Items: Crafting materials¶
"Everything was something else first. The trick is knowing what it wants to become."
The shape of it: Materials are the inputs to crafting - herbs, pelts, ores, gems, reagents, parchments, bones. You gather them from the world (skinning, harvesting, mining, fishing) or buy them from specialty vendors. They stack, they sell, and they unlock recipes most players never see.
At a glance¶
| Categories | herbs / hides + pelts / ores / gems / reagents / bones / scrolls + paper |
| Where to find | wilderness gather, monster drops, specialty vendors, mine sites, faction-locked stalls |
| Cost tier | cheap (common herb) → mid (uncommon ore, fine pelt) → pricey (gem, rare reagent) |
| Stack size | yes - most stack tight; weight per unit still applies |
| Income | excess sells well; vendor markup is real |
How to read a material¶
examine <material> shows quality, source, and what it crafts into
(when discovered). The relevant fields:
- Source - skinning / harvesting / mining / loot / vendor.
- Quality - crude / standard / fine / superior. Higher quality inputs make higher quality outputs.
- Tag - herb / hide / ore / gem / reagent / bone / parchment. Drives which recipes accept it.
examine wolf pelt
examine iron ore
/recipes
The big categories¶
Herbs¶
Plant matter - the Herbalist's bread and butter. Each town's hinterland grows a different mix; Greenweald is the canonical abundant zone.
| Herb | Use | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Common herb | minor potions, soup | universal |
| Mosslace | healing brews | Greenweald, damp paths |
| Bloodroot | stamina brews | rocky / hillside |
| Nightcap | sleep + stealth brews | shaded glades |
| Glowcap | light + minor magic | cave entrances |
| Rare-tier herbs | specialty + endgame brews | wilderness deep, gated |
Source: harvest <herb> near a gather node. Herbalists and Rangers
spot more nodes (Perception + Survival rolls).
Hides + pelts¶
| Hide | Use | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Crude pelt | basic leather | rabbit, fox, deer (low-tier) |
| Standard pelt | leather armor | wolf, boar, bear-cub |
| Fine pelt | quality leather | bear, lynx, dire wolf |
| Hide (large) | greatcoat, heavy leather | bear, boar adult |
| Specialty | exotic gear | dire / magical creatures |
Source: skin <corpse> with a skinning knife. Quality scales with
your Skinning sub-skill and the creature's tier. Pelts sell well to
leather-workers; they're a real income stream for Rangers and
Herbalists.
Ores + ingots¶
| Ore | Tier | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Copper | low | bronze alloys, decoration |
| Tin | low | bronze alloys |
| Iron | standard | most weapons + armor base |
| Coal | fuel | smelting (not a weapon mat) |
| Steel (ingot, refined) | mid | upgraded weapons + armor |
| Silver | mid | anti-supernatural weapons, jewelry |
| Mithril (rare) | high | endgame light armor + weapons |
Source: mine <vein> with a pickaxe at mining sites. Edgeholm is
the canonical copper-tin mining frontier; iron + coal scatter widely.
Ores smelt to ingots; ingots forge to gear.
Gems¶
Cut stones - for jewelry, enchanting, and high-tier crafting. Drop from chests, dungeon loot, and rare mine veins.
| Gem | Tier | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Quartz / agate | low | low-tier jewelry, scribing |
| Garnet / amethyst | mid | jewelry, low enchanting |
| Sapphire / ruby / emerald | high | enchanting focus, named gear |
| Specialty gems | very high | quest-locked + endgame craft |
Reagents¶
Magical components - the Mage's pantry. Includes alchemical salts, spell foci dust, ritual chalks.
| Reagent | For | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Reagent crystal | spell component | Collegium vendor |
| Bone dust | necromancy | crypts, dark vendor |
| Spirit chalk | binding rituals | Necromancer, ritual shops |
| Holy water | cleric / paladin | Temple vendor |
| Wire spool | tinkerer traps | smithy / general store |
| Ink + paper bundle | scholar scribing | scriveners + scholars |
Bones + monster parts¶
| Part | Use | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bone | bone dust input, weapon hafts | skin / loot from corpses |
| Fang / tooth | jewelry, weapon affinity | predator drops |
| Claw | leather-armor reinforcement | beast drops |
| Heart / organ | rare potion ingredient | quest-tier monsters |
| Scale | scale armor, alchemy | reptilian / draconic |
| Hide (magical) | enchanted leather | rare beast drops |
Parchments + scrolls¶
Blank parchment + ink → scribed scrolls (Scholar / Mage). Higher- grade parchment holds higher-tier spells. Vellum is the upgrade tier.
Where everything comes from¶
| Source verb | Class fit | What you get |
|---|---|---|
harvest |
Herbalist, Ranger | herbs, mushrooms, plant reagents |
skin |
Ranger, Herbalist | pelts, hides, fangs, claws |
mine |
Tinkerer, Warrior | ores, raw gems, coal |
fish |
Ranger, anyone | fish, occasionally exotic catches |
| Loot drops | combat classes | bones, parts, occasional gems |
| Specialty vendor | any | crystals, holy water, reagents, ink |
The progression curve¶
| Hour | Typical activity |
|---|---|
| Hour 1-5 | Skin everything you kill. Pelts pay rent. |
| Hour 5-10 | Pick up basic crafting tools, start a recipe or two |
| Hour 10-20 | Specialise - herbalist brews, smith upgrades, mage focus |
| Hour 20-50 | Gather expeditions to specific biomes for tier-2 materials |
| Hour 50+ | Quest-locked / dungeon-deep specialty drops fuel mastercraft gear |
Edge cases¶
- Quality compounds - a fine pelt + fine tannin yields fine leather. Mixing tiers averages down. Sort your stacks.
- Reagent decay - some organic materials (fresh herbs, raw meat, uncured hides) degrade if you sit on them. Cure / dry / preserve.
- Carrying inventories of materials is heavy - a stack of 20 iron ore is real weight. Process at the smelter, sell the excess, don't haul ore halfway across the kingdom.
- Locked recipes - you can carry materials for recipes you don't know yet. The recipe gates on skill rank + discovery; the material is patient.
- Vendor markup - buying materials is always more expensive than gathering them. The trade-off is time vs gold. For one-off crafts, buy. For an ongoing kit, gather.
- Faction-locked stalls - some specialty reagents (high-grade ritual chalk, rare alchemical salts, premium ink) only appear at faction stalls past acquaintance rep. Plan accordingly.
- Stack splitting - partial use draws from the stack; you can't use a fraction of an item. Five fine pelts in a stack is five discrete pelts the recipe pulls one at a time.