Forge

forge is how a smith turns metal bars into a weapon, a piece of armour or a tool. You need a plan, the bars it asks for, your smithing hammer and a forge with a working table. The Professional Smiths teach the craft.

Where to forge

The work is done at the forge of a province workshop. The stone forge in the Smiths' hall and in the city smithies has no working table: it can heat temper a piece, but nothing new is forged there. The higher the workshop's tier (Restored, Improved, Advanced), the finer the piece can be and the further it can teach your art of forging. A derelict workshop forges nothing until it is repaired.

In a workshop, forge on its own lists the services its smiths sell, such as sharpening, and pull <item> from bin sends a runner for bars from your storehouse bin.

The steps

1. Lay out the bars. place 3 steel bars on working table, or place all steel bars on table. look at working table shows what you have on it and take <bar> from working table takes one back. No one else can see or use your bars, but anything left on the table is lost when the world restarts.
2. Forge the piece. forge <main metal> following <plan>, for example forge bronze following plan 1. Carry the plan with you. It names its main metal and how many bars it needs, and the work uses those bars from the table.
3. Heat temper it. forge heat temper <item>, for example forge heat temper tin dagger. Tempering makes the metal tougher and costs endurance.
4. Finish it. use equipment finalization at <item> burnishes and sharpens a weapon, or polishes armour and fits it to the race it was made for. Finishing needs an Improved or Advanced workshop forge.

You need your smithing hammer to forge and to temper, and you cannot work while riding, fighting or unable to see. Charms of smithing or craftsmanship make both forging and tempering faster.

Which metals

Each metal asks for knowledge of its own craft, and the harder metals in a group ask for more of it:

Metals	Knowledge
tin, lead, aluminium	knowledge of tinsmithing
copper, brass, bronze	knowledge of coppersmithing
iron, steel, fine steel	knowledge of blacksmithing
silver	knowledge of silversmithing
gold, platinum	knowledge of goldsmithing

Intricate armour asks for more than the metal alone. Begin with simple pieces, such as a cap, bracers or a buckler, and work up to heavier armour as your knowledge and mastery of metals grow.

Fine steel is forged from steel and iron bars, not from fine steel bars. Lay out half the bars the plan asks for, rounded down, plus one, of each metal: a fine steel dagger that needs one bar takes one steel bar and one iron bar, and plate mail that needs seven takes four of each.

Mithril, adamantium, iceron, titanium and the other rare metals are never forged into new pieces. A smith can still work on pieces that others made of them.

Plans

Sobrin sells weapon, armour and tool plans in her shop below the Hall of the Master Artisans in Vaerlon. Fine steel plans also turn up in the discovery chests of province mines, and the deep chests hold gold and platinum plans as well.

See also

Smiths, Art of forging, Metal tempering, Equipment finalization, Mastery of metals, Shops