Forging guide

For those that don't know the difference between nuggets, bars, fragments, lumps, ingots or rocks of any size.

DIR FORGING SOCIETY will get you to the Forging Society building in the Crossing or in Riverhaven. In the society's room descriptions you will see bookstore, tools, supplies (all in different rooms); use ORDER when you see these rooms.

The forging craft consists of 3 disciplines: Blacksmithing, Weaponsmithing, and Armorsmithing.

Required Tools, Instructions, and Materials

The bookstore room is where you buy a book of instructions. The apprentice book is cheapest and will get you to 200 ranks. You will then need to upgrade to a journeyman book which costs 15 plat. The journeyman book will train to 700 ranks. Note those skill levels are based on having no techniques in the three craft areas. The more techniques you get, the quicker you have to move up to a more expensive book. So buy the apprentice blacksmithing book first. If you want to later you can get the apprentice weaponsmithing book and the apprentice armorsmithing book. To start with I will show you how to smelt and refine and then how to make things in blacksmithing.

All forging crafts require the following tools:

• Bellows
• Forging hammer
• Forging oil
• Shovel
• Tongs

Additional tools may be necessary for some tasks and will be noted:

• Aerated salts: Used to repair crucibles.
• Borax flux: Used in metal refining.
• Pliers: Used for crafting, lightening, and reinforcing metal armor and shields.
• Stirring rod: Used to smelt and refine metal ingots in a crucible.
• Wire brush: Used for metal item repair, as well balancing and honing weapons.

All of these tools are available at the Forging Society, such as in the eastern room of the Crossing Forging Society. Use ORDER to see a list and to place an order. Player made versions of many of these can be found at the shops in the Plaza, and are of higher quality. In addition, rarely there are some higher quality tools sold at festival shops.

Last note about tools: brushes, flux, and oil have limited usage. They do run out, and you have to buy more. The salts get used up the moment you use them. COUNT MY BRUSH will show you how many uses are left, same for oil or flux.

Lastly, nuggets and ingots of material can also be purchased from the Society using ORDER in the right area. Other sources of material include creature drops, boxes and mining.

Smelting and Refining Walkthrough

Please do not choose any techniques yet and do NOT choose a hobby or a career yet. While techniques can be unlearned (at considerate expense), career and hobby choices are permanent.

Your first goal is to get a basic set of tools from the Forging Society's equipment room using ORDER and ORDER <#>. In the Crossing, this is located on the east side. Purchase a stirring rod, a shovel, and a set of bellows.

Your second goal is to do something basic to train some forging. In the supplies room, if you type ORDER, you will see items you can purchase. Order a huge bronze for 562 copper Kronars, this will yield 5 volume of bronze.

Explore the rooms in the building and TAP CRUCIBLE, TAP ANVIL, TAP FORGE and you will gradually see how things are arranged. In the Crossing Forging Society, there are four crucibles on the west side of the building. As only one person can use a crucible at a time, find a room that is empty or wait for one to become empty. Use common courtesy, if a room is occupied by someone try another room or wait for it to become empty before attempting to use the tools there.

Next we will cover the manual steps for smelting and then refining any metal into an ingot usable for forging.

Smelting Metal

Smelting is simply the process of melting down the metal and forming it into an ingot. It is the starting point not only for blacksmithing items, but also for training weaponsmithing and armorsmithing. For now, this process teaches Forging up to about 75 ranks with standard metals.

Begin by placing your bronze ingot into the crucible using PUT MY INGOT IN CRUCIBLE. A crucible can hold up to 22 ingots/nuggets/etc or up to 210 volume, whichever comes first. In addition, it cannot hold more than eight different metal types. Metal nuggets are found in seven sizes.

With your stirring rod in hand, STIR CRUCIBLE WITH MY ROD (you can use MIX instead of STIR as well), until a problem occurs. You can get a number of messages such as stirring works perfectly, but eventually you will receive one of the following messages:

• If the metal starts forming lumps or cooling in places, TURN CRUCIBLE WITH MY ROD.
• If the fire is unable to consume its fuel, hold a set of bellows and PUSH MY BELLOWS.
• If the fire runs out of fuel, hold a shovel and PUSH FUEL WITH MY SHOVEL.

Once you have fixed the problem, return to STIRring until either another problem occurs or the ingot is poured out.

The basic theme is to keep stirring until you complete the product and have a cooled ingot in hand. This process is made easier by the Basic Metal Smelting technique, though it is not required.

Refining Metal

The only difference between refining and smelting is that you POUR MY FLUX INTO CRUCIBLE to start the process. From that point forward, either deal with a problem or stir the crucible with your rod just like you were smelting an ingot. Refining only works on a single ingot.

