Jewelcrafter
Setting flashy emeralds on rings, or integrating magically infused diamonds in armour, for these tasks there is one person for the job. Jewelcrafters have been honing this skillset since the beginning of time to produce stunning pieces so the people can decorate themselves and show off their wealth.
Career
Qualifications
A most important skills for a jewelcrafter to have, is an immensely keen eye for determining the quality of the materials especially the gems. A lower quality gem will brittle over time, or not polish well enough Since customers are paying a high price of jewelcrafted pieces, a crafter cannot afford using sub par quality materials.
Furthermore, a jewelcrafter must have nimble fingers. A great deal of the work they do, requires the utmost concentration and precision.
A young elf peeked through the crack of the door. He could see his father, bent over the table just... looking and slowly filing away at the metal.
The young elf wanted to push the door open, but a firm hand placed itself on his shoulder pulling him away from the door.
"You know we cannot disturb father when he's working," he heard the voice of his older brother say.
To become a jewelcrafter, one must first become an apprentice at a master jewelcrafter. The learning curve is steep and usually starts with learning how to identify good from bad quality materials. Once they can successfully identify the quality, they begin to learn the two basic skills they need to create jewellery: metallurgy and gem polishing.The young elf wanted to push the door open, but a firm hand placed itself on his shoulder pulling him away from the door.
"You know we cannot disturb father when he's working," he heard the voice of his older brother say.
Career Progression
Once an apprentice jewelcrafter has learned the basics of the craft, they continue to study as a journeyman at the same or a different workshop. They will continue to learn new and more advanced skills of the craft until they have achieved full mastery of the art.
Once a master, they can decide to open a workshop of their own. Alternatively, they can work for another workshop or for an organisation as their in-house jewelcrafter. The last option is especially popular in the army. The craft gives them an extra safety net to perform a profession after retirering as a soldier.
Some jewelcrafters specialise after becoming a master. There are some that infuse gems with weapons or armour to boost its properties. Others focus more on creating jewellery with specific properties or occasions.
Payment & Reimbursement
While customers pay them a hefty price to create their jewellery, jewelcrafters don't see much of that money back in their pockets. Most of the pay goes towards getting quality materials for the commission.
Jewelcrafter get the most profit when they can sell their standard jewellery. They can create these more in bulk and since the price increases the availability and demographic, they can make more sales.
Perception
Social Status
Depending on the society, becoming a jewelcrafter can either land a person high up the social ladder. Especially in Yuran society, jewelcrafting is regarded as a high class profession. That is partially because high elves put meticulous care in their jewellery and because it is one of their main export items. Their ability to infuse gems with magic and then processing them into rings, armour, and weapons, has given them an edge in this part of the trade.
Within Irrean society, it depends from which family of jewelcrafters one comes. There are a few families closely tied to the Dwarfish Grooming Industry where people pay the jackpot for one of their wares. Jewelcrafters of these families usually are high up on the social ladder.
History
Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to decorate themselves with gems. It is here where jewelcrafting started. At first, it was polishing the gems to make them nice and shiny for everyone to see. When they learned how to do that properly, people wanted different ways to show off their riches.
The crafters learned from the blacksmiths how to smelt and manipulate metal. They adjusted it and finetuned it to fit gems around body parts. Thus the ring was born. Further expanding upon this technique, the jewelcrafters invented many types of jewellery, like necklaces, bracelets, and brooches.
When wars break out, many innovations happen and jewelcrafting was no exception to that rule. The high elves of Yuran learned how they could infuse gems with magic to give them special properties. Not too long after, they discovered that processing these magically altered gems into pieces of armour and weapons enhanced the wearer or wielder.
Nowadays, with peacetime upon the world, jewelcrafters have mostly stayed with the arts as they are known. When the next surge of innovation within this profession will happen is yet to be seen.
Operations
Tools
A jewelcrafter requires many precision tools to do their job. However, the most important tools are the hammer, the file, a stone polisher, and a pincet. Without these, a master craftsman cannot do their profession.
They use the hammer during the first stage of the process. They can create the first rough shape and size of the jewellery or make the required deep dents in the armour or weaponry for the gem inlays. Once they have created the rough shape, they use the file for the precision work and make the inlay fitting for the gem. Depending on the size of the work and the size of the gem, the crafter uses the proper pincet to put the gems in the inlay, or to hold the work item while continuing the filing process.
A master crafter expands their tools with more advanced tooling that aid in creating more intricate designs or to assist for the more demanding and difficult techniques. The more technical the jobs become, the more tools a crafter will use to complete the commission.
That said, a true master of the arts can create most intricate designs and perform advanced techniques with the simplest of tools. However, there are few master that have achieved this level of precision and mastering of the crafts.
Materials
Most commissions comprise of three main elements. The first is the primary metal that serves as the encasing for the gem. These are most often gold or silver, but sometimes other and more unique materials are used for the encasing. Examples of these are obsidian, titanium, and platinum. The rarest metal used by a crafter is keclyx. So far, there are only three pieces of work that have keclyx integrated into them. <Think of three interesting items here.>
Second is the gem itself. There is a wide array of gems crafters use in their works. Everything from the every day gems like Crosilite and Asbean, to high end gems that will set a person back a fortune. The most highly priced gems, besides the obvious diamonds, are shards of Seplerite or the dust of Treiodor.
Lastly, one of the most important components of all, the gem glue. Every jewelcrafter has a recipe of their own on how to make it and what ratios to use. The name is slightly deceiving as it doesn't glue the gem in place. It merely functions as an extra failsafe to prevent the gem from accidentally falling out of its socket, especially while creating the piece.
Table of Contents
Type
Artisan
Demand
Common
Other Associated professions
Ranks & Titles
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