The Basics of Jewelcraft - by Muette (Tunare server)

Jewelry making is not for the faint of heart, or the empty of pocket. Rather, it is a skill that will take a lot of time, training, patience and financial resources before you can excel in it. However, once you excel in it, you will find that your wares will command a high price indeed.

At first glance, it may seem that much jewelry is "just fluff". In many cases it is. However, this is a role playing environment, and I'd be willing to bet that moon-eyed fellow in the corner would love an engagement ring to present to his beloved. And what about wedding rings for that big ceremony if she says yes? And what about a lovely gaudy show of wealth for that vain elf over there?

If that were all there were to it, however, it would not be that popular a trade skill. Like tailoring, greater skill and better materials allow you to make more valuable items... including enchanted jewelry. By enchanted jewelry, I mean jewelry that will enhance stats when worn. (e.g., +5 mana, +4 save vs. poison, +4 strength, to name a few.) You must use enchanted metals to make enchanted jewelry (you will need to hire an enchanter that can cast the proper enchant spell, if you're not an enchanter yourself).

Now that I've got you drooling and mentally counting the riches that could be yours, let me inject more reality into the picture. There are 5 basic metals to use in jewelry making: silver, electrum, gold, platinum and velium. These are listed in order of cost and in order of difficulty. If you have problems making a simple silver bar and a cheap piece of malachite combine into a ring, don't even think of trying out electrum or the others. Cheap gems are also easier to work with than the really expensive ones.

However, with a lot of training in the skill before you start trying to make anything, and a careful squirreling away of any pretty stones you find along the way, you should be able to progress well.

By the time I had a jewelry skill of 30, I was able to make a (very) few different electrum pieces, and a good chunk of silver and gem combinations. I'd made some very lovely pieces of jewelry that took my breath away, and whimpered when I destroyed a gem that cost over a platinum on a failure.

How did I do it? Start small, with silver and lesser stones, and work your way up to more expensive stones before you try the same thing with electrum. Keep good notes of what combinations of stone and metal bar make what. My recommendation is to just work with plain silver and gems for the first little while, to get your skill up. Once you have relative ease with making a certain item, then get a piece of enchanted silver and try the magical version of the item. Find other folks working in jewelry and compare notes. You can both save yourselves some costly experiments if you share your knowledge.

The basics: You need a jeweler's kit (sold where the silver/electrum/gold/platinum metal bars are sold -- it looks like a small sack), a metal bar (start with silver) and a gemstone (start with the cheapest - malachite). Put the single metal bar, and a single stone, in your jeweler's kit, close your eyes, pray to your chosen deity, and press combine. I'd recommend training yourself up to 20 ranks in the skill, or as close as you can, before you start trying anything (to save yourself coin). Malachite and silver will become trivial at skill rank 21, at which time you start using another cheap gem, such as lapis or turquoise for practice.

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