Leatherworking#

The trade of hides: skinning, tanning and turning leather into armor, boots, bags, belts and bridles. Leather is lighter than metal and quieter, and plenty of people who fight for a living would rather wear it.

Ranks and quests#

The guild’s hall sets each rank’s quest. Six ranks has what every rank makes, and making something how the craft roll works.

1. Level0
   Rank 1: Inquirer

   Trash to Shoddy · ×1 worth · 1d6 craft roll

   Work a week in the hall's tanning yard and keep your breakfast down.

2. Level20
   Rank 2: Hobbyist

   Crude to Inferior · ×1.25 worth · 2d6 craft roll

   Skin a beast you hunted yourself and bring back a hide without a cut in it.

3. Level40
   Rank 3: Apprentice

   Shoddy to Acceptable · ×1.5 worth · 2+3d6 craft roll

   Make a pair of boots someone walks a hundred miles in, and mend them when they come back.

4. Level60
   Rank 4: Journeyman

   Poor to Fine · ×1.75 worth · 4+4d6 craft roll

   Tan the hide of something that fought back, and make armor of it for whoever helped you kill it.

5. Level80
   Rank 5: Master

   Inferior to Flawless · ×2 worth · 5+5d6 craft roll

   Outfit a Maygonite crew for a month in the ruins of Esthar, and bring every one of them home.

6. Level100
   Rank 6: Artisan

   Adequate to Masterwork · ×3 worth · 6+6d6 craft roll

   Make the saddle and bridle for a mount an animal husbandry master has broken, and ride it to the hall.

The work#

Leather comes from skinning an animal or from salvaging old leather gear. A hide becomes leather through tanning, and the tanning decides what kind of leather you get.

Tanning the hide#

Skin takes the hide with a skinning knife, and tan leather treats it with a reagent: hot water for boiled leather or suede, chromium sulfate for light and medium leather, glutaraldehyde for aniline, polymers for heavy leather and shell cordovan, aluminium salts for nubuck and shagreen, and lime salts for fur and nappa.

Making the piece#

Carve leather cuts and shapes the tanned hide, stitch leather joins it, stamp leather tools a pattern into it and polish leather finishes it.

Skills and tools#

ReconditionInquirer

Recondition is used to fix minor problems in leather and cloth armor, turning fair or excellent condition items into mint condition.Tools: leather needle

RepairHobbyist

Repair is used to fix major problems in leather and cloth armor, turning damaged or mediocre condition items into fair condition items so they can then be reconditioned to mint.Tools: leather needle, patch

RebuildApprentice

Rebuild is used to completely overhaul broken or ruined condition leather and cloth armor into damaged condition items so they can be repaired and reconditioned back into pristine shape.Tools: leather needle, sewing table

Skin

Skins an animal to retain its hide for leatherworking.Tools: skinning knife

Butcher

Cuts a thick steak from the corpse of a beast with a skinning knife. Nothing more can be taken from the corpse once it is butchered, so skin it first.Tools: skinning knife

Tan Leather

Tans raw leather with specified tanning typeTools: tanning rack

Carve Leather

Uses a knife to carve a design into the leather. Increases the value of the item. Cannot be painted if carved.Tools: swivel knife

Stitch Leather

Using a leather needle, sew together leather into a specific design

Stamp Leather

Stamp the maker into the leather, increasing the value of the item.Tools: stamp

Polish Leather

Increases the value of the leather item.Tools: polishing cloth

What it makes#

Leathers#

Each leather comes from tanning a skinned hide with the reagent that makes it.

What a leatherworker makes#

The guildmaster#

Tavo spent forty years in the tanning yards downwind of Esthar’s Inner City, insisting the smell was honest work. Half the Maygonites in Esthar wear his boots into the ruins, and he has outlived more of his customers than any tradesman in the province. He came to Verinton for the deer hides the Carvi still smoke the old way, and stayed in a deer-hide tent because nobody there minds the smell.

Find Tavo Rennick at a deer-hide tent in Verinton, in Amari. It’s the guild’s only hall: you join there, and you come back to it for every rank’s quest, inquirer to artisan.

Trades it works with#

What leatherworking gives the other trades.

Animal Husbandry Bridles and saddles, and everything else a rider straps onto a mount. Living things Carpentry Leather for upholstered chairs, sofas and thrones. Timber Tailoring Leather trim and backing for armor that's part cloth, part hide. Hide and thread

What it takes from them.

Tailoring Thread, and the cloth half of armor that's part hide. Hide and thread

A good pair

Tailoring: Between them they make every piece of armor that isn’t metal, and the packs to carry the rest.

Animal Husbandry: Break the horse, then make its saddle and bridle yourself.

Who takes it up#

The classes whose work leatherworking fits best. Any class can join any guild.

Headhunter Headhunters fight from the shadows, and leather armor doesn't clank. A natural fit Woodsman A woodsman hunts anyway. Leatherworking turns every kill into boots, armor and coin. A natural fit Scout Scouts travel light and fast, and leather is the lightest armor that still turns a blade. Works well Gravedigger Gravediggers aren't squeamish, which is most of what skinning takes. Works well

The guild finder ranks every guild for a class.

How it shows#

None of this changes a roll. It’s how the people around you can tell what you do for a living.

• You smell faintly of tannin however often you wash, and dogs follow you.
• You run your thumb along the seams of anything leather you’re handed, and frown if the stitching wanders.

What others say#

The hide that wasn’t

A hunter sold Tavo Rennick a hide he swore came from a lion, and everything made from it is going wrong: boots that walk their wearers into the ruins at night, a belt that won’t stop tightening. The hunter has disappeared into the Lien Grassland, and Tavo needs to know what the animal really was before he sells another piece.