Recipe Discovery¶

Overview¶

Crafting recipes are not automatically known. Every recipe must be discovered — or taught — before a player can use it. This creates a real knowledge economy alongside the material economy: players who know rare recipes have an advantage that cannot be purchased with coin alone.

Discovery Methods¶

1. NPC Instruction¶

The most reliable and accessible discovery route. NPCs who have craft expertise can teach recipes to players who meet the standing and skill prerequisites.

How it works: - The player visits the instructing NPC and selects a recipe from their catalog - The NPC verifies the player has the required skill band and any relationship prerequisites - The player pays the instruction fee - The recipe is added to the player's personal recipe library immediately

Cost formula:

recipe_instruction_cost = recipe_tier_base × quality_band_multiplier × standing_discount

Recipe Tier	Base Cost
Common recipe	20 coin
Crafted recipe	60 coin
Fine recipe	150 coin
Superior recipe	400 coin
Exceptional recipe	Not available from NPC instruction

Quality band multiplier: 1.0× for the base tier listed above. Applying a standing discount (same table as service discounts in npc-services-and-repair.md) reduces this cost up to 20%.

NPC Recipe Catalogs (examples):

NPC	Location	Teaches
Blacksmith Tallus	Trevalkaan	Iron/copper tools, basic weapons, basic armor fittings (Common to Fine recipes)
Leatherworker NPC	Trevalkaan	Leather armor pieces, straps, grips, basic saddlery (Common to Fine)
Crafters Guild Tutor	Trevalkaan	Woodworking products, basic Alchemy recipes, Leatherworking cross-recipes (Common to Fine)
Physician Kaisaarul	Trevalkaan	Medicinal recipes, salves, antidotes, wound dressing recipes (Common to Fine)
Herbalist NPCs	Metsadu, Polheen	Herb processing recipes, botanical preparations, tea and tincture recipes
Village Smiths	Rumiarr	Rumiarr-specific recipes: mountain-grade tool fittings, Bergulfr-bone applications (Fine recipes)
Gwydinti, Branch Warden	Coedwair	Coedwair-specific recipes: old-growth wood applications, bark preparation, Tapiokarhu-material recipes (Fine recipes)

Superior recipes taught by NPCs are rare. Most NPC instructors cap at Fine quality recipes for their catalog.

2. Market Purchase (Tradeable Recipe Items)¶

Some recipes exist as Recipe Parchments — physical items in the game's item system that can be sold and traded on the player market or through direct player trades.

How it works: - A Recipe Parchment is acquired through any of the discovery routes below - The player who finds it can either learn it directly (destroying the parchment, adding the recipe to their library) or sell it on the market - Recipe Parchments are tradeable items with an icon distinct from normal items - Once learned, the recipe is personal to the learner — it cannot be re-sold or transferred

Market value of Recipe Parchments is player-determined and highly variable. A rare Superior recipe parchment found during a boss hunt or high-tier expedition may sell for several times the equivalent NPC instruction cost — or more if the recipe is unique and no NPC teaches it.

3. Expedition Discovery¶

Barrows, boss encounters, and high-tier expedition sites contain rare drops that include Recipe Parchments. This is the primary source of recipes that are not in any NPC's catalog — including several Fine recipes and all Exceptional-quality recipes.

How it works: - During high-tier expedition encounters, the resolver's loot tables include a small chance of Recipe Parchment drops - The drop probability is modified by: - The character's Survey or Cartography skill (higher skill increases discovery chance) - The encounter tier (boss and elite encounters have better loot tables) - Party composition (having a Warden or Ranger with appropriate secondary skills improves loot discovery) - The specific recipe dropped is determined by the encounter and zone type: - Barrow encounters (undead): undead-material processing recipes, ritual preparation recipes - Boss contract outcomes: rare weapon and armor pattern recipes - Deep bog zones (Suohauki encounters): rare Alchemy reagent preparations, botanical craft recipes

Discovery Chance indicator: The expedition setup screen displays a qualitative Recipe Discovery Chance indicator alongside the standard combat and loot preview. The indicator reflects the character's current Survey or Cartography skill band and the encounter tier:

Indicator	Condition
Low	Surveying Untrained; low-tier encounter
Moderate	Surveying Familiar or Practiced; standard encounter tier
High	Surveying Skilled or Veteran; mid or high-tier encounter
Very High	Surveying Expert or Master; boss or elite encounter with Warden/Ranger in party

This is a directional signal only — it does not expose exact percentages.

