HearthenValeTrade & Crafting
Every price is set by players
Almost everything in HearthenVale is made by someone and sold to someone. Goods move from raw materials to finished work through several hands, and prices come from real supply and demand.
From field to finished goods
Goods move through three tiers. Production runs on real-time timers that keep going while you're offline, and finished work waits in your workplace until you collect it.
-
Raw
Wheat, logs, ore, stone and wool, gathered on owned or public land.
1–30 min -
Component
Planks, ingots, flour, cloth and bricks: one raw input refined at a workplace.
5 min – 2 h -
Finished
Tools, furniture, bread, clothing and armour. Two or more components, usually from different trades.
30 min – 8 h
Ways to trade
| Channel | How it works | Who uses it most |
|---|---|---|
| Regional market | Buy and sell orders are matched automatically in each region's order book. Your listings stay up while you're offline, and every item has 7- and 30-day price charts. | Everyone |
| Direct trade | Two nearby players open a trade window, and both confirm the final offer. | Friends, Politheums |
| Player stalls | Rent a stall, set your prices and let it sell while you're away. | Merchants, crafters |
| Contracts | "Deliver 200 planks by Friday for 900 coins." Payment is held in escrow until the goods arrive. | Builders, Politheums, city projects |
| Caravans | Haul goods between regions for profit. They take real time, and on the frontier they can be raided. | Merchants, with Soldier escorts |
| Land deeds | Buy a plot in a player city from its Politheum, and resell it with their approval. | Settlers, Politheums |
Every trade is all-or-nothing. It either completes for both sides or not at all, and every coin and item change is recorded, so nothing goes missing.
Coins, and why prices stay meaningful
There is one currency, Coins. You earn them by playing; there is no premium currency that turns into Coins or goods. New Coins enter the world through a few controlled sources and leave through everyday costs, so prices still mean something years from now.
Where Coins come from
- Daily Crown orders in the capitals
- Quest and event rewards
- First-time milestone rewards
- Bounties for driving off raiders
- And, of course, other players buying what you make
Where Coins go
- A small market tax on each sale (2–5%, lower for Merchants)
- Plot and stall rent in the capitals
- Building upgrades and repairs
- City Charters and weekly city upkeep
- Caravan fees and travel tolls
Discovering recipes
Only basic work is known from the start: felling logs, growing wheat, quarrying stone, walking a patrol. Every crafted recipe has to be discovered by experimenting at your trade's workplace.
Pick up to four ingredients and try them. Each attempt uses one of each. Wrong combinations give you hints ("the fire needs more heat"), and every miss at the right combination makes the next try more likely to succeed. The breakthrough makes your first small batch and adds the recipe to your list for good.
Guild masters help. Every trade has a guild master in each capital whose quests walk you from your first gathers to each key recipe, with hints about which ingredients to try.
Craftsmanship: practice makes Mythic
A crafter gets better at each recipe the more of it they finish. An item's grade comes from how many its maker has made before, with a chance of one grade better between milestones. Every item records its maker, so a veteran's name is worth something.
- CommonFrom the first
- FineFrom 9 made
- SuperiorFrom 99
- MasterworkFrom 999
- LegendaryFrom 9,999
- MythicFrom 99,999
Better tools, bigger harvests
A tool's bonus grows with its grade: +25% at Common, +50% Fine, +75% Superior, +100% at Masterwork and beyond. Each grade also lasts 50% longer. A Woodcutter with a veteran smith's axe gathers far more.
Gathering mastery
Yield per gather grows with practice: ×1 for a beginner, ×2 after 9 gathers, ×3 after 99, ×4 after 999. Tools and Proficiency add on top.
Proficiency
Your primary trade also earns uncapped Proficiency from the hours you work it: slightly more output for gatherers, fewer inputs and better quality odds for crafters, lower fees for Merchants.
The Proficiency curve
| Hours worked | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 100 | +5% |
| 400 | +10% |
| 1,600 | +15% |
| 6,400 | +20% |
| Every 4× more | +5% more, no cap |
Proficiency comes from active work in your primary trade: gathering, crafting, serving clients, standing guard. Queued production counts for only a quarter of its timer, so an idle queue can't farm it. Your secondary trade never earns it.
It shows on your profile and on what you make: "made by a 3,200-hour Tailor." Soldiers' Proficiency adds stamina and slows gear wear, never damage, so wars stay fair.