User:AndrewTall/Craft

Crafts are frequently over-looked in the game, perhaps a warrior may forge a sword, or a wizard learn weaving to make a cloak, but in general labouring over raw goods to make a few coppers is not a heroic gaming experience. That's fine, but a little knowledge about some crafts can go a long way towards adding colour to a game, and explaining what sort of things may be going on in a domain.

Knowledge of crafts is typically passed down from Master to Apprentice or within a guild, and specific technicques are frequently closely guarded secrets that are carefully protected to keep the family in trade down the generations. Testing new ways of doing things tends to be rare - failure is expensive and when every copper coin counts, doing it 'the right way' is imperative. Innovations tend to arise only where someone has significant capital to allow them to experiment, or where the cost of failure is low.

Wood was one of the most important and valuable resources that a medieval lord could own, not because of rights to hunt, or payments for foraging, but due to the harvesting of the wood itself - for woods were regularly harvested over cycles as long as 150 years, each generation of the nobility vesting that planted generations before so ensure the families continued propsperity.

Wood crafts include:

• Wood harvesting and coppicing. A brief comment on how wood is 'farmed' in 'civilised lands.
• Wood cutting and turning. Some comments on lumbering, sawing, riving, seasoning and turning wood.
• Basketry and wickerwork. The craft of weaving wood together to make various goods.
• Boat building. The making of boats and ships.
• Charcoal burning. The craft of partly burning wood to make a more useful fuel.
• Barrel making. The craft of making barrels to hold goods.
• Farm tool making. How to make farmyard forks, broms, cribs, and ladders
• Hedge laying. How to grow / make a strong impassable hedge.
• Fence making. How to make fences and hurdles (movable enclosures for livestock).
• Wagon making. The making of carts, wagons and wains for carrying goods.
• Wheel making. The making of wheels - a highly skilled job mixing skills from many crafts.

Earthenwork is crafts which relate to the earth and earthenware.

Earthen crafts include:

• Brick and tile making. How to make bricks and tiles.
• Glass making. How to make glass.
• Lime burning. Some comments on the uses of lime.
• Slate mining. The craft of slate mining.
• Well digging. How to dig a well.
• Peat cutting. The peasant tradition of cutting peat
• Millstone dressing. How to cut a millstone.
• Pottery. Some comments on clay preparation and pottery.

• Felt making
• Weaving
• Wool and spinning
• Cotton making
• Silk making
• Rope making
• Net making
• Sail making
• Tanning and curing
• Harness making
• Saddle making
• Boot making

• Wood huts
• Log cabin
• Wood cabin
• Clay lump walling
• Cob Walling
• Flint walling
• Thatching. Thatching is the process of making a roof from grass, and having it stay dry and warm for decades.

• Blacksmithying
• Paper making
• Candle making
• Soap making.
• Dry stone walling. Where wood is expensive, livestock still needs to be contained, so walls are built from the local stone.
• Rush and straw-work. A craft similar to wickerwork but based on grasses and rushes.