Crafting: A Beginner's Guide

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Want to learn a new craft, but don't know where to start? You're in the right place.

Alchemy

Butchering

Carpentry

Tools: axe, knife, (saw, hammer)
Materials: Wood of all types

To Learn: Begin with boards (chop down a tree, make a log from it, and then 'make board'.). They're the basic ingredient for a lot of projects. Also try crude sledges. They use 3 branches, 5 sticks, and a knife. Once you're okay with those, try table legs and chair legs.

Charcoal Burning

Tools: knife, shovel, (axe)
Materials: wooden stakes, branches, (trees)

To Learn: If you have a friend who already has this skill, get them to make clamps for you to tend. Otherwise, you'll have to undergo the ritual fail-fest of making clamps yourself. You can either chop firewood with an axe using logs, or simply amass branches in a forest tile.

Once you manage to make clamps, light one with a torch and use 'tend clamp' to passively repair it. You can also actively look after the clamp, using 'look burning clamp' and 'repair burning clamp.' Active tending may provide you with more coal for your efforts. Large clamps are harder than regular sized ones, and take about twice as long to finish burning.

Cooking

Tools: Widely varies by recipe. To begin, a torch, campfire, or log, tinderbox, and knife.
Materials: raw meat or wild yams and a skewer (made from a stick using a knife and whittling skill)

To Learn: You can make meatballs, meat kebabs, or roast yams.

  • For meatballs, you need a pile of butchered meat and a lit thing, which can be a torch or a fire.
  • For roast yams, you'll need to gather a lot of yams using herb lore and the gathering skill. You'll need only one skewer for cooking your yams, and you'll need a lit torch or fire.
  • For meat kebabs, you'll need a pile of butchered meat, a lit thing like a torch or fire, and one skewer for each kebab you want to make.

Once you're good at those, try venison steaks, but that does involve killing deer. You can try cooked rice or gruel if you'd rather avoid the deer. Both of those require a cooking pot, though. Another option is cured sausage, which requires a whole garlic.

Fishing

Gathering

Tools: n/a
Materials: any non-water terrain type

To Learn: You'll learn best by finding easy plants first. Try gathering swampberries in swamps, or blackberries, raspberries, and mushrooms in forests.

The skill herb lore is paired with gathering. Herb lore lets you find plants and know what they are, and gathering determines how much of the plant you find. The best way to level this skill is to use it frequently. I recommend eating nothing but plants for a week or so. Food plants you can find in any season: yam, swampberry, and mushroom. Check out the gathering section for more plants to try gathering, and don't forget you can also use the 'forage' command to try to locate a random seasonally available plant in your current area.

Glass Working

Tools: Tongs, forge, (glassblower's pipe)
Materials: sand. You can get it in the riverbed in west KV, or up by the docks in the north of Liidhaga.

To Learn: 'make glass.' When you're good with making the raw glass, try marbles. They're small and don't use a lot of glass. You'll want to get good at this before you try beakers, bottles, jars, and vials. I recommend learning and plying this skill in Liidhaga, since the glass and glass pieces can be sold in various places there.

Leather Working

Tools: knife, needle
Materials: leather, thread

To Learn: This skill often coincides with sewing. To get your first increases without wasting materials, repair existing leather pieces. When you're sick of repairing, try leather strips, leather cords, and bowstrings. Headbands and slings are also fairly easy.

Logging

Masonry

Metallurgy

Tools: tongs, crucible, forge
Materials: lead, clay

To Learn: Note: you can also learn this via smelting.

Start with lead bullets, because they're fairly easy and relatively cheap. Once you've gotten lead bullets, try lead styluses and lead weights. Around beginner level, try bronze buckles.

Pottery

Tools: (kiln, tongs, potter's wheel), lit thing
Materials: clay- gather clay patch in swamps and get the clay from the patches)

To Learn: Start with clay bullets. These actually don't require the tools of the trade. You only need a 'lit thing' which could be a torch. From clay bullets, move to pinchpot cups, pinchpot bowls, and pinchpots. These also only use a lit thing.

Sewing

Tools: needle, knife
Materials: thread, fabric

To Learn: The easiest way to learn is to repair your stuff. You start with clothing, and it'll get worn out as time goes by and things attack you. When you feel reasonably competent with repairing, try making patches. These use very little cloth. When you've got a good supply of patches, try making patchwork items, especially skirts, pants, and tunics.

Skinning

Smelting

Smithing

Tools: hammer, tongs, anvil, forge
Materials: iron (buyable in shops, or smelt ore)

To Learn: As with leather working and sewing, start with repairing existing items. If you want to move on to making things, I recommend starting in Kungesvald for quick sale of finished goods. Begin with nails- they're cheap and easy to make, and don't lose any iron when you mess them up. Then try arrowheads, hinges, and belt buckles. All four of these items sell in KV: nails and hinges in the Housing Office, belt buckles in the armory, and arrowheads in the archery shop.

Spinning

Stone Working

Tools: chisel, (hammer)
Materials: stones of all sizes

To Learn: Start with stone weights and stone arrowheads. Stone beads are also fairly easy. If you don't have a chisel, head to the hills and grab a rock and some flint. You can make flint arrowheads, spearheads, knives, and sickle heads without one.

Weaving

Tools: n/a for basics, a loom for later.
Materials: grass for now, fabric later

To Learn: Start with woven grips and woven chokers. These require only a bundle of grass, which you can get in plains tiles in all seasons. Try grass headbands and grass foot bindings after that. When you get good with grass items, you can move on to making fabrics. Burlap is one of the easier ones, as is muslin.

Whittling

Tools: any knife (whittling knife works best)
Materials: wood, usually a stick or a branch

To Learn: start with crude arrows, spits, and pegs. Then try torches. After that, crude clubs, clubs, spiked clubs, and wooden handles.

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Last updated: 01 Aug 2020 17:03 by Arcblade.

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