Enchanting is the practice of creating a magic item, either adding an enchantment to an existing item or creating one from scratch with an enchantment built into it. See the or Magic Items pages for a complete list of the items you can craft via Enchanting.
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PLEASE NOTE: There is no mechanical difference between “crafting a magic item” and “adding an enchantment to an item.” Being an Enchanter lets you both craft magic items from base materials and add enchantments to an unenchanted item. Which your character does is up to you and the circumstances you find yourself in. If you’re given a sword and paid to enchant it, then you’re adding the enchantment to the sword; if you’re given a pile of metal and magical resources and asked to make an enchanted suit of armor, you craft the armor itself along with building the enchantment into it. There is no mechanical difference between the two processes.
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If you wish to craft an item, you need three things:
Formulae are learned via the Enchanter, Enchanting Training, and Master Enchanter abilities. Enchanter teaches your character all of the Apprentice-level formulae, every level of Enchanting Training teaches you all of the non-Master-level formulae contained in two formulae lists of your choice, and Master Enchanter teaches you all of the Master-level formulae contained in the formulae lists you’ve learned via Enchanting Training.
The resources necessary to craft an item are listed in its entry, and usually consist of some combination of