Silver & crafting

How to earn silver, where to spend it, how to keep it, and how to make things yourself.

Earning silver

• Search what you kill: most creatures carry a little silver.
• Trophies: every creature has a trophy (a rat's tail, a wolf pelt, a harpy quill). The Guild trophy counter in Thornwick and Bone and Pearl in Saltmere pay full price for them. SELL ALL TROPHIES sells them all at once.
• Loot: sell weapons, armor and gear to the shops that deal in them.
• Treasure boxes: creatures that carry things sometimes drop a locked box full of silver and gems (see below).
• Bounties: jobs from the bounty boards (see below).

Shops

Shops sell their regular stock every day, plus a couple of specials that change every game day, at a little extra. SHOP lists what's for sale (on the website, the For Sale panel lets you click to buy). BUY 3 or BUY TORCH, SELL DAGGER, and APPRAISE <item> asks what the shop would pay.

Shops pay half an item's value for the kinds of things they deal in, the trophy buyers pay full value for trophies, and the Lantern Pawn buys anything at about a third. The Trading skill gets you slightly better prices both ways. Things you sell to the pawnshop sit on its shelf for a while, so you can buy them back.

The bank and your locker

The Thornwick Bank (off the Counting-House Court) and the Saltmere Customs House share one account. DEPOSIT 100 or DEPOSIT ALL, WITHDRAW, and BALANCE anywhere.

Each bank also has your locker: 20 slots for gear you want to keep but not carry, shared between both banks. STORE <item>, RETRIEVE <item>, LOCKER to look. GIVE <friend> 50 SILVER hands coins to someone in the same room.

Treasure boxes

Boxes are locked, and some are trapped: a poison needle, a puff of choking dust, or a charge that explodes in your hands. Bigger creatures drop better boxes.

• The careful way: DISARM BOX searches for a trap. If you find one, DISARM BOX again to disarm it. Then PICK BOX and OPEN BOX. Rogues are best at this; a set of lockpicks or a trap kit in your other hand helps anyone.
• The quick way: BASH BOX. It opens, eventually, and sets off any trap.
• The paid way: take it to the Lantern Pawn in Thornwick's arcade and UNLOCK BOX. The locksmith names a price.

Searching for a trap and finding none doesn't always mean there isn't one.

Crafting

Six trade skills, trained like any other: Mining, Woodcutting, Smelting, Forging, plus Alchemy below. Gather your own materials in the wild, then work them in a smithy (Ironhand's Forge in Thornwick, Tide and Steel in Saltmere), which has a smelter, a forge and a workbench.

Gathering

Hold a miner's pick and MINE where a seam of ore shows in the rock, or hold a hatchet (any axe will do) and CHOP where trees stand. LOOK tells you when there's a seam or a stand. Each swing takes a moment, and a seam is worked out after a few pulls, so spread out. The ring of a pick carries: something nearby may come to see. The rarest seams and trees are hidden; SEARCH for them.

• The King's Road: timber: ash, oak
• The Greyveil Moors: and something rarer, for those who SEARCH
• Mossdown Hills: ore: iron ore, limestone, copper ore; timber: yew, oak, ash
• The Undercroft: ore: iron ore, coal, silver-veined ore, limestone; and something rarer, for those who SEARCH
• Silverbough Eaves: ore: coal; timber: oak, ash, ironwood; and something rarer, for those who SEARCH
• Wreckers' Coast: ore: tin ore, coal; and something rarer, for those who SEARCH
• Ironroot Foothills: ore: iron ore, coal, silver-veined ore, limestone; and something rarer, for those who SEARCH

Hold a chunk of limestone and CRUSH it at an anvil to make flux.

The smelter

PUT ore IN SMELTER (PUT ALL ORE IN SMELTER empties your pack), along with fuel (coal, charcoal or wood) and a pinch of flux. LIGHT SMELTER, then work the BELLOWS until it's hot enough, and SMELT. Every ingot you pour is a Smelting roll; a bad pour loses some ore. GET INGOTS FROM SMELTER when you're done. LOOK IN SMELTER shows what's inside and how hot it is. Flux makes every pour easier; harder metals need more heat.

