The Crafting Window
Eleven entry points open one window. Your chance comes from the gap between your skill and the recipe.
There is one crafting interface to learn on this shard. Eight skills — Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Bowcraft, Carpentry, Cooking, Inscription, Tailoring and Tinkering — all work through the same window. Cartography, masonry, glassblowing and elemental armour open that same window too; only the tool differs.
The window opens when you double-click the skill's tool. Sections are on the left, the products of the selected section on the right. Click a product and you see its materials, whether it can carry a maker's mark, and your chance. What you cannot make stays greyed out.
| Skill | Tool |
|---|---|
| Alchemy | mortar and pestle |
| Blacksmithing | an ingot or the hammer |
| Bowcraft | carving knife |
| Carpentry | saw |
| Cooking | raw food and a fire |
| Inscription | blank scroll |
| Tailoring | sewing kit |
| Tinkering | tinker's tools |
| Cartography | mapmaker's pen |
| Masonry | mallet and chisels |
| Glassblowing | blowpipe |
| Elemental Armor | elemental hammer |
Chance of success
Below the recipe's requirement nothing can be made and the chance reads zero. Above it, every extra point adds two percent, on top of the skill's own base.
| Skill | Base |
|---|---|
| Bowcraft, Carpentry, Inscription, Tailoring, Tinkering | 40% |
| Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Cooking | 0% |
Since no single skill passes 100, high recipes never reach certainty: a recipe asking 60 sits at 100% for a master, one asking 80 at 80%, 95 at 50%, and 100 at 40%. The top tier is expensive on purpose.
Failure costs nothing
When an attempt succeeds you get the item. When it fails the engine spends a small part of the materials, and on a recipe asking for a single unit that rounds down to nothing; your skill does not rise either. The two go together, because either one alone would be unfair: gaining skill from a failure that costs nothing would be free training.
Skill comes from actually making the things near your own threshold.
Exceptional work and the maker's mark
The chance of exceptional quality is forty-five points below your chance of success: working at a hundred percent, fifty-five of every hundred pieces come out exceptional. An exceptional piece is more durable.
Only exceptional pieces can be signed, and only a crafter at mastery can sign them; the window lets you turn the mark on and off. With high fame your name is prefixed with Lord or Lady. The skills that can sign are Blacksmithing, Bowcraft, Carpentry, Tailoring and Tinkering — nobody signs a potion, a meal or a scroll.