Crafting

Crafting is the umbrella term for the player-driven manufacture of items in Ultima Online — the cluster of skills, tools, and resources that produce armor and clothing, weapons, furniture and houses, and consumables (food, potions, scrolls, alchemy products). UO's crafting system is exceptionally deep: every craftable item has a success chance scaling with the relevant skill, every craft has an Exceptional quality tier (granting +1 resists/damage and the Maker's Mark), and the entire production economy chains into enhancement, runic re-forging, imbuing, and artifact-recipe synthesis — a craftable item can be re-worked through multiple post-craft passes to become a bespoke high-end suit piece or legendary weapon. Crafting is the canonical "second character" path in UO — many players run a full crafting alt to support their PvP/PvM main, and the Bulk Order Deeds system gives crafters a parallel reputation/reward stream that mirrors combat play.

The 12 crafting skills

The crafting set divides into primary crafts (independent skills with their own UI) and secondary specializations (gated under a primary skill, requiring a specific tool/book unlock).

Primary crafts (8)

Secondary specializations (3)

These three crafts require purchasing a book from a Ter Mur NPC vendor to unlock; they are sub-skills of an existing primary skill:

The Ter Mur unlock pattern is the canonical "Stygian Abyss expansion crafting depth" — the Royal City is the gateway to gem mining, granite, glassblowing, and basket weaving for any character with the corresponding parent skill.

Gathering skills

Crafters need raw materials. Three gathering skills harvest the primary resources:

Mining has three context-menu sub-modes unlocked via Ter Mur books — Mining for Quality Stone (granite for Masonry), Find Glass-Quality Sand (Glassblowing input), and Mining for Quality Gems (high-value gem rolls). All three are activated through right-clicking the pickaxe/shovel and selecting the desired mode.

Resource hierarchy

Metals (Mining → Blacksmithy / Tinkering)

Each ore tier crafts a colored armor/weapon set with characteristic stat bonuses. Gold ingots are notable for crafting +2/+2/+3/+0/+3 resist armor (Phys/Fire/Cold/Pois/Energy) — a useful Luck-suit baseline.

Wood (Lumberjacking → Carpentry / Fletching / Tinkering)

Frostwood is the only wood that adds Cold Damage to bows.

Leather (Skinning → Tailoring)

Spined Leather is the canonical Luck Suit base — the +9 Physical Resist contribution is the highest-value tailoring resist tier.

Quality tiers

Every craft has a success chance that scales with skill, plus an Exceptional chance that scales with overlap above the minimum:

Exceptional is the gateway to Imbuing — only Exceptional crafted items have the higher Imbuing Weight cap (500) needed to layer 5 mods on a piece without the imbue weight constraint clipping the build.

Skills that enhance crafted output

These skills don't craft directly but modify quality of the crafted result:

A character with Blacksmithy + Arms Lore + Mining is the canonical Smith Crafter template.

Tools, post-craft enhancement

Runic Tools

Runic Tools are upgraded crafting tools (smith's hammer, sewing kit, fletcher's tools) made with colored ores/woods/leathers. They:

Runic tier ladder (Smithy example): Dull Copper → Shadow Iron → Copper → Bronze → Gold → Agapite → Verite → Valorite. Verite/Valorite tools are the canonical "high-tier reforge engine."

Powder of Fortifying

Powder of Fortifying increases the current and maximum Durability of an item by +10 per charge, capped at 255. The canonical "save your weapon from breaking" tool. Cannot be applied to imbued items — apply Powder before imbuing.

Whetstone of Enervation

Whetstone of Enervation removes the Damage Increase property from an Exceptional crafted weapon, freeing an imbue slot for a more valuable mod. Must be used before Imbuing — like Powder of Fortifying.

Forged Metal of Artifacts

Forged Metal of Artifacts is a UO Store item that guarantees Enhancement success. Crafted enhancement (smithing or tailoring) has a chance to break the item; this consumable removes that risk for one attempt.

Armor Refinement

Armor Refinement lets a character trade Max Resist for Defence Chance Increase (DCI) or vice versa — a builder's lever for asymmetric suits.

The full crafting workflow (Reforge → Imbue → Enhance)

The canonical "high-end armor or weapon" production chain:

Notes per step: - Imbuing Luck overwrites Reforging Luck — do not Imbue Luck if Reforging already provided it - "Self Repair" property is removed when imbued — accept this loss or skip Imbuing - Materials that add Durability or Lower Requirements count as Item Properties — they consume one of the 5 Imbue slots - Elemental Damage is not an Item Property for the 5-property-cap purpose — it's a separate weapon-side modifier

Uncrafting

Several mechanisms recover materials from crafted items:

Bulk Order Deeds

Smiths, Tailors, Carpenters, Fletchers, Tinkers, Cooks, Alchemists, and Inscribers have Bulk Order Deeds — request slips for specific quantities of crafted items, redeemed for gold, materials, runic tools, Power Scrolls, and crafted artifacts. The BOD system is the canonical crafter parallel to combat-loot economy:

A pure crafter can run BODs to climb to Lord/Lady Fame and the highest Karma tiers without combat — see the BODs article for the full mechanic.

Crafted Artifacts (Publish 106 era)

Starting with Publish 106, recipes call for rare artifacts as ingredients to create newer items — turning loot artifacts into the input pipeline for crafted artifacts. Examples:

This pattern (calling artifacts a "transmog" in community shorthand) extends crafting's reach to formerly-hoardable items. Fey Wings, Lodestone, and similar items also flow through the recipe ingredient list — the Pub 106 design philosophy is that everything in the loot economy can become a crafting input.

See also

• Imbuing — the post-craft custom-property system
• Bulk Order Deeds — the crafter's parallel reputation economy
• Resources — the materials reference (ores, woods, leathers, gems)
• Runic tool — high-tier crafting + reforging tools
• Mining · Lumberjacking · Fishing — the gathering skills
• Blacksmithy · Tailoring · Carpentry · Alchemy · Tinkering · Inscription · Cooking · Bowcraft & Fletching · Cartography — primary crafting skills
• Arms Lore — the +5% DI / +1 resist Exceptional crafting buff
• Ter Mur — gateway facet for Glassblowing, Masonry, and gem-mining unlocks