Lumberjack

The tree is the lumberjack’s vein: each one yields a limited amount of firewood and demands an axe in hand. From there the recipes scale up. Charcoal asks for four firewood, a Sawn Log for six, and the level 5 Sawn Logs asks for twelve and gives back three at once. Arrows come in between: Iron Arrows at level 3 and Steel Arrows at level 4, twelve at a time in both cases.

The lumberjack’s charcoal feeds the forge, and their arrows feed every archer on the server. The metal head comes from the miner, which makes fletching the one point where the two raw material chains meet before the finished good.

Two trades per character, five levels in each. Experience comes from gathering and from making, and the thresholds are 1,000, 6,000, 15,000 and 30,000 points.

Gathering takes from the world: an ore vein, a tree, a downed animal, a field. Making needs the right station nearby, the forge for metal, the cooking pot for food, and the components in your pack.

Recipes are gated by level, and most of them ask for material another trade produced. That is what keeps the server economy turning around people instead of shops.