Jewelcraft is gem-cutting, goldsmithing and silversmithing, and the fine metalwork that surrounds both — a ring, an amulet, a torc, a brooch, a chain, and more rarely a diadem or a small figure. Cut stones are traded on their own account as well as set into work.

Crafting

A piece is made by the common crafting routine — workshop, expense, test, result, masterwork rolls, repair. What follows is what is particular to the jeweller’s bench.

Expense. A finished piece usually weighs around 2d6 ounces, up to triple that for something substantial and half for a ring or a pair of earrings. The work runs a day to the ounce and never less than a day, so a typical piece is a week or so at the bench.

Test. A Jewelcraft Success Value test, read on the standard ladder, fixes the quality of the piece.

Price. A finished piece is worth its metal and the work in it, rounded to the penny. The metal is the weight of the base form times the price per ounce of its material. The work is 6d for every day at the bench, reckoned as above — a day to the ounce, and never less than a day, so a ring is a day’s work whatever it weighs. The metal is the jeweller’s own outlay; the rest is his time. Bronze, brass and pewter are founded rather than raised, so a piece in them takes the quarter longer that cast work takes.

Without the second term a piece of base metal would be worth almost nothing, since the work in a copper chain is the same work as in a silver one. Most pieces are also set with 1d6 cut stones, each adding the square of its weight in carats times the stone’s listed value. An eight-carat pearl is therefore worth 640d, which is why weight matters so much more than count.

One ounce is 142 carats.