Idea Troll: A 'living' blacksmith?

Sta7ic · 2004-12-04T22:22:25

ATTN: This thread was inspired by TechnoGoth's "A man walking through the forest! A quest!" thread. The blacksmith is probably the most staple profession to the "role playing" games that we see everywhere, but they don't seem to do anything but stand there in an apron with a forge and anvil in the background, offering swords and axes to sell. Nobody seems to really know what a blacksmith would actually *do* (except heat and pound steel). A bit of background for the windup. A blacksmith fashioned every single piece of metal that was used "back in the day", including shovels and trowels, forks, knives for vegetables, skinning, or butchering, axes for felling wood, wedges for splitting logs, lumber, and stone, plowshares, horseshoes, nails (well, when people w/ fireplaces didn't pound them out), hinges, fireplace hangers, coat hangers, laddles, pots, pans, kettles, lantern frames and reflectors, candlebras ... all sorts of things. Not to mention forge-welding broken pieces back together; those broken weapons in Baldur's Gate would take an hour or two tops and a few silver to put back together. Also, smiths were rather common in all places, sometimes one for every fourty or fifty people, meaning about one to every wide spot with a dozen houses. The idea of making a more alive-feeling game world ("living world" or "living game"?) came up, but for that, you need to give characters a clear idea of what they feel that they need to do. So what does a blacksmith need to do his or her job and feed themselves and their family? At the very least, they need tools -- a LOT of tools. An easy sample would include four hammers, six tongs, an anvil on a good stump, likely a brick forge, bellows, punches, fullers, a die plate, chisels, a twisting bar, and a myriad of little hardies (you know that square hole in the back of an anvil?). Most of these are put together over time, hammered into a more refined shape (steel was always at a premium), and saw handles replaced repeatedly. A smith also needed a good supply of coal and water, some sand for welding, some wood for starting fires and leaving them to burn slowly overnight, and what spare steel they could afford for making new things. Coincidentally, they also need to eat. So a blacksmith has the following needs: * lots of tools in good shape * lots of coal to ply his trade * spare iron/steel to smith * food, water, shelter * some wood for handles and forgetending A smith also fulfills the following needs: * makes tools, household goods, and weapons * repairs *anything* metal * stitches leather or carves wood in a pinch Further thoughts?