The purpose of refining is to raise the quality (sometimes called purity) of the metal, but has the side effect of reducing the volume by 50%. If you possess the Proficient Refining Technique, the reduction is instead 20% or less (see Advanced Refining for a more thorough discussion).

The higher quality of an ingot, the easier it is (less skill needed) to masterfully-craft an item with it. Generally, if a metal ingot is not at least 70 quality, you cannot create a masterfully-crafted item from it. There are three techniques you can get that allow you to better work with non 99 quality ingots in each Forging discipline (Master Metallurgy, Armorcraft Metallurgy, and Weaponcraft Metallurgy).

Crafting Deeds

At this point you may wish to stop. You don't want to carry around a huge chunk of metal all day. This is where deeds and deed registers come in.

First, you will need a deed packet. This packet is found in the room where you purchased your metal from. Use ORDER and you will see they are numbers 13, 14, 15. The small packet has 10 forms, the packet has 50, and the large packet has 100. For now get the small deed packet that is number 13.

Secondly, look for a clerk in the building. In the Crossing Forging Society building he is in the eastern section by the crate. ASK CLERK FOR REGISTER. He will give you a register that you can put deeds in (up to 50). Note you can only have one deed register, asking for a second just gives you a copy of the first.

Do not do the following, unless you are ready to stop, as it takes ten minutes for deeds to become redeemable.

The deed packet works so that if you have your ingot in one hand and the packet in the other and use PUSH MY INGOT WITH MY PACKET, then you have deeded the ingot. Then put the packet away and get the register out.

To then store the deed, TURN REGISTER TO PAGE <#> to set the register to the page you wish to store it on, and PUT DEED IN MY REGISTER. You can also TURN REGISTER TO CONTENTS then READ MY REGISTER to see what you have. To get the deed out of the register, you TURN REGISTER TO the right page number, then TAP/PULL MY REGISTER. This will put the deed in your hand. Put the register away. Then TAP MY DEED, and you should have an ingot in your hand ready to use.

At this point you can read about advanced smelting and refining or continue on to the Forging Walkthrough.

Advanced Smelting and Refining

Smelting

Smelting doesn't just involve collecting the same ingot types into a larger ingot. It also allows combining of different metals. When smelting multiple items, there are a couple important things to know. These are as follows:

COUNT CRUCIBLE can be used to see the materials inside the crucible in a more coherent manner.

There are metals which can only be formed from the combination of metals. We've already encountered bronze, which is a 1:4 mixture of tin to copper, but there are several others, including steel. When a mixture of several metals is mixed, before any other actions occur, these combination metals will attempt to form. Brass (zinc and copper) will take precedence over bronze, and bronze will take precedence over pewter (tin and lead), if multiple alloys are possible. Steel will not form if anything other than iron and charcoal is in the crucible. Once a combination material is made, it cannot be directly altered. For example, mixing low carbon steel (1 coal to 1 iron) with coal will never change it to high carbon steel (3 coal to 1 iron) or even medium carbon steel (2 coal to 1 iron).

Once that has finished, the stats of the resulting metal will be affected depending on which of two ways the metals combine.

If there is one component that composes 67% of the volume or more, then the base stats will be of that material, and the remaining material will only affect the density. Otherwise, stats will be in the form of [(<material 1 stat> * <material 1 volume>)+(<material 2 stat> * <material 2 volume> )+......+(<material 8 stat> * <material 8 volume>)] / <total volume>, i.e. an average weighted by volume.

Refining

Previously, we said that refining will cost either half or 20% of the volume of the material. In truth, it's better to say that you will lose either 1 out of 2 or fraction of 2, or 1 out of 5 or fraction of 5. For example, if you have 5 volumes and the technique, you'll lose 1 volume, but if you have 6 volumes and the technique you'll lose 2 volumes, since that sixth volume is part of another five.

The quality of the metal is very important. If you have a high quality metal you tend to lose a lot less of the metal in the refining process. The table below shows the results.

How Purity Affect the Volume Lost

Starting Quality	Amount Lost Without Technique	Amount Lost With Technique
<71	50%	20%
71-80	50%	12%
81-90	40%	8%
91+	20%	5%

What does this mean? It means the closer to having 99 quality metal, the less metal you lose.

Reclaiming Metal

Reclaiming is simply the act of melting down a finished product that either you or someone else has forged. Note that only fully finished items can be reclaimed, and the resulting volume will be reduced in the same way as refining, either 1 out of 2 or 1 out of 5. The process is made easier by knowledge of the Expert Metal Reclamation Technique.

Forging Walkthrough

The basic processes of forging work the same in blacksmithing as it does in weaponsmithing or armorsmithing. The only difference is most items in armorsmithing take a great deal of volume to make, and you might have to add a part to the item, like a short pole, long pole, handle, hilt, etc.

