FORGING Forging, or the craft of blacksmithery, was developed to a high art by the ancient dwarves of Grimforge. Though their secrets were lost to the ages, it is said that a rift in the fabric of time allows time travelers to visit the ancient dwarven mining town to gather ores and learn the craft for themselves. The ore gathering process: * In the Grimforge mine, traverse the caverns looking for ore nodes to mine. The mine is patrolled by a powerful magician who sends golems around the mine to perform the chore. Profit may be found in encountering and destroying the golems, as each cavern has a guaranteed chance to contain a golem with an ore. The more ore you have, the better the tier of the final product. The forging process: * Furnace : Used to combine all the gathered ores with a gem, forming an ingot. A gem has an ore capacity equal to but not exceeding its level, meaning this places a cap on the tier that can be achieved, regardless of how much ore was fused with it. The furnace can also be used to melt unwanted forged armors back into ingots. See the sign next to the furnace for more information. * Anvil : Used to configure the ingot into the desired shape. The available shapes are headgear, torsowear, armwear, belts, and legwear. There is a plaque next to the anvils explaining how to perform the specific combinations. * Pool : Cooling the hot ingot shortly after it has been moulded finalizes the armor and determines its quality (i.e. how well the item's attributes turn out to be, as compared with the theoretical best for the tier). Skillful furnacing and anvilwork helps set the quality. There is nothing that can be done to prevent the outcome of cooling, short of throwing spoiled armor into the furnace and adding in more ore to reinforce the damaged ingot. A note about forging armor in general: Armor forged in Grimforge is some of the best that can be acquired, in some cases being superior to armors that lie at the end of very dangerous lairs and dungeons. However, the risk of playerkilling, stealing and looting remains. This equipment takes a very long time to acquire, making it costly to lose it. It also will be targetted by others who want it. Much like those dwarves who mined their homeland into a volcanic eruption, many adventurers who have surrendered to the caverns only found tragedy at the end of their journey. Note that it is possible to engrave your forged armors, but doing so will cause it to become a limited item.