Gibrigorn's Forge

The forge in Stone Valley lets you change gear you already own instead of waiting for a better drop. Dorn Ashfoot works it, and takes jobs from anyone.

How a job works

Every service uses the same shape:

1. Open the bench at the forge. Each character has their own; what you leave on it stays there, even through resets, similar to account storage.
2. Lay four pieces of gear on it. The first piece you put down is the one being worked. The other three are consumed.
3. Lay a clan forge-mark on the bench too. The mark decides which service you get — Dorn does not offer a menu.
4. Talk to Dorn. He reads the bench back to you, tells you exactly what will happen and what it costs, and does nothing until you agree.
5. Let him work. He walks to the anvil and hammers for about fifteen seconds. The bench is his until he is done — it will not open while he is working — and the finished piece is waiting on it when he steps back.

The mark is consumed by the work. Gold is taken only when the job actually runs — if Dorn refuses, for any reason and at any point, the gold and the mark both come back.

TIP

Dorn always states the outcome before you commit. If the bench does not qualify he explains why, and will not offer to proceed.

The three marks

Each brother's mark buys a different service. Which mark you can get depends on who you have sworn to.

Mark	Clan	Service
Lastanvil Forge-Mark	Erivar	Merge — four pieces become one, a tier higher
Emberdelve Forge-Mark	Dvalin	Temper — drive one quality to its limit
Stonebreaker Forge-Mark	Fafnir	Reshape — change what an item is

Merge

Four pieces become one, one quality tier higher.

• All four must be the same kind of item and the same tier.
• The result is a brand new piece of that kind at the next tier up, with its properties rolled fresh. Nothing of what went in survives except the kind of thing it was — four full plates give full plate, four helms give a helm.
• Legendary is the ceiling. Four legendaries cannot be merged into anything.
• Ammo pouches can be merged too. They match on kind, not shape — four Quivers, or four Bullet Bags, but never a mix (a Quiver and a Bolt Case are not the same thing to the fire, even though they look alike). What comes out is cut for the new tier's sockets and arrives with more damage already seated; gems you set in the four are not carried over.

How many properties the new piece rolls is fixed by its tier:

Tier	Properties
Legendary	8
Titanic	7
Epic	6
Mythic	5
Rare	4

The cost is set by what comes out:

Result	Cost
Class set piece	20,000,000 gp
Legendary	20,000,000 gp
Titanic	10,000,000 gp
Epic	2,000,000 gp
Below Epic	Free

Example

You have four Titanic full plate. You lay one on the bench, then the other three, then a Lastanvil Forge-Mark, and pay 20,000,000 gp.

You get back a single Legendary full plate with eight freshly rolled properties. It is still full plate — the armor class of what went in is preserved — but none of the properties the four suits carried have any bearing on what it rolled.

Purifying Powder

A rare find. Lay one on the bench alongside a merge and the fire keeps faith with what you fed it: the new piece draws only on qualities the four inputs already carried, instead of whatever the fire would have chosen.

The powder narrows which qualities can be rolled. It never costs you anything:

• You always get the full number of properties for the new tier. Narrowing the pool does not cost you a property slot.
• No quality comes back weaker than it was. Each one is re-rolled at the new tier and floored at the best value it reached across the four pieces — a Strength carried up from four Titanic pieces lands at Legendary strength, never below what you already had.
• If the four share fewer qualities than the new tier allows, the remaining slots come back as empty sockets you can fill with gems.

Example

Four Epic breastplates that between them carry only five distinct qualities — Strength, AC, cold resistance, regeneration and a damage bonus. Epic pieces would normally merge into a Titanic with seven properties.

With a Purifying Powder on the bench, the Titanic comes back with all five of those qualities, each at Titanic strength and none weaker than the best of the four you fed in — plus two empty sockets for the two slots left over.

Without the powder it would have rolled all seven properties from the whole Titanic table, and you would have had no say in which.

Temper

Ammo pouches cannot be tempered. What a pouch carries, it carries in its gems, not in its iron — set a better stone instead.

Take one quality as far as that quality ever goes.

