Blacksmith's Introductory Guide/Text

Welcome, friend, to the wonderful world of Metalcraft. Within these pages you will find a guide to getting started on the art of melting and shaping the metal you mine out of Dalaya's crust into potent weapons and suits of protective armor. Before you begin your journey toward being a Grandmaster Blacksmith, you should learn to mine. Purchase a pickaxe and head out to the hills, mountains and caves of Dalaya. Bring back a haul of ore to the forge, and burn it along with coal to make metal ingots. The amount of ore you burn at a time determines the size of the ingot, and subsequently, the size of the object you can forge from it.

So you've successfully made yourself some ingots, eh? Well, then it's time to get to work and forge some basic Iron weapons. Purchase a weapon mold (small, medium or large, all depending on the size of the ingots you made) and put it in the forge along with two ingots and a sharpening stone. Work the metal to the desired shape, and the sharpen the edges with your sharpening stone. If you did it right, you will have successfully created yourself a new weapon!

The process of making Iron armor is equally simple. Purchase an armor mold, aquire some appropriately sized ingots (three for most armor pieces, but four are needed to make a shield and five are needed to make a breastplate) and get to work hammering out thew armor. You'll find yourself clad in Chainmail or Platemail in no time.

When mining, you may come upon veins of Copper or Silver ore. Copper and Silver share many basic traits with Iron, and is burnt and forged in the same way. Copper weapons and armor are lightweight, ideally suited for the more frail adventurer, while Silver carries protective qualities and makes weapons that can strike down the loathful undead.

The final lesson this book has to offer is on the making and use of refined ingots. Refined Iron, Silver and Copper ingots are harder to work with, but create Mastercrafted-quality items, that are vastly superior to ordinary Silver, Iron and Copper works. Burn limestone along with the coal and ore to create refined ingots. Some smiths will even fit gems into the forging process when making Mastercrafted Swords and Ulaks to add a pommel stone, and it is said that doing so will infuse the weapon with the particular gem's innate power.