Charcoal: wood burns down to charcoal, which is left in the ashes. SMOTHER the fire to turn all the wood inside into charcoal at once.

Forging

PUT ingots, fuel and flux IN FORGE, LIGHT FORGE and work the BELLOWS until the metal glows. FORGE <item> (or FORGE SILVERSTEEL DAGGER) lays the hot ingots on the anvil; HAMMER a few times (if the metal cools, BELLOWS again), then QUENCH to finish. GET it FROM FORGE. A ruined piece loses one ingot and leaves the rest in the forge. Lighting the forge or smelter costs a few silver.

The workbench

PUT a log ON WORKBENCH and SAW it into billets (and offcuts, good for the fire). CARVE <item> makes bows, staves and wooden shields from billets: CARVE again until it's done, then GET it FROM WORKBENCH. A split piece loses one billet.

Everything you make comes out crude, fine or a masterwork (or ruined, if it goes badly). Masterworks hit harder or protect better, and sell for a lot more. What you leave in a smelter, forge or workbench is yours alone, and it's still there when you come back.

Wear, repair and enchanting

Weapons, shields and armor wear down as you fight: a sword dulls a little when it hits, armor and shields when they take or turn a blow. Rarer metals and masterwork pieces last longer. Gear goes from pristine to worn, then battered (a small penalty), badly damaged (a bigger one) and finally broken (next to useless). You're warned whenever something gets worse.

• CONDITION shows how everything you wear and hold is holding up; INSPECT and APPRAISE show it too.
• REPAIR <item> or REPAIR ALL at a smithy (Ironhand's, Tide and Steel) makes it as good as new, for silver. REPAIR alone shows the prices.
• MEND <item> fixes it yourself at an anvil with Forging and an ingot (or billet) of the same material, up to 50 points at a time.
• Worn gear sells for less.

Enchanting (a skill of its own): at the silver circle behind the Gilded Moth in Thornwick, hold a weapon, shield or armor and ENCHANT it with a gem from your pack and some mana. Each step adds +1, up to +5, and needs a better gem: a quartz chip or sea-glass for +1, bloodstone or a river pearl for +2, moonstone for +3, garnet or amethyst for +4, sapphire or star ruby for +5. A failure costs the gem, never the item.

Alchemy

At an alchemy table (the Bramblewort Apothecary in Thornwick, Gull's Chandlery in Saltmere), BREW <name> turns herbs into draughts and blade oils. Results are weak, normal or potent. DRINK a draught; hold a weapon and APPLY an oil to coat it for the next several strikes.

Buy herbs from the apothecary, or FORAGE for them in the wild (Alchemy skill helps). Ghostbloom and stonebalm turn up now and then as specials at the apothecary and Gull's Chandlery. Healing, mana and stamina draughts restore a share of your maximum, so they stay useful as you level. RECIPES ALCHEMY lists every recipe and where its herbs grow. Each region grows its own:

• The Greyveil Moors: bundle of moor heather, sprig of silverleaf, clump of bloodmoss, pale ghostbloom
• The King's Road: sprig of silverleaf, knob of emberroot, stem of wild foxglove
• Mossdown Hills: clump of bloodmoss, sprig of silverleaf, duskcap mushroom, sprig of nightshade
• Silverbough Eaves: duskcap mushroom, stem of wild foxglove, sprig of nightshade, sprig of silverleaf, pale ghostbloom
• Wreckers' Coast: stalk of saltwort, clump of bloodmoss, piece of green sea-glass
• Ironroot Foothills: scrap of stonebalm lichen, knob of emberroot, stem of wild foxglove
• The Undercroft: pale ghostbloom, duskcap mushroom

Bounties

The bounty boards in the Thornwick guildhall and the Saltmere harbor watch have work for you, matched to your level: cull a number of creatures, or bring in some trophies. BOUNTY NEW takes a job, BOUNTY checks progress anywhere, BOUNTY DONE collects at a board. Kills by your group count toward your job. One job at a time, and a short wait between them.