• All four must be the same kind of item.
• The three you feed in must be no more than one tier below the piece being worked — a Titanic takes Epic donors or better, a Legendary takes Titanic. They may be higher; scrap is refused. (Class set pieces take Titanic donors too.)
• The three pieces you are feeding in must all carry the quality you want driven. Three swords that know nothing of fire damage cannot make a fourth burn hotter.
• Of the qualities all four share, the smith takes the strongest on the worked piece and drives it to the highest that quality is ever found at on any item in the world — a Legendary value, whatever tier the piece itself is.
• Only qualities that appear on Legendary gear can be driven. If nothing at the top of the world carries it, there is no ceiling to drive it to.
• A piece can only be tempered once, ever. Iron takes one tempering and no more.

Piece worked	Cost
Class set piece	5,000,000 gp
Legendary	5,000,000 gp
Titanic	2,500,000 gp
Epic	1,000,000 gp
Below Epic	50,000 gp

Example

You want more bite out of a Titanic greatsword whose strongest quality is an enhancement bonus +6.

You lay it down first, then three other greatswords — Epic or better — that also carry an enhancement bonus, then an Emberdelve Forge-Mark, and pay 2,500,000 gp. Its enhancement is driven to +8 — as far as enhancement ever goes on any weapon — and everything else on the sword is untouched.

If one of those three greatswords had no enhancement bonus on it, Dorn would look for the next quality all four share instead; if they share nothing, he refuses the job. He refuses outright if any of the three is Mythic or worse — the cap he drives to is the same whatever the piece is worth, so he will not let you buy it with junk. And if the sword's enhancement were already at the cap, he would tell you there is nothing left to drive.

Reshape

Ammo pouches cannot be reshaped. The fire works arms and armor.

Keep everything the piece has; change what it is.

• The first piece keeps every quality it has — only its form changes.
• The other three are the pattern. They must all be alike, and the worked piece takes their form. A sword fed three axes comes back an axe; half plate fed three suits of full plate comes back full plate.
• All four must be the same tier. The pattern has to stand as high as the piece being reshaped.
• Armor takes the shape of armor and a blade the shape of a blade. The smith will not make a ring of your sword.

Piece worked	Cost
Class set piece	10,000,000 gp
Legendary	10,000,000 gp
Titanic	5,000,000 gp
Epic	2,500,000 gp
Below Epic	1,000,000 gp

Example

You have a Legendary bastard sword with properties you want, but your character is built for axes.

Lay the sword down first, then three Legendary battleaxes, then a Stonebreaker Forge-Mark, and pay 10,000,000 gp. The sword comes back a battleaxe carrying every property it had.

The three axes must be Legendary as well — a Legendary piece cannot be reshaped using a pattern of lesser gear.

Class set pieces

Class set pieces sit above Legendary, and the forge prices them as Legendary for all three services. What each service does with them differs from ordinary gear.

Merging sets

Four set pieces become one set piece — a different set, a different slot.

This is the use for the sets you will never wear. Unlike every other merge, the four do not have to be the same kind of item: four boots, or a helm and three cloaks, are equally good fuel. All four must be class set pieces.

• What comes back is a class set piece with its set and its slot both rolled. You do not choose either.
• Nothing on it comes back weaker than what you fed in. Any quality the four pieces carried at a higher value is raised to that value on the new piece.
• Legendary is no longer the ceiling here — a set piece merges into another set piece, not into something above it.

Example

You have four Bloodfury pieces your wizard will never wear. You lay them on the bench with a Lastanvil Forge-Mark and pay 20,000,000 gp.

Back comes a single class set piece — perhaps Astralweave gloves, perhaps Deadfall boots, perhaps another Bloodfury piece. Whatever it is, no quality on it is weaker than the best of the four that went in.

Merging sets with Purifying Powder

Lay a Purifying Powder on the bench with a set merge and the fire keeps to what you gave it, on both counts:

• The set is drawn only from the sets on the bench, weighted by how many of each you laid down. Two Deadfall and two Bloodfury is an even wager; four Bloodfury guarantees a Bloodfury piece.
• The slot is drawn only from the slots on the bench, the same way. Four boots come back as boots.
• The two are narrowed independently, so a mixed bench leaves every combination of them in play — two Deadfall chests and two Bloodfury boots can return any of the four.
• The new piece carries only qualities the four already carried, each rolled at set strength and floored at the best value it reached across the four. Anything the pool cannot fill comes back as an empty socket.

