Why a crafting house?
The main reason you need a crafting house is to house your tradeskill apprentices and rare-giving shadeweave plants (if you got the plants that give rare harvests in the KA expansion). You can’t put those in a guild hall. See the information about apprentices at Zam’s.
You can set your crafting house up to be fully functional for almost all your crafting needs or you can simply set up a place for your apprentices. Check out this blog post for setting up an apprentice crafting house http://caelascorner.com/crafting-house/.
This guide is for a fully functional crafting house. The only thing you can’t conveniently do in a crafting house is obtain the crafting writs. I typically do all my crafting in my crafting house except for the crafting writs. Here is a link to my crafting house.
Chose a home
Although you can use any house, a prestige home or a LON card home will allow you to place portals in your other homes and easily get to and from your crafting house. Additionally, you never have to worry about paying the rent. Be sure and look at all the house types and imagine how it would look and if you want it for the long term. I also suggest you look at what all you will put into the house so that you get the right size house. You can end up with a lot more stuff than you first think.
Check out EQ2 Design Gallery to explore the different houses available, how to obtain them, item counts, and other information.
Crafting Stations
You’ll need Elaborate Work Stations if you want to do regular crafting in your house. There are three different appearances to the stations, one for Freeport/Gorowyn/Neriak, a second style for Qeynos/Kelethin/Halas, and a third appearance style introduced in the Terrors of Thulumbra expansion. They function the same. I have one of each appearance type just for decorating purposes. The photos at the top of this post show the two original styles of crafting stations, (these were posted on the forums by someone but I don't have a link to the original post). I don't have pictures of the new style but you can find pictures here.
The tradeskill stations can be purchased from city merchants or your tradeskill society and cost gold, status and you must have a significant amount of tradeskill faction. The new style is purchased using currency from the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion.
A note about Simple Crafting Stations:
The Simple Crafting Stations can be used for completing the daily quest for your apprentices, the daily adorning quest, and for leveling tinkering. Be aware that the simple stations use more supplies (due to not returning anything back) and will not craft with full function. Personally, I only have the simple work bench that I used for leveling tinkering. I use regular work stations for everything else. Also, I have my simple station very small and located well away from the regular elaborate stations to prevent losing precious materials due to an accidental use of the simple stations. Since they are not fully functional, be very sure you do not try and craft a regular recipe with them, especially using rares or other precious materials.
Types of Crafting Stations and Crafting Class That Uses Them*
Forge – Armorer and Weaponsmith
Woodworking Table – Carpenter and Woodworker
Sewing Table & Mannequin - Tailor
Stove & Keg - Provisioner
Work Bench – Jeweler, Tinkerer, and Adorner
Chemistry Table - Alchemist
Engraved Desk - Sage
*Please note that artisan recipes can be crafted by any type crafter on the stations. Also holiday recipes are crafted on multiple types of stations. The carpenter uses several of the work stations, especially at lower tiers.
Special Crafting Stations:
Frostfell Stations – you can get these during Frostfell. They require special Frostfell fuel and materials and are used to craft Frostfell items. The appearance is the same as regular crafting stations. You can set these up in your main crafting house if you want. I set up a frostfell house for these so that I could have the fuel and materials separate from the other house. Also, I wanted to decorate a Snowy Island in a Frostfell theme for it. This year I obtained a couple more sets of these stations and have added them to my main crafting home and guild hall. Since I can now have all of the fuel types in my main home, I decided to add Frostfell crafting there.
Blood Iron Forge – reward from a collection and used for crafting Deathfist Citadel Armor.
Sootfoot Forge – reward from a collection and used for crafting Magma Armor.
Rebuilt Blood Iron Forge - Both the solo and heroic versions of "The Siege of Zek" signature line give the (fully tradeable) forge as a reward. The Blood Iron armor can be crafted on the house item reward version.
Forge of Brell - From the Traditional Dhalgar Forgework collection (red shinies, ToT expansion, Maldura).
Depots
Personal Fuel Depot
Place the fuels for each tier you’ll be working in. Unfortunately the tinkered personal fuel depot is not large enough to hold all of the fuels for all tiers. You can purchase a marketplace personal fuel depot that holds 30 fuels and use both types of depots in your home. Currently that will handle all the fuels you would need. This is how I have my crafting house set up.
If you are only crafting for your apprentice quest you will just need coal, filament, and sandpaper and can get by with just a tinkered fuel depot.
Large Personal Harvest Depot
This is large enough to hold all the harvests.
Marketplace depots: You can purchase additional depots on the marketplace. The depots from marketplace are not lore so you can have multiples in a house. I purchased a fuel depot so as to have all the fuel in my crafting house.
Amenities
You can put the other depots, a mailbox, a market board, and other useful amenities in your crafting hub to make your life easier. Additionally, the marketplace has a scroll depot that can go into your house (we do not have a craftable version of this).
Guild Hall Door – purchased with status from city merchants – useful for hopping back and forth to your guild hall.
Portals to other Houses you may own.
Crafting Buffs – several items will give you a buff to help with your crafting.
I set up a house travel hub separately from my crafting house hub. You can either have them together or separate.