General Tips and Advice

• If at any time you aren't sure what to do next, try to ANALYZE the item you are forging. It can also be used to determine certain basic properties of a crafted item. How much you learn about the item through analyzing is dependent on your Forging skill and known techniques such as Master Metallurgy.
• For more specific information about an item, APPRAISE <ITEM> CAREFULLY to learn you how its inherent properties compare on the Trader's Scale (this requires sufficient Appraisal skill).

Forging Items

Let's continue on with the process of making something from the metal you refined.

Make sure you've purchased a blacksmithing book from the book store (remember to use ORDER). In addition, beyond the tools needed for smelting, you will need a set of tongs, a forging hammer (usually a something-peen hammer), and some crafting oil.

When you open the blacksmithing book, TURN BLACKSMITHING BOOK TO INDEX and you will find at least six chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to specific tools and items. Chapter 1 is Smelting and Other Knowledge which will repeat much of what was learned in the smelting walkthrough, chapter 2 is Forging Tools, chapter 3 is Engineering Tools, chapter 4 is Outfitting Tools, chapter 5 is Alchemy Tools, and chapter 6 is Forged Item Design.

At 0 skill up through around 25 ranks, about all you can do are items that are extremely easy in difficulty. Right now the only extremely easy items to make are in chapter 6. They are the shallow cup and the slender rod. So TURN BLACKSMITHING BOOK TO CHAPTER 6 and READ MY BOOK, which will show you the chapter index. Then TURN BLACKSMITHING BOOK TO PAGE <whatever the cup is on>.

Note: When ever something changes in forging items or there is a game crash, the page numbers change, so you always have to check the chapter and find what page the item you want to make is on. Do not try to just guess or you may end up making the wrong item.

When you read the book, it tells you a variety of useful information, such as how much metal is required, which techniques covers the item, and any additional pieces besides metal that are needed.

For your first item to make you're going to forge your bronze ingot into a shallow bronze cup. The cup takes 1 volume of the metal ingot to make so your 2 or even 4 volume ingot is big enough to make at least 2 to 4 cups.

Keep in mind bronze is a heavy metal. The weight is about 6 stones per volume, which is known as it's density. That means the 1 volume cup will weigh in right at 6 stones. Check the crafting materials document, and you will see the density of bronze is 6.2. That means if you used 5 volume to make an item, it would weight in at 5 times 6.2 or 31 stones, which is pretty heavy. But bronze also happens to be really easy to work (workability of 70, in a system where higher numbers are easier to work). So for this cup we are trading weight for workability. You want to actually make a decent cup here so we use a heavy bronze.

In the Forging Society buildings, the anvil and forge are usually in a different room from where the crucible is located. In the Crossing, the crucibles are on the west side of the building, and the anvils are beyond arches in the south end of the building. What I did is went through each room and did TAP ANVIL until I got used to where they were in the different Forging Society buildings. Find an anvil where no one is in the room, and you can begin the shaping process.

1. PUT MY INGOT ON ANVIL.
2. Get the blacksmithing book out. It should already be turned to the right page; if not TURN it to the right page. Then STUDY MY BOOK. That will study the book in order to make the shallow cup. Then put the blacksmithing book back in your container.
3. Then get your forging hammer out (usually a diagonal-peen hammer or ball-peen hammer) and your tongs.
4. POUND INGOT WITH HAMMER. This step will start the process off and if your ingot is too big the remaining part of it will be put in your main STOW container.
5. Step four can produce a problem message, and each step after can produce a problem message. The messages, along with what you need to do if that message happens, are:

• The fire is unable to consume its fuel - if this happens get out your bellows and PUSH MY BELLOWS. Then put the bellows up, get your tongs, and POUND CUP WITH HAMMER.
• The fire runs out of fuel - Get shovel and PUSH FUEL WITH SHOVEL, then put the shovel up and POUND CUP WITH HAMMER.
• The item needs straightening or detailing - TURN CUP WITH TONGS then continue to POUND CUP WITH HAMMER.

1. When the item is finished being shaped PUSH TUB which will cool it.
   1. At this point, some items require additional pieces, such as a handle for a shovel, or a hilt for a sword, and it will tell you. All of these items can be purchased from the crate in the room where you purchased your tools. To combine a piece with its component, use ASSEMBLE <item> WITH <component>.
2. The final step is to POUR OIL ON CUP to finish it off. Thus you will have completed your shallow bronze cup.

Each item in the book is created the same way. The difference is you can only do the ones you have the skill for or in some cases the one just above that level. Please don't try to start out with steel on your first item; you won't have the skill to create an item masterfully with steel yet.