Example

Four Deadfall boots and a Purifying Powder returns Deadfall boots — set and slot are both pinned, so only the properties are left to the fire.

Two Deadfall boots and two Nightshade gloves returns one of four pieces: Deadfall boots, Deadfall gloves, Nightshade boots, or Nightshade gloves. Narrowing to the exact piece you want is a matter of what you are willing to feed the fire.

Tempering a set piece

Exactly the rules for tempering a Legendary, at a Legendary's price: same kind of item, the three you feed in must be Titanic or better and must all carry the quality being driven, and it can only be done once per piece. The quality is driven to the same ceiling any Legendary would reach.

Reshaping a set piece

Armor only — and the piece stays part of its set.

A set's armor keeps its tag through a reshape, so the set bonuses survive intact and only the weight class changes. That is the point: if you want your rogue set in full plate, this is how. The pattern must be Legendary or better armor.

The other five slots are refused. A set helm or cloak has nothing to reshape into that would change anything but its look.

Getting a mark

Forge-marks come from the brothers themselves, and every single one has to be paid for. A forge is three things — stone, ore and flame — and each brother holds exactly one of them. What he wants from you is the other two, and he wants them again for the next mark.

Ask	He already holds	He wants	You get
Erivar, in the keep	The Lastanvil Hearthstone	Stonebreaker Ore + Everflame Coal	Lastanvil Forge-Mark — Merge
Fafnir, in the north mines	Stonebreaker Ore	Everflame Coal + Lastanvil Hearthstone	Stonebreaker Forge-Mark — Reshape
Dvalin, in the furnace hall	The Everflame	Stonebreaker Ore + Lastanvil Hearthstone	Emberdelve Forge-Mark — Temper

Erivar will take the job from anyone. He gave the order years ago that his people leave the unaligned alone, and he has kept to it — so you do not have to swear to him, only ask. That is why the Lastanvil mark, and therefore Merge, is the one most players see first.

Fafnir and Dvalin only talk terms with their own. Once you are sworn to one of them he states what he wants without being asked.

You swear at an emissary, never at the brother himself. Grulda Stonebreaker keeps Fafnir's roll at the mouth of the north mines, Hrolf Emberdelve keeps Dvalin's in the east, and Steward Bruni keeps Erivar's in the Great Hall. Ask a brother to take your oath and he will send you to his herald — you may change sides once a day, and not at all once you have killed a clan boss that day, so choose before the day's fighting, not during it.

Where the three pieces come from

Each brother's third drops from his own clan boss, in the chest that boss leaves — once per account per day, per boss. So the price of a mark is going through the two brothers you did not side with, every time.

The exception is the brother you are sworn to. He holds a third himself, and as long as some mark you can still buy needs it, he will simply hand it over rather than make you fight for it. Swearing to Fafnir means never having to dig for ore; it does not get you one step closer to the two things Fafnir actually wants.

Every mark costs the same two pieces

When you bring a brother the two pieces he lacks, he takes them and stamps your mark on the spot. The first delivery also lights his forge, which is the part you only do once.

After that, nothing is free. Another mark costs the same two pieces all over again — ask with empty hands and he will tell you the price and nothing more. There is no daily allowance and no stack of stamps in a drawer.

In practice that settles at about one mark a day, because the pieces are the bottleneck: each brother's third drops from his own clan boss's chest, once per account per day. Nothing stops you saving pieces up over a quiet week and spending them all at once.

TIP

Swearing to a brother means he hands you his own third on request, over and over — so one of your two pieces is free for as long as you stand with him. The other one still has to come out of a boss chest.

WARNING

Killing any clan boss locks your allegiance for the day. Turning up to a brother's chest wearing his own mark is remembered, and he will make sure there is nothing in it worth having — including his third of the forge.

Swearing to a brother closes doors as well as opening them. Erivar's causeway into the Great Hall reads marks, and it will not lift for anyone wearing one of his brothers'. Those who chose otherwise reach his keep the long way, through the Old Mines.