The main reason you need a crafting house is to house your tradeskill apprentices and rare-giving shadeweave plants (if you got the plants that give rare harvests in the KA expansion). You can’t put those in a guild hall. See the information about apprentices at Zam’s.
You can set your crafting house up to be fully functional for almost all your crafting needs or you can simply set up a place for your apprentices. Check out this blog post for setting up an apprentice crafting house http://caelascorner.com/crafting-house/.
This guide is for a fully functional crafting house. The only thing you can’t conveniently do in a crafting house is obtain the crafting writs. I typically do all my crafting in my crafting house except for the crafting writs. Here is a link to my crafting house.
Chose a home
Although you can use any house, a prestige home or a LON card home will allow you to place portals in your other homes and easily get to and from your crafting house. Additionally, you never have to worry about paying the rent. Be sure and look at all the house types and imagine how it would look and if you want it for the long term. I also suggest you look at what all you will put into the house so that you get the right size house. You can end up with a lot more stuff than you first think.
Check out EQ2 Design Gallery to explore the different houses available, how to obtain them, item counts, and other information.
Crafting Stations
You’ll need Elaborate Work Stations if you want to do regular crafting in your house. There are three different appearances to the stations, one for Freeport/Gorowyn/Neriak, a second style for Qeynos/Kelethin/Halas, and a third appearance style introduced in the Terrors of Thulumbra expansion. They function the same. I have one of each appearance type just for decorating purposes. The photos at the top of this post show the two original styles of crafting stations, (these were posted on the forums by someone but I don't have a link to the original post). I don't have pictures of the new style but you can find pictures here.
The tradeskill stations can be purchased from city merchants or your tradeskill society and cost gold, status and you must have a significant amount of tradeskill faction. The new style is purchased using currency from the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion.
A note about Simple Crafting Stations:
The Simple Crafting Stations can be used for completing the daily quest for your apprentices, the daily adorning quest, and for leveling tinkering. Be aware that the simple stations use more supplies (due to not returning anything back) and will not craft with full function. Personally, I only have the simple work bench that I used for leveling tinkering. I use regular work stations for everything else. Also, I have my simple station very small and located well away from the regular elaborate stations to prevent losing precious materials due to an accidental use of the simple stations. Since they are not fully functional, be very sure you do not try and craft a regular recipe with them, especially using rares or other precious materials.
Types of Crafting Stations and Crafting Class That Uses Them*
Forge – Armorer and Weaponsmith
Woodworking Table – Carpenter and Woodworker
Sewing Table & Mannequin - Tailor
Stove & Keg - Provisioner
Work Bench – Jeweler, Tinkerer, and Adorner
Chemistry Table - Alchemist
Engraved Desk - Sage
*Please note that artisan recipes can be crafted by any type crafter on the stations. Also holiday recipes are crafted on multiple types of stations. The carpenter uses several of the work stations, especially at lower tiers.
Special Crafting Stations:
Frostfell Stations – you can get these during Frostfell. They require special Frostfell fuel and materials and are used to craft Frostfell items. The appearance is the same as regular crafting stations. You can set these up in your main crafting house if you want. I set up a frostfell house for these so that I could have the fuel and materials separate from the other house. Also, I wanted to decorate a Snowy Island in a Frostfell theme for it. This year I obtained a couple more sets of these stations and have added them to my main crafting home and guild hall. Since I can now have all of the fuel types in my main home, I decided to add Frostfell crafting there.
Blood Iron Forge – reward from a collection and used for crafting Deathfist Citadel Armor.
Sootfoot Forge – reward from a collection and used for crafting Magma Armor.
Rebuilt Blood Iron Forge - Both the solo and heroic versions of "The Siege of Zek" signature line give the (fully tradeable) forge as a reward. The Blood Iron armor can be crafted on the house item reward version.
Forge of Brell - From the Traditional Dhalgar Forgework collection (red shinies, ToT expansion, Maldura).
Depots
Personal Fuel Depot
Place the fuels for each tier you’ll be working in. Unfortunately the tinkered personal fuel depot is not large enough to hold all of the fuels for all tiers. You can purchase a marketplace personal fuel depot that holds 30 fuels and use both types of depots in your home. Currently that will handle all the fuels you would need. This is how I have my crafting house set up.
If you are only crafting for your apprentice quest you will just need coal, filament, and sandpaper and can get by with just a tinkered fuel depot.
Large Personal Harvest Depot
This is large enough to hold all the harvests.
Marketplace depots: You can purchase additional depots on the marketplace. The depots from marketplace are not lore so you can have multiples in a house. I purchased a fuel depot so as to have all the fuel in my crafting house.
Amenities
You can put the other depots, a mailbox, a market board, and other useful amenities in your crafting hub to make your life easier. Additionally, the marketplace has a scroll depot that can go into your house (we do not have a craftable version of this).
Guild Hall Door – purchased with status from city merchants – useful for hopping back and forth to your guild hall.
Portals to other Houses you may own.
Crafting Buffs – several items will give you a buff to help with your crafting.
I set up a house travel hub separately from my crafting house hub. You can either have them together or separate.