Forging Differences for Weapons and Armor

Weapons have an additional step once the hilt or other pieces are combined, and that is grinding. To do this, find a grindstone inside the society, in the Crossing society they are north and south of the clerk, and in the Riverhaven society they are in the same room as your anvil.

To use a grind stone, first TURN GRINDSTONE until it is going fast, then PUSH GRINDSTONE WITH <weapon>. After that, pour the oil on as with the blacksmithing items, and you're done.

For armor, you will need to purchase a set of pliers. Rather than using a grindstone, the various pieces of armor must be woven together by using PULL <armor> WITH MY PLIERS. This may take multiple steps of pulling, each with a variety of messaging, but continue to pull. In addition, during these pulls, you may need to ASSEMBLE additional pieces, but this is normal.

At this point you've completed all the basic steps you will need to do workorders. The following sections are more advanced subjects and specialist processes.

Advanced Forging

This section is for those who have mastered basic forging and smelting and want more information on advanced topics.

Tempering

Tempering is the act of reheating a metal item in such a way as that it becomes more durable. This is unlike standard forging in several ways, both conceptual and practical. First, it requires that a specific technique is known or else it cannot be done at any amount of skill. While blacksmithing only has one tempering technique, both armorsmithing and weaponsmithing have two tempering techniques, one which covers normal every-day metals, and one that covers the high end rare metals.

Tempering is immensely useful, especially when making things from fragile materials, but it is absolutely NOT necessary when doing work orders.

We'll use blacksmithing as an example of how to temper, but the steps are mostly the same for all three disciplines. Please note to get Tool Tempering you need to already know the following techniques in blacksmithing: Basic Metal Smelting, Basic Tool Repair, and Advanced Tool Repair.

1. Find an empty room with an anvil, since forges are always found in the same rooms as anvils.
2. First get tongs, make sure you have the item to temper.
3. PUT <item> ON FORGE twice to start the process.
4. TURN <item> ON FORGE WITH MY TONGS.

Each time you turn the item with the tongs, you may get one of a number of problem messages that require action to resolve. If you don't get one of these messages you continue to TURN <item> WITH MY TONGS. These messages are as follows and how to respond to them.

• As you finish the fire flickers and is unable to consume its fuel: Get the bellows out and PUSH MY BELLOWS. Then put it up and get the tongs and TURN <item> ON ANVIL WITH MY TONGS.
• As you finish working the fire dims and produces less heat from ..: Get the bellows out and PUSH MY BELLOWS. Then put it up and get the tongs and TURN <item> ON ANVIL WITH MY TONGS.
• fire dies down and needs more fuel: Get the shovel out and PUSH FUEL WITH MY SHOVEL. Then put it up and get the tongs and TURN <item> ON ANVIL WITH MY TONGS.
• fire dies down and appears to need some more fuel: Get the shovel out and PUSH FUEL WITH MY SHOVEL. Then put it up and get the tongs and TURN <item> ON ANVIL WITH MY TONGS.
• needs to be cleaned of the clay by pouring oil on it: See below.
• metal looks to be in need of some oil to preserve: This is the final step, so pick up the item, get the oil, and POUR OIL ON MY <item>.

Advanced Weaponsmithing

Honing Weapons

Honing requires a grindstone, a wire brush, and some oil.

Honing a finished weapon will reduce its weight by 8% (round up), but will not drop the weapon down below its 3-density equivalent, or by more than five stones. This means if your weapon is already at 3 stones per volume there is not much reason to hone it. For each stone of weight removed, one point of impact is lost (point, not category).

1. Begin by STUDYing the appropriate page in your weaponsmithing book (chapter 10 and the metal weapon honing page).
2. Next TURN GRINDSTONE until it is up to speed (note you usually have to turn it up to 3 times to get it up to speed).
3. Next PUSH GRINDSTONE WITH <weapon>.
   1. Periodically, you may be required to remove the metal shavings by RUBbing the weapon with a wire brush. You will see the message when it needs to happen.
4. When finished, another layer of oil

Balancing Weapons

Balancing will increase a weapon's balance at the expense of suitability/power.

The process for balancing is identical to that of honing, only starting with the balancing page.

Advanced Armorsmithing

With techniques, and armorsmith can temper armor, and either lighten or reinforce it. Lightening and Reinforcing are mutually exclusive processes. Once one is done to a piece of armor, the other cannot be performed.

Making a mistake during advanced armorsmithing processes is much more forgiving than during the initial crafting. Failing to successfully temper, lighten, or reinforce armor will reduce the condition of the piece to its minimum. However, the quality of the crafted item is not affected. If you do not have enough skill to succeed or make a mistake during the process, just have the armor repaired at a metal repair shop. You can then either try again, or have someone else do it if you do not have the necessary techniques or skill.

