To Craft is to transform the potential of raw materials into an item of purpose. It is the verb of creation, allowing an Incarnation to shape their environment, overcome obstacles, and express their identity through the things they make.

Within ATET, Crafting is not an abstract menu. It is a tangible, knowledge-based, and interpretive act that requires the right knowledge, the right materials, and the right tools.

The Recipe - The Gating of Knowledge

An Incarnation cannot craft something it does not know how to make. A “recipe” is a piece of knowledge that must be acquired diegetically within the Tapestry. This gating of knowledge avoids arbitrary research trees and grounds crafting in the world itself. Knowledge can be acquired in three primary ways:

1. Tutelage (Social Learning): Learning a recipe directly from a more skilled mentor.
2. Blueprints (Found Knowledge): Discovering a recipe as a physical or digital item through Exploration or Trade.
3. Reverse Engineering (Analytical Discovery): Attempting to deconstruct an item to understand its composition. This is a high-risk Skill check that can result in the item’s destruction on failure.

The Materials - The Language of Substance

Recipes are malleable templates, not rigid shopping lists. They consist of Ingredient Slots that define the type of material required (e.g., [Blade-Grade Metal]), allowing for immense creative expression. The choice of materials for these slots is critical, as every material imparts its own objective and subjective properties onto the final product.

• Objective Properties: Mechanical qualities like Hardness, Weight, Conductivity. Using Titanium results in a different functional outcome than using Lead.
• Subjective Properties: Narrative and social qualities like Cultural Significance, Eidic Resonance, or Taboo Status. A sword hilt wrapped in common Leather is merely functional; one wrapped in K'tharr Sand-Viper Skin becomes a powerful social and political statement.

This system ensures that nearly every crafted item is unique and tells a story about its creator’s choices, knowledge, and the resources they had available.

The Process - The Act of Creation

Crafting is a physical act requiring specific, in-world Crafting Stations. This makes creation an engaging, environmental puzzle rather than a simple UI interaction.

• Simple Processes: May require only basic tools or a Campfire.
• Complex Processes: Advanced items require a chain of specialized stations. Forging a sword is a multi-step process involving a Forge, Anvil, Quenching Medium, and Grindstone. The quality and capabilities of these stations also affect the potential of the final product.

The Role of the Agent (NPC Crafting)

NPC agents use the same crafting system as the player, driven by their own internal logic. This makes the world feel alive, with artisans and tinkers pursuing their own projects.

• The Goal: An NPC will only initiate crafting if it has a Goal to do so. This could be a Need (crafting a weapon for Safety), a Quest (forging armor for the town guard), or an economic motive (crafting goods for Trade).
• The Knowledge: An NPC’s learned recipes are stored as a series of Beliefs in its AgentBeliefStore (e.g., Belief: IronSword REQUIRES IronIngot).
• The Plan: For an NPC, a multi-step crafting Process is a Plan—a sequence of actions. The agent’s planning system looks at the Goal and the required Process and generates a chained list of actions ([MoveTo(Forge), UseForge, MoveTo(Anvil), UseAnvil]). The agent then executes this plan step-by-step to completion.

The Role of Skill and the Player’s Experience

An Incarnation’s Skills are the ultimate determinant of crafting success and mastery.

• Competence (Skill Level): The objective level of a crafting skill (e.g., Metallurgy) determines the quality of the final item, the efficiency of material use, and the success chance of difficult steps in the process.
• Insight (Skill Application): High skill provides deeper understanding.
  • Reverse Engineering: High skill is required to safely deconstruct complex items and learn their recipes.
  • Experimentation: High skill unlocks the ability to combine materials without a blueprint, potentially discovering entirely new recipes through logical deduction and creativity.
  • Foresight: For the player, the Subjective Interface at a crafting station will show the projected outcome of the item based on the selected materials. A high Skill level provides a more accurate and detailed projection, allowing for informed creative choices.
• Mastery: A crafter with very high Skill, using high-quality materials and masterwork-level Crafting Stations, has a chance to produce a Masterwork item. These legendary items may have unique properties, a permanent narrative name, and significant Eidic resonance, becoming the artifacts of the future.

This system aims to make the act of creation a deeply rewarding and expressive core loop, where the player feels like a true artisan whose knowledge and choices are physically inscribed onto the world.