From Lost Fables Wiki
Smithing is one of, if not the most, important professions in the world of Gaia. Smiths can create all sorts of metalworks: Guns, swords, cannons, armor, nails, and tools are all examples of creations that Smiths can make. Shaping metal with a hammer is the archetypal component of smithing. Often the hammering is done while the metal is hot, having been heated in a forge. Smithing can also involve the other aspects of metalworking, such as refining metals from their ores, casting it into shapes, and filing to shape and size.
The primary purpose of smithing is creating civilian goods, like horseshoes, nails, and long-lasting utensils and cookware. Tools are also largely the purvey of smiths, making them truly the lifeblood of almost any kingdom. Beyond this, they also produce most of the weaponry and armor in a kingdom, making them completely vital for defending that verysame lifeblood they produce.
The various tools of smithing are the forge, the anvil, and a set of simple tools, usually including a pair of calipers, metal shears, and heavy leather gloves. All of these are necessary for every form of crafting. You may only craft items up to the quality of your tools, also limited by your skill, see below.
A forge requires one to have an indoor location with good ventilation to allow the fumes and smoke to exit, and to let the forge cool to a bearable temperature. Beyond these simple requirements, however, just about any place will do.
The method a smith takes is largely dependent on what exactly they're trying to create. Most weaponry requires a handle, and thus part of the creation of them includes binding them to one of these handles, while armor typically requires one to bind straps to it and size it properly. Civil forging is typically the least demanding, requiring one to simply forge a piece of metal in a certain way.
- Civil Forging: Civil forging is making the basic useful items that any person needs throughout their lives. Nails, horseshoes, goblets, silverware, anything that's not going to be worn or used in war is considered civil forging. Ammunition for guns and bolt or arrow heads also count as civil engineering, because of their simplicity. Crafting 20 pieces of ammunition counts as a single one.
1. You must heat your metal to be red-hot in a forge. Alternatively, if you are casting something, you must melt your metal.
2. Removing the metal, you must then hammer it into place, or pour it into a cast, and then refine said cast further with hammer blows.
3. Finally, you must either quench the piece or allow it to cool in the air.
- Armorcrafting: Armorcrafting is significantly more complex than civil forging, requiring one to more exactly plan and measure.
1. Before any armor can be created, you need to determine the size you're making it for. Heavy armor must be made for a specific person, and thus with that person's measurements in mind.
2. You must heat your ingots until they melt, pour in them a cast to get a general shape, and then over the course of several heatings and several hours, hammer the casts into armored plates.
3. Once your armor pieces are formed, you must cool the pieces, either via quenching, or simply allowing it to cool in the air.
4. After the pieces of the armor are cooled, you must attach straps to it to finish it off.
- Weaponcrafting: Weaponcrafting is somewhat more simple than armorcrafting, but still certainly more complex than civil forging. It requires one to have a handle for the weapon, if they are not making the weapon's blade and handle out of the same piece of metal.
1. You must first heat your metal until it melts, before pouring it into a cast of the weapon's head, or full weapon you are seeking to make.
2. After casting your weapon, you must then, over the course of repeated heatings, hammer it into the proper shape.
3. Once your weapon is in its shape, you must quench it to harden it, allowing it to hold an edge far better. If the weapon does not include its handle, it will additionally need to be fitted onto a wooden handle.
- Guncrafting: Guncrafting is much like any other form of smithing, though it is far more reliant on good, accurate casts, as you cannot hammer a gun barrel into place.
1. The first step of guncrafting is, as is usual in smithing, to melt your ore and pour it into a set of casts.
2. After you've casted your metal, you must remove it from the casts and ensure that each individual piece has no defects.
3. After ensuring this, the pieces must be let cool rather than quenched, so as to not cause a brittle gun barrel. This process only takes a few minutes on a handcannon, but for naval guns this can take hours.
4. Finally, you must painstakingly drill a hole into the powder pan in the weapon, being certain that your matchlock lines up to deliver the wick into the pan.
- Alloying: Alloying is the art of combining two or more metals together in a precise way as to create a new metal with new properties. Alloying requires the smith the have an Alloyer component mounted onto their forge. All alloys count as Moderate quality for the purpose of experience distribution.
1. Generally the major ingredient is melted first; then the others are added to it until they are completely dissolved.
2. The majority of alloys are prepared by mixing metals in the molten state until they are a single homogenous mass.
3. The mixture is then poured into metal or sand molds and allowed to solidify.
Many of the ores have special requirements or circumstances around their forging. Additionally, smiths can create tools specifically at one quality level higher than their skill or tool level would imply. Furthermore, certain items are far harder to craft than others, meaning that they have an increased token cost:
|Item:||Additional Token Cost:|
|Half Plate Piece||+5|
|Plate Armor Piece:||+10|
|Item for race significantly bigger/smaller than the smith:||+15|
|Item of similar size/complexity to a siege weapon:||+50|
Note that the quality of an item you can make is ALWAYS limited by the level of your tools in addition to your skill level! The only exception is when making tools, which you can create one quality level higher!
- Novice Smith: A Novice smith receives 50 tokens per week, and may only create using up to Rare materials. They can only create adept quality items.
- Apprentice Smith: Apprentice smiths may receive 100 tokens a week, and make up to moderate quality. At this point, a smith can start to create firearms.
- Adept Smith: Those who have reached the rank of Adept in smithing can get 150 tokens per week, and the maximum rarity of metals they can use is wondrous. Adept smiths can create up to fine quality items.
- Journeyman Smith: Blacksmiths who have learned their trade well enough to be considered journeyman can receive 200 tokens a week, and they can create up to Artisan quality items.
- Master Smith: Master smithies, at the peak of their craft, can get 250 tokens per week, and use up to mythical materials. Master smiths may create mastercraft items.
There are many of smithing artifacts across the surface of Gaia, and likely several on Anoma, given how often people tend to carry crafted metal items on their persons.
Smiths are the toolmakers of every other profession, but do not truly require much from the others, with the possible exception of handles from woodworkers.