Leatherworking

Leather for the swift

The ladder climbs from the plain Fenbridge hide leggings, boots, and belt through the uncommon marshstalker jerkin, hood, and spaulders to the rare mirewarden set, the best leather a crafter can cut. Two caster pieces round it out: the Eastbrook Druid's Hide field common and the Duskhide Wraps at skill 50.

On the ring it sits between Cooking and Tailoring. Its living pair is the Outfitter, Leatherworking and Tailoring, sworn before Weaver Ottilie in Eastbrook; the Trapper pair with Cooking is named on the ring but has no oath quest yet.

The hunt is the harvest

Leatherworking is the craft where your leveling route and your supply line are the same thing: rough hide is harvested straight off hide-bearing corpses, wolves and boars above all, and each corpse serves one harvester only, first come first served. A rare or better harvest roll also grants a Pristine Hide, a signed specimen the Mirewarden Jerkin calls for, so bank every one you find.

The supporting cast is small: spider legs and silk, homespun cloth off humanoids, a single osmium ore in each mirewarden rare piece (six in the Duskhide Wraps), and a Tanning Agent at 16 copper from the tannery counter. Osmium itself is never counter-bought: mine it yourself, on Thornpeak or nearly any younger zone's starter veins (the Farshore alone digs iron), or buy it off another player.

Trained in Fenbridge

Here is the wrinkle: the tannery stands in Fenbridge, on the Mirefen Marsh road, making Leatherworking the one deep craft trained out in the marsh. Tanner Hesk teaches the ladder at his vats: the Fenbridge hide rung free at skill 0, the marshstalker rung at 25 silver a recipe from skill 25, and the mirewarden rung at 1 gold each from skill 50, each rung opening as your tier reaches it.

Three recipes skip the trainer: the field commons (the Tanned Leather Jerkin and Eastbrook Druid's Hide) craft anywhere from the start, and the Duskhide Wraps are known to everyone at skill 50, tannery-bound. Note that the Outfitter oath itself is sworn back in Eastbrook with Ottilie; only the teaching happens in the marsh.

How crafting works

Open the crafting window (default key T) and every recipe you know is listed with what it needs and what you have on hand. Station-bound recipes ask you to stand within 20 yards of the right station in town, field recipes craft anywhere, and Enchanting's breaking and enchanting need no station at all (only its three trainer recipes are station work, at the toolworks). There is no failure roll: a craft with the materials in hand always succeeds.

Two small frictions keep the economy honest. Every successful craft pays a fee of 2 copper per point of the item's stat budget, and every craft-family action takes real cast time (field crafts near two seconds, harder ladder crafts longer, and disenchant, enchant, salvage, and tool recharge each about a second and a half). Materials, the gold fee, stations, and skill ceilings do the rest; nothing scolds you for working too quickly.

Recipes

Every recipe of the craft: its exact skill requirement and materials, where it is learned and for what fee, and the three skill values where its gain fades to half, a quarter, and nothing.

Skill gain

Every recipe in the window wears its gain state in the classic colors: orange means full gain, yellow half, green a quarter, gray nothing. The boundaries are exact, every 25 skill is a tier, and a recipe fades one color for each tier it falls below yours.

Because gains are deterministic (a full-gain craft always moves you exactly one point), you can plan a whole climb from the list: work a rung while it is orange, train the next rung as it turns yellow, and never spend materials on a gray craft expecting progress. At the cap of 125 the number stops, but the recipes, the masterwork chance, and the profits keep working.

Masterworks

Every successful craft is exactly what the recipe promises, and sometimes a little more: a masterwork finishes the same piece one quality tier finer, with the bonus stats baked in at craft time. It is add-only, never a downgrade. Ordinary crafting follows its existing gear ladder; the raid-funded Crucible collections are a separate alternative at the current raid tier.

The apex Masterwrought crafts are the one exception, and they pay the same proc a different way. An apex piece already sits at the top of its ladder, so there is no finer tier to finish it in; a masterwork there hands the piece over one rank into Perfecting instead, a free first rank on the four-rank walk the Professions page describes. Nothing is baked into the stats, and the chance and its gates are the ones below.

The chance is published, not mystical: 3% base, plus 1% per tier your skill sits above the recipe, plus 2% when any signed reagent goes in, plus 3% once you are specialized, with higher-tier materials adding 1 to 2% more, all capped at 15%. Only a piece with real stats can improve, so statless commons, tools, and consumables never proc; a dormant craft never produces one, and a hobby craft cannot masterwork past its rare ceiling.

Fine work carries its maker. Rare and better outputs are signed, every copy (Crafted by; gathered materials carry Gathered by), a masterwork is always signed whatever its quality. A signature is provenance, not a lock: signed goods trade, mail, and list on the World Market freely.

Training

Trainer recipes come from the resident masters, taught at their stations. The rule is one line: a master teaches a recipe once your tier in the craft has reached the recipe's own tier, and nothing else gates it, not your level, not your archetype. The gear and consumable ladders run their rungs at skill 0, 25, and 50, and every craft adds one 75-rung intermediate above them, taught at its station (Enchanting's is the Lucent Reagent, beside its two charm recipes on the 25 rung); Engineering's two rod lessons continue its ladder at 75 and 125, so a fresh rung opens as your tiers climb.

Fees are one-time and flat by rung: the starting rung is free, the skill 25 rung costs 25s a recipe, the skill 50 rung 1g 0s, and the 75 and 125 rungs above them carry their own fees, listed beside each recipe in the table. You must stand at the master's actual station to train, and a mobile station never counts. The common field recipes and the six crafted land-tool recipes need no training at all; every character knows them from the start.

Specialization

At skill 75 this craft specializes you, no quest needed: discountable recipe materials cost 20% less from then on, and specialization adds its own bump to the masterwork chance. Raid-core costs are never discounted.

Specialists also learn to take the workshop with them: a specialized crafter can set up a mobile station in the field for ten minutes at a time, so station-bound recipes can be worked at the mine mouth instead of back in town. Its limits are deliberate: it never counts for training with a master or for unbinding a commissioned piece, and it expires on its timer whether or not you used it.

Masterworks, and a working route to 125

Any piece with real stats rolls the masterwork chance so long as the finer quality fits inside your tier ceiling, the statted Eastbrook Druid's Hide included, and a signed Pristine Hide in a Mirewarden Jerkin provides the signed-reagent bonus automatically; osmium counts as a tier 1 material for the proc. The statless hide commons cannot proc.

Level it the natural way: harvest every wolf and boar you kill from level one, let the two field commons carry you to 25 wherever you stand, then train the hide rung at the vats when the quests pull you into the marsh anyway. Marshstalker carries you to 50, and the mirewarden pieces and Duskhide Wraps carry the rare tier from 50 to 75. Past 75 those tier 2 recipes fade to half and then quarter gain, about 150 crafts for the final fifty points to the 125 cap; below a major's ceiling they still match the rare-quality craft ceiling instead of hard-zeroing.

The mobile tannery matters more for this craft than any other: specialize at 75 and a saddlebag of hides becomes finished gear at the campfire instead of a walk back to Fenbridge. Hesk's tannery work order buys eight rough hides every 30 minutes, a tidy return on skins you were collecting regardless, and the Book of Deeds marks Tanner's Trade at skill 50 with Grandmaster Leatherworking at the cap.