Mining
mineWork an ore node with a pick. What comes out is banded on the node, and gems come per stroke rather than per node - so a long seam is worth staying at.
The World
Trades & Crafting
Seven trades, none of them tied to your class - and eight crafting professions you commit to, two at a time. Everything here improves by doing the work. None of it is taught in the shipped world today: the trades came out with the skill list, and the benches are waiting on a world that teaches one.
Woodcutting
chopFell timber with an axe. Wood quality is banded the same way ore is, and better wood makes better hafts, bows and furniture.
Skinning
skinTake the hide from something you killed. The corpse decides what is available, banded on the creature's level, and you get one attempt at it - so bring a blade before you start the fight.
Fishing
fishNeeds water and a rod. Slower than the other gathering trades and better company - it is the one you do while talking.
Foraging
harvestGather what grows. The cheapest trade to start, and the one that keeps a low-level character fed.
Cooking
cookTurn raw ingredients into food, and into dishes that carry a bonus worth cooking for.
Craftsmanship
craftRecipes that turn gathered materials into equipment. Quality of the result tracks your rank, so a well-made blade is visibly better than a poor one.
Eight professions, and you may hold two
Gathering is free to everybody. Crafting careers are not. At level 10 you can apprentice yourself at a workshop to one of eight professions - Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Jewelcrafter, Tailor, Dyemaker, Alchemist, Cook or Loremaster - and each one opens recipes nobody outside it can make.
A profession has its own ten-rank ladder, and you climb it by working: every successful craft earns progress, and a rank hands back practice sessions and raises the ceiling your trade can be practised to. What it never gives you is a combat bonus. A master smith is better at smithing.
You may hold two. Giving one up is abandon, and it is destructive - the rank, the progress and the abilities it taught are gone rather than stored, and taking it up again starts at rank 1 with the fee to pay over. That is the whole weight of the choice, and it is why the third profession is a conversation with somebody who has it rather than an afternoon's work.
Type professions anywhere to see all eight and where you stand with each, and apprentice <name> at the right workshop to be taken on. Each profession also answers to its own word at the bench - smith, sew, brew - which shows you only that trade's recipes.
Rank decides everything
Each trade carries its own rank, and that number is what decides whether an attempt succeeds. There is no level gate and no class gate - a Mage can be the best miner on the server, and the only thing standing between you and that is the number of swings you have taken.
Gathering leaves you exposed
Working a node occupies you. You are not helpless, but you are busy, and something that wanders in while you are chopping will find you mid-swing. Gathering in dangerous places is a real decision rather than a safe grind.
What you make is worth something
Crafted goods carry a quality that tracks the rank of whoever made them, and quality feeds straight into how much damage a weapon does and how much a piece of armor stops. That makes a skilled crafter genuinely worth finding, and it gives the economy something to move other than loot.