Tempering Armor

Tempering armor increases the durability of the armor without any change to protection, hindrance, or weight.

Tempering armor requires one of two special techniques: Metal Armor Tempering (a very easy template), and Rare-Metal Armor Tempering (a simple template). These techniques only enable you to temper common or rare metal armor. They do not make tempering armor easier like other armorsmithing techniques. While you may be able make to masterfully-crafted rare metal armor, you may not be able to temper it until you are close to 300 Forging.

For the steps to temper a piece of armor, see Tempering above.

Lightening Armor

Lightening armor reduces the weight of the item by 10% without any change to protection or hindrance. You will need to know the Metal Armor Lightening technique to lighten armor.

Lightening armor is an extremely easy template. This technique does not make lightening armor easier.

The weight calculation is done with integer math. As an example, if your item weighs 12 stone then 12 x 90% = 10.8. Forget about any value after the decimal point, so your lightened armor will weigh 10 stones.

1. Begin by STUDYing the instructions in your armorsmithing book (chapter 5)
2. PULL <ARMOR> WITH PLIERS in your hands
3. POUND <ARMOR> WITH HAMMER on the anvil
4. TURN GRINDSTONE three times, until it is spinning fast
5. PUSH GRINDSTONE WITH <ARMOR>
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you see the armor needs reassembly with the hammer
7. POUND <ARMOR> WITH HAMMER on the anvil
8. PULL <ARMOR> WITH PLIERS in your hands
9. POUR OIL ON <ARMOR> to finish

Reinforcing Armor

Reinforcement results in a protection increase, at the expense of weight (a 20% increase) and a small amount of hindrance. Absorption is unchanged by reinforcing. The weight increase is calculated with integer math (drop any decimal place).

The process for reinforcing armor is almost identical to lightening armor, with the addition of adding leather strips.

1. Begin by STUDYing the instructions in your armorsmithing book (chapter 5)
2. PULL <ARMOR> WITH PLIERS in your hands
3. POUND <ARMOR> WITH HAMMER on the anvil
4. TURN GRINDSTONE three times, until it is spinning fast
5. PUSH GRINDSTONE WITH <ARMOR>
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you see the armor needs reassembly with the hammer
7. POUND <ARMOR> WITH HAMMER on the anvil
8. ASSEMBLE <ARMOR> WITH STRIPS using leather strips sold in the Forging Society
9. PULL <ARMOR> WITH PLIERS in your hands
10. POUR OIL ON <ARMOR> to finish

Miscellaneous Processess

Repairing

Just like armor and weapons, tools degrade with use. Unless you wish to repair them yourself, you will need to take the tools to the Engineering Society building (DIR ENGINEERING SOCIETY) and then you go building, go west. The NPC you find there will repair tools.

All metal tools, armor, weapons, and shields, as well as a few stone tools, can be repaired in the field.

While the process is simple, lack of sufficient Forging skill can result in additional damage, rather than repair. You will need a wire brush and crafting oil, both purchasable from the Forging Societies.

First RUB, SCRAPE or CLEAN the item with a wire brush, and then POUR oil on it.

The process is simple, but without the appropriate repair techs, it can be a very time consuming process.

Appearances and Cleaning Cloths

RUBing a weapon, armor, shield, or tool with a cleaning cloth will allow you to bring out different aspects. This also works on armor.

Using weapons as an example:

1. a <metal> <weapon>
2. a <metal> <weapon> with a tempered blade/head
3. a <metal> <weapon> with a <mod> blade/head/design/finish
4. a tempered <weapon>
5. a tempered <weapon> with a <mod> blade/head/design/finish
6. a <mod> <weapon>
7. a <mod> <weapon> with a tempered blade/head
8. a <weapon> with a tempered blade/head
9. a <weapon> with a <mod> blade/head/design/finish
10. a <weapon>

In this case, <mod> means either "honed" or "balanced," and the blade/head/design/finish depends on weapon type and mod.

Techniques

Rank	Technique Slots
	General	Career	Hobby	Guild Bonus
25	1	1	1	1
50	2	2	2	2 (if applicable)
75	3	3	3	3 (if applicable)
100	4	4	4
150	5	5	5
200	6	6	6
250	7	7
300	8	8
400	9	9
500	10	10
700	11	11
900	12	12
1200	13

This part explains some information about techniques and metal properties and how to use them.

What do techniques really do? Most of them allow you to make items sooner than you normally would based on skill. Even at the highest levels of skill, some items are just too difficult to make in difficult metals without them. This means you can do most things in most crafts without any techniques at all, but certain things will effectively require the techniques.

Technique slots are gained based on skill, with additional ones gained due to Career, Hobby, or Guild choices. Consult the chart to the right to see at which ranks in skill a slot is received.

As shown, at the time a normal slot is received, if the person has a career, hobby, or is of the right guild, an addition slot in that area may be awarded.

Learning Techniques

The syntax for learning a new technique is: ask <NPC> about LEARN <technique>

Careers and Hobbies

Careers and hobbies are much like picking a guild, in that once you choose them, there is no going back. However, unlike guilds, there is no necessity to pick them right away. It is perfectly possible to experience the lower levels of a craft without having a hobby or career in it.

It is HIGHLY advised that no career or hobby be chosen until there is certainty. There is no going back.

In addition to granting you bonus technique slots, they give a skill bonus to the making of items within that discipline.

It should be noted that careers and hobbies are picked from the discipline level, rather than the skill level, which means that you cannot take a hobby in forging, it must be in

Repairing Techniques

Each of the three disciplines of forging have their own repair techniques. The various techniques will reduce the RT of the repair, increase how much damage is repaired with each action, and finally make your piece of equipment immune to damage for a short period of time.

Tempering

In addition, each discipline has tempering techniques that are needed to harden the items made so they are more durable. Without the tempering techniques you can't make a sword or armor or tool more durable. They still work, but they will become damaged sooner than those that have been hardened by the tempering.

In blacksmithing, there is one technique for tempering and it will allow you to temper any metal. But in weaponsmithing and armorsmithing you need separate techniques, one for common and one for rare metals.

Weapon Enhancements

Weaponsmithing has two techniques that help you modify weapons called honing (Reduces weight without reducing the puncture and slice of an item), and Balancing (used to improve a weapon for high agility rather than strength). You can't change how the weapons you make perform unless you have those techniques. It requires 200 ranks of forging to balance (and likely hone) a weapon successfully, at which point, contrary to what the weaponsmithing book states, all weapons may be successfully enhanced.

Armor Enhancements

In armorsmithing there are two techniques, one for lightening and one for reinforcing. You can't modify armor from the basic set without those two techniques. Any other techniques in those three areas will only help you do something a little bit before you have the skill to actually do them. So these techniques are vital for those areas.

Blacksmithing Techniques

Now in blacksmithing techniques, there is one that is especially nice to have.

The Master Metallurgy technique allows you to see the metal composition of ingots and forged items such as tools, weapons and armor given enough skill. This means you can look at the items and figure out what metal was used in making it. Or if you made something and you forgot what you did, you can at least see the metal make up of the ingot used to create the item. To do so, simply hold the ingot/item and analyze it, and you'll get a description back like:

The metal appears to be composed of: 2.25% brass, 75.24% bronze, 3.98% high carbon steel, 0.04% oravir, 0.10% gold, 0.00% lead, 6.12% medium carbon steel, and 12.23% silver.

Also the Maker Mark Design technique allows you to make marks that you can use to stamp the item as yours. Without that technique (and it takes 2 other techniques to get it), you cannot make marks at all, though you can have someone else make a mark for you to use, if they have the techniques.

Technique Combinations

You can work every craft even without careers and hobbies, but you will only gain techniques from your skill, and right now that means a max of 13 techniques by the time you hit 1200 ranks. Most of the techniques you will pick up in the first 300 ranks (8 techniques). This means you need to concentrate on limited areas in the other crafts for the limited techniques you can gain.

I have seen folks work skill in forging simply to get all the repair techniques in each part of forging (4 techniques in blacksmithing, 3 in weaponsmithing, 3 in armorsmithing), that means to repair all the items that can be made in forging took 10 techniques. Those folks then tend to spread the other 5 techniques as they can grow where they want to concentrate. For instance, putting the last 5 techniques in weaponsmithing or armorsmithing or blacksmithing.

I have seen others get the tool repair techniques in blacksmithing (4), the tempering and special needed techniques in both weaponsmithing and armorsmithing (4 each) for 12 techniques and get the tempering technique in blacksmithing.

I have also seen folks go for just one area but get the tool repair techniques in blacksmithing and then put everything else in either armorsmithing or weaponsmithing.

The good thing about this is if you change your mind you can unlearn techniques, but you can't change a career or hobby. So if you decide you want to modify things and go for one part of the forging area, put all 13 techniques into weaponsmithing. Or get 4 in blacksmithing to repair tools and 9 in armorsmithing then you can do that. Just don't choose careers and hobbies until you are absolutely sure what you want to do.

Metallurgy

Workability

The last part of this is making items. To make items you need to know certain things about metals. The higher the workability of the metal the easier it is to make the item you're trying to make masterfully. So, on the crafting materials page, you see the properties for all normal and rare metals. Notice almost all rare metals have a really low workability. Thus you need more skill to use them. There are a couple exceptions, however, such as darkstone. For that reason you will see many folks using tools or weapons made from darkstone.

Mixing Metals to Adjust Density/Weight

There are two types of metal mixing. If you have at least 67% of one metal you end up with that metal with all its properties only modified by density. The second type is called alloys. You get alloys when no metal makes up at least 67% of the metal.

When mixing metals for weight, it is important to know the lower and upper limits for density:

• No item can be crafted from an ingot below 3.0 density. No item can be crafted from metal below 3.0 density. Any ingot that is not at least this minimum density will shatter when struck with the hammer. You can get the pieces and smelt them back into an ingot but you won't be able to make the item.

• Weapon templates "cap" at 7.5 density. Any weapon made from metal with more than 7.5 density will have the same stats as it it were crafted from an ingot at 7.5 density but will have more weight. This means that weapons made from metals at higher than 7.5 density will increase in weight, but the damage will not be any better. Beware of haralun mixed with platinum!

• Armor, on the other hand, will improve beyond 7.5 density. The effects can be seen making 7.5 density quelium chain vs 7.794 density quelium. Absorbs for 7.5 are "very great" (12/18) vs "extreme" (13/18) on the 7.794 density.

Now why is that important?

Let's say you want to make a tool for forging like tongs. First, check the blacksmithing book under forging tools chapter 2. You will find the first tongs you can make are straight metal-type tongs using 10 volume of metal, and they are simple difficulty (200 skill to make with no techniques or maybe 150 skill with certain techniques).

In addition, the books says high resistance to fire and light are key to the best tongs. Covellite is a very light and heat resistant normal metal making it ideal for tongs, but its density is 2.0. That means you have to mix it with another metal to raise the density so it hits at least 3.0. So covellite is the most heat-resistant metal, but it's only 2.0 density. So we must make it heavier but leave enough covellite so that we are only changing the weight, not the underlying properties of the metal. Any metal ingot that is at least 67% of one metal remains that metal with all its properties. So we want to create a an ingot that is 10 volume, consisting of at least 67% covellite, and with at least 3.0 density. So we want a 10 volume x 3.0 density = 30 stone weight ingot. One simple way of achieving this is to add up the weight of individual volumes of metal until we get to the weight we want. Since we know we need at least 67% covellite, we must use at least 6.7 volume of covellite in our ingot (more is ok too). One solution is to use 8 volume of covellite (80%) and 2 volume of copper (20%). The weight of the covellite will be 2.0 density x 8 volume = 16 stone. The weight of the copper will be 7.0 density x 2 volume = 14 stone. Adding the weight and volumes of the two together, we get a 30 stone ingot with 10 volume, or 30 / 10 = 3.0 density. This mix will be perfect for our set of straight tongs.

Many items such as weapons can benefit from being heavier or lighter. Right now my primary means of making a metal lighter is to make it with 70% of the main metal (bronze, steel, etc.), and 30% of oravir which has 1.0 density. If I want the weapon heavier like blunts for instance I would use 70% of the main metal and 30% of gold or platinum to add weight to the item. The key is getting the right mix with the right results.

One application of mixing metals is making armor from mixed covellite. With a bit of research, you will find that a full suit of chain armor can be made with 73 volume of metal (using a ring mask, ring cap, ring greaves, ring tasset, ring sleeves, and ring mantle). This full suit of armor in covellite weighs 73 x 3.0 density = 219 stones. Each piece can then be further lightened by the armorsmith another 10% to bring the total weight down to just 194 stones. By comparison this is less total weight than most bone, cloth or leather light armor suits. This chain armor would be perfect for many new adventurers coming into the lands to reduce weight on them for hunting.

Mixing Metals to Create Alloys

Alloys occur when no metal in an ingot makes up at least 67% of the composition. Alloys do allow you to adjust a metal's properties. This means you can change all seven properties of the metal. Stats will calculated be in the form of (<material 1 stat> x <material 1 volume> + <material 2 stat> x <material 2 volume>) / <total volume>, i.e. an average weighted by volume.

What can you do with an alloy? Glad you asked! Lets say you have glaes rare metal (workability 10), and you have darkstone rare metal (workability 75). You do not have the skill yet to actually make anything from glaes because of its low workability number. So you mix 5 volume of glaes with 5 volume of darkstone. What do you end up with? You end up with a glaes alloy or darkstone alloy ingot that has 10 volume and a workability of 42.5 (75 x 5 = 375, 10 x 5 = 50, 375 + 50 = 425, and 425 / 10 = 42.5). So you have turned a metal into something you might actually be able to work into something even though you did change all the metal's properties.

You probably don't actually want to mix glaes with darkstone, but metal alloys do have applications elsewhere. It has been discovered that an alloy of 60% high carbon steel and 40% low carbon steel will usually make armor that performs identically to armor made out of 100% high carbon steel. Why is this important? Well, the steel alloy has a durability of 47 (high carbon steel has a durability of just 25) so the end product ends up being almost twice as durable with the same hindrance, protection, and absorption.

Advanced Metallurgy

So you've mastered mixing ingots to 67% by mixing 67 volumes of steel with 33 volume of platinum. But, it's not often you find yourself in possession of 67 volumes of rare metals such as glaes. How do you get that perfect 67/33 mix with less than 67 volume?

Let's say we want to make a glaes light throwing axe (6 volume) that weighs only 18 stone. To make this we need 6 volume x 67% = 4.02 volume of glaes. When calculating how many volumes you will actually need, always round up to the next whole number (we will need 5 volume of glaes to make this axe). But how do you go from 5 to 4.02 volumes of glaes? The answer is by doing multiple mixes, you can hit your exact target number. In this example we will be combining 5 volume of glaes with 14 volume of oravir to create a 6 volume glaes ingot comprised of 67% glaes, 33% oravir.

Start by cutting off 1 volume of glaes and mixing it with 1 volume of oravir. This leaves us with an alloy of 2 volume of 50% glaes and 50% oravir. Next, we cut off 1 volume of the 50/50 mix and mix with 4 more volume of oravir. We now have 5 volume of 10% glaes and 90% oravir. Finally, we mix 1 volume of the 10/90 mix with 9 more volume of oravir and get an additional 10 volume of 1% glaes and 99% oravir. We can now mix 4 volume of pure glaes with 2 volume of the 1% glaes, 99% oravir mix resulting in a 6 volume glaes ingot of 67% glaes and 33% oravir.

Even if you don't want to do the math or mixing yourself, it can be worthwhile to seek out a metallurgist who will make that perfect ingot for you.

The "Magic Ingot" Method

Did the above explanation make your eyes cross? Here's an alternative method to get the perfect 67% mix.

Start with 1 volume of the pure material you want at 67%. Mix it with 99 volumes of your mixing material (usually oravir or platinum/gold, depending on if you want max or min density.) You now have a 100 volume ingot that is 1% your main material.

Now, mix this "magic ingot" at a 1:2 ratio with your pure ingot. Round up to the nearest three. So if you need 20 volumes, you'll need to make 21 volumes. You would do this by mixing 14 volumes of the pure material, with 7 volumes of the magic ingot. The resulting ingot will be 21 volumes of 67%.

You can mix in this leftover bit with any future mixes without having to worry about changing that same 1:2 ratio. So if you needed 4 volumes of that same material at 67%, you could mix 2 volumes of the pure, with 1 volume of the 1% ingot, and that leftover pre-mixed 67%, and you'll have a 4 volume 67% ingot.

Work Orders

If you decide to do work orders to get paid for the things you do, then the room with BOOKS in the description is where you purchase a forging work order logbook.

You will ask the society leader for either easy, challenging or hard blacksmithing/weaponsmithing/armorsmithing work. He will give you a task. The goal is to get paid the best and complete the item with as good of a quality as possible.

To do this, use the highest workability metal you can use and in addition to actually training the skill, you will get paid also. It's not always the best item that way, but the quality will be better, and you will get paid more for the work order than you would if you had used other metals.

Unless you have a good source of metal you will also probably have to buy the metal in the shop and bronze usually works good for that.

Prestige

Work orders generate prestige, and that prestige is used to eventually qualify for a Maker_mark. So if you make something and turn it in, you must do so again before 5 days go by or you start to lose prestige again. You also should probably pick a craft (forging, alchemy, enchanting, outfitting, or engineering) where you will do your main work orders in for getting a maker's mark (this is a certain level of prestige build-up; see Crafting).

Everyone does this differently. I know some that do work orders in every craft currently present. They love making the coins. I know some that pick only one craft to do work orders in and the rest they just train in when they can. How you do it is eventually up to you. If your goal is a maker's mark then I would concentrate on one craft. Once you get enough to get the maker's mark then you can have someone make it and you can then branch out and do work orders whenever you want to in as many crafts as you want to.

Doing work orders trains well and pays pretty well. Remember you can study any crafting master in the Forging Society buildings to get syntax on how to ask them things. If you have no techniques and no career or hobby, start with easy work orders. If you have techniques but no career or hobby start with challenging work orders. Hard work orders can be done as you approach the next level of difficulty with top of the line tools around 30-50 ranks before you get there or if you have a career or hobby plus techniques. With good tools my work so far tells me you can do challenging work orders with high workability materials most of the time.

FAQ

• Can I wait to temper/seal/reinforce/etc. an item?

Yes, the modifications can always be added on later, but they cannot be removed.