag from moose skin - 4. Put it to work
The finished bag is a usable container with its maker recorded. Keep it for your travels or offer it for sale, then pack your equipment.
pack equipment
Wood becomes a chest.
Tree → timber → planks → storage
Loggers fell trees, hew logs and saw timber into planks. A carpenter works from a design: a chest needs planks chosen for strength and beauty. Herb boxes, barrels, canoes and wagons give the same craft very different purposes.
At the Apprentice Carpenters’ design rack, designs lists what you can buy. With the design, tools and materials ready, begin with work on new <thing>.
Ore becomes the next tool.
Ore → metal bar → forged tool → more gathering
A miner brings ore to a province smeltery. Copper and tin can become bronze; coal fuels the process. A trained smith follows a plan, forges the piece, tempers it and finalises the equipment.
Plans for mining picks, felling axes and two-man saws turn smithing back into better tools for the people gathering tomorrow’s materials.
Crafts meet at the workbench. A smith’s rings and a leathercrafter’s hide can become a ring mail vest. You do not have to make every ingredient yourself.
Alchemy
Know the ingredients.
Change the journey.
A mushroom found on your travels can become the brew you reach for later. Alchemy brings field knowledge, a growing recipe book and careful preparation into the same craft.
Herbs & mushrooms → learned recipe → brewed potion → supplies for adventure
Make a potion of health.
Mantaroot and brown boletus are ingredients in this healing brew. Learn the recipe, carry it in your recipe book and gather or buy what it calls for. In suitable outdoor terrain, gather here searches for ingredients. recipes potion of health shows the ingredients in your book.
With an alchemy set and the required supplies, craft potion of health prepares your equipment and begins the work. pack alchemy set puts the portable setup away again.
A successful brew heals injuries when used. Its potency reflects your brewing, alchemical theory, knowledge of ingredients and mastery: learning the recipe is the beginning of becoming good at it.
A recipe for the next challenge.
A potion of stamina replenishes endurance. An elixir of health can also close a bleeding wound. The craft extends to mixed medicines and salves, poisons, powders and incense, using different recipes and tools.
Learn in Atherton.
The School of Alchemy is a side guild you can pursue alongside your main adventuring guild. Yaudric teaches recipes; Aboawyr’s shop sells alchemical equipment, recipe books, empty vials, mixing bowls and herbs. Check the school’s entry and training requirements when you visit.
Learn the work
A craft needs more
than raw materials.
Training, tools and a suitable workplace matter. Start with one useful object, then grow into finer work as your skills and access improve.
| Craft | What to bring | Where to grow |
|---|---|---|
| Alchemy | An alchemy set, a learned recipe in your book, its ingredients and empty vials. Mixed medicines use a mixing bowl. | The School of Alchemy in Atherton teaches potion brewing, herbalism, mushroom knowledge, ingredient knowledge and potion evaluation. Yaudric teaches recipes. |
| Leatherwork | A usable skin, a knife and leathercrafter’s equipment. | Leathercrafters teach skinning, tanning, tailoring and leatherworking. Use a guild tanning bench; higher province leatherworks support rarer materials. |
| Carpentry | The design, its specified wood and a carpenter’s tools. | Begin with the Apprentice Carpenters. Later schools develop fine woodwork, structural timber, carving and toolmaking. check tools and maintain tools keep your kit in shape. |
| Mining & metalwork | A wielded pick for mining; ore and coal for smelting; bars, a smithing hammer and a plan for forging. | Apprentice Miners teach mining and mineral identification. Refining and smithing are later artisan specialisations. Picks wear, and better picks handle more demanding work. |
Start with leatherwork in Vaerlon.
Denso, in the Fur Trader’s Workshop off the Street of Stone Walls, offers introductory skinning and leatherworking training. Degtog’s fishing and hunting shop below the Survival Guild stocks portable leathercrafter’s equipment. Begin with an ordinary bag and a suitable skin; add tanning to your skills as you develop the full craft.
Choose for the job
The material is
part of the design.
A rarer ingredient is only useful if it suits the thing you are making. Read the design, inspect the material and use the craft’s estimate before you spend it.
Strength or beauty?
A chest calls for both. An herb box asks for quality and beauty. Structural parts have specific woods: oak beams, yew trusses, larch panels and maple joinery each have their own place in construction.
Purity and practice.
Ore purity, refining knowledge, mastery, bellows work and furnace quality affect the bar you produce. The furnace is a craft in its own right, between the mine and the forge.
A skin worth keeping.
The hunt is only the beginning. Skinning, tanning, your knife and your working equipment all matter along the way. Estimate a hide for the intended item before you cut it into a finished piece.
Beyond the workbench
Find the person
who needs your work.
Adventurers need equipment and storage. Gatherers need tools. Other makers need prepared materials. Learning what people buy is a skill alongside learning what you can make.
Use it yourself.
A potion prepares you for the next challenge; a bag carries your kit; a chest stores your belongings; a better tool supports the next task. Making something useful is a reason to craft before you have a customer.
Learn the shop’s price.
In a shop,
listshows its stock,view <number>inspects an item andvalue <item>gets an offer. Shops accept different kinds of goods.Trade with players.
Search merchant stock with
booth search <word>, including recent sale prices. Visit a booth, usebooth listfor its stock, thenbooth view <number>to inspect a piece. Direct player vendors provide another way to buy and sell.Grow into a merchant.
Booths can sell while their owners are away, with proceeds banked after tax. Merchants train appraisal, bargaining and shopkeeping. Some qualified booths also offer delivery for a runner’s fee.
A market with a place in the world.
A merchant’s covered stall needs a carpenter’s larch panels and roof frame. Better stalls use more advanced woodwork. Making, gathering and trading give players reasons to work together.
And settlements that need you.
Provinces are living settlements built and run by players. Councils develop their workshops and set local booth taxes; inhabitants and visiting adventurers keep work moving. Building supplies, meals and trade support the community as well as the individual maker.
Your next useful thing
What will you make first?
Learn a skill, gather your materials and make something you can carry into the world.