What This Page Is
The world gives, the maker knows, the item is what the maker owes. The Maker's Hand is the standing rule for every craft in the series — the pipeline, the quality tiers, the cost bands, and the crossing where a spell is given somewhere to live. The combat system is in The Way of the Blade; the spell system is in The Veil; this page is the making, and the making is the third leg of the same table.
The Pipeline
Every item in the world is three things in a row:
- Material — what the world gives: iron, leather, bone, venom, a named tree, a named mine. A material has a source, a yield, and a cost band. The material pages name the source, and the source is the one the story has to be about.
- Recipe — what a maker knows: forging, smithing, alchemy, distillation, runecraft, tailoring. A recipe has inputs, an output tier, a time, and the maker's line that owns it. The recipe is the knowledge, and the knowledge is the one the guild charges for.
- Item — what the maker owes the world in return: a blade, a shield, a vial, a coat. The item has a tier, a cost band, and — if it is enchanted — a promise.
The pipeline is the whole of crafting. A maker who skips a leg of it does not make an item — the maker makes a liability, and the liability is the one the story has to clean up.
The Quality Tiers
| tier | what it is | the price | the time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apprentice | it works | a week's labor | a week |
| Journeyman | it is made right — the guild mark, the honest edge | a season | a season |
| Master | it is made well — the maker's name is on it, and the name is worth something | a year | a year |
| Masterwork | it is a story event — there are a dozen in the world, and most of them are already remembered | a life's work | a lifetime |
A masterwork is not a tier you buy. A masterwork is a tier you are given, or a tier you make, or a tier that is already dead and you are holding it. The dozen that exist are mostly canon already: Rumzuck Umbatsch's shield, the anvil-singers' plate that moves, the dragons' own making, Wreckreate's notebook-staff — and the story remembers them, because a masterwork does not get found. It gets remembered.
Cost and Time
The price of an item is the price of its tier — material cost, time, and the maker's fee, and the three are one argument:
- The material is the floor: you cannot make a masterwork out of an apprentice's ore, and the ore is the one the mine has to give.
- The time is the middle: the maker's line charges for the time, and the time is the one the guild's reputation is made of.
- The fee is the name: the maker's name is on the item, and the name is the promise, and the promise is the one the buyer is paying for.
The price ladder from an apprentice knife to a masterwork blade is the whole of the economy in one sentence: the world gives, the maker knows, and the item is what the maker owes — and the owing is the one the story has to pay.
Enchantment: the Crossing
An enchanted item is a spell given somewhere to live: an item plus a spell's Exchange, held by a maker who knows the recipe.
- The Exchange that a spell would spend on a reagent is spent into the object instead — the tension is given a shape, and the shape is the item, and the item is the one who holds the promise.
- This is why enchantments are rare: the maker has to know both legs of the table — the recipe and the Exchange — and the lines who know both are the ones the story names: the erudite runecasters, the dark-elf alchemists, and the anvil-singers who put a spell in a blade.
- This is why enchantments can be broken: the object is holding a promise, and a promise can be unkept — the tension looks for a new shape, and the new shape is the wild spell, and the wild spell is the one Wild Magic is about.
- An enchanted item is not a force multiplier. It is a scene that is waiting to happen — and the scene is the one the item was made to be.