Exceptional recipes are only obtainable through boss contracts and elite encounters. No NPC sells Exceptional-quality recipe parchments at launch.

4. Apprenticeship Unlock¶

Players who complete the full teaching arc with an NPC or player teacher may unlock additional recipes as part of their advancement milestone. These are not purchasable — they are awarded at specific skill band advances as part of the progression system.

How it works: - Advancing from Practiced to Skilled in a craft skill unlocks 2–3 craft recipes specific to that skill (awarded automatically at band advance) - Advancing from Skilled to Veteran unlocks 2–3 additional recipes, including one Fine-tier recipe - Advancing from Veteran to Expert unlocks 1–2 Superior-tier recipe parchments (item form, so they can be traded or learned) - Advancing from Expert to Master unlocks 1 unique Master's recipes — specific to the character's craft focus, non-tradeable, permanently bound

Apprenticeship unlocks complement the instruction and discovery paths rather than replacing them. A Skilled Smithing player does not automatically know all Skilled-tier Smithing recipes — they get a curated set from band advance and must discover or purchase the rest.

5. Cross-Craft Discovery¶

Some recipes emerge from combining knowledge across two craft skills. A player who has both Herbalism at Skilled and Alchemy at Practiced may discover combined-reagent recipes that neither skill tree unlocks on its own.

How it works: - Cross-craft recipes are unlocked when the player meets both skill prerequisites simultaneously - The system checks for cross-craft unlocks at each band advance - Cross-craft recipes are always personal library additions — they do not drop as tradeable parchments and are not taught by NPCs - These recipes produce items that cannot be produced through single-skill paths

Known cross-craft recipe categories at launch: - Herbalism + Alchemy: enhanced field antidotes, stamina-restoring preparations, wound-accelerant salves - Smithing + Leatherworking: reinforced leather-and-metal hybrid armor components - Woodworking + Alchemy: treated wood preparations for weather resistance, arcane-infused wood for focus crafting - Ritualism + Smithing: rune-etched metal components (cosmetic distinction at launch, with planned mechanical properties post-launch)

Recipe Library Management¶

Each player has a personal Recipe Library — a catalog accessible from their character sheet. The library:

Shows all known recipes, organized by craft skill
Displays ingredient requirements, workshop tier needed, and expected quality range
Marks recipes as "learned" vs. "discovered but prerequisites not met" (if a parchment was received before the required skill band was reached)
Cannot be lost — recipes in the library are permanent, even through death

Unknown recipes: Items crafted from unknown or discovered recipes carry a flavor marker in their description indicating the crafting method is unrecorded or experimental. This is a cosmetic label with no mechanical effect, but it signals to buyers that the item was produced through non-standard craft knowledge.

Recipe Economy Notes¶

The recipe economy creates a legitimate parallel market to raw materials:

Recipe Parchments are durable goods with lasting demand — every new player who wants to specialize in a craft needs them
Rare expedition recipes are genuinely scarce, with drop rates that prevent flooding the market
The apprenticeship unlock system ensures active crafters get meaningful private value from progressing — they are not just buying their advantages
Cross-craft recipes reward investment in breadth, creating a meaningful distinction between deep specialists and versatile crafters

Crafters who hoard rare recipes are making a real market decision. Players who share knowledge through teaching relationships are investing in their guild or community's capability.

Ritual Preparation Breakdown¶

Ritual preparations (charged single-use items produced by Alchemy and Ritualism skills) are expensive to craft and are lost permanently if the character is incapacitated during the expedition in which they were carried. This creates a reasonable reluctance to use them.

To reduce hoarding without removing the loss-on-death rule, any ritual preparation that was equipped but not consumed during an expedition can be broken down at an alchemy station on return.

Breakdown rules:

The character must have the preparation in their inventory at expedition return (carried back intact and unused)
Breakdown is performed at any Alchemy workshop or village Physician NPC
Breakdown is not a separate expedition — it is an in-town action with no timer
The character receives 40% of the coin value of the reagents consumed to craft the preparation, returned as raw coin (not as the reagents themselves)
Breakdown does not require the character to know the preparation's recipe — they only need to have the item

Why 40% and not reagents back: The breakdown produces coin rather than reagents to avoid a loop where players craft, recover, recraft indefinitely. The 40% return is meaningful enough to reduce the anxiety of "what if I don't use it" without making over-crafting an optimal strategy.

A preparation that was partially activated (charges spent) cannot be broken down — only fully unused preparations are eligible.