Current Craftmaster: (Open)

Colors: Red

Purpose: The Smithcraft and the Minecraft work closely together. One supplies raw materials while the other supplies the tools with which the first can do its job.

The Crafthall was set up here, north of what came to be Telgar Hold, because of its proximity to the necessary ore and raw materials and to the Telgar River, which flows swiftly and deep down from the Northern Barrier Range all the way to the Big Bay. The earliest smiths set water-driven wheels in the Telgar to run their machinery. The great wheeled barges follow Telgars riverbank from the iron mines north of the Hold and continue their runs taking refined materials and finished goods down to the Sea Hold.

The Smithcraft embraces a number of occupations. The masons who construct a building may come from the Minecraft, but the stress analyses of the stone and foundation are done by the Smithcraft. Some Masters concentrate on making tools and doing practical metalwork. The Craft makes cooking vessels of all sizes, some with a nonstick coating to ease cleanup. Other Master metalsmiths do fancy metal crafting, such as casting jewelry.

The Glasscraft and the Woodcraft are offshoots of the Smithcrafthall, each in its own building in the complex. Journeyman smiths interested in the Glasscraft will be immersed in work in everything from ceramics to lead crystal to porcelain. This branch practices glassblowing that ranges in complexity from flasks to bottles to windowpanes to lenses for the distance viewer and microscope. The starsmith came from this discipline, where he specialized in optics.

Woodcrafters begin with whittling and go on to working with chisel and saw, creating furniture, toys, jewelry, and a new invention, paper, from the slowly increasing supply of that precious commodity of wood. Smiths who have a knack for chemistry formulate stains, dyes, varnishes, and cleaning compounds in their own building, which is at far remove from the others. (Among the other compounds they create are explosives.) In these disciplines, the apprentices spend a great deal of their time washing pots and retorts, sifting sand, and sweeping.

A Smithcraft apprenticeship is one of the longest, but at its end the graduate journeyman is a practicing member of one of the most respected Crafts on Pern

Location: Telgar Hold

Information curtesy of the Dragonlover's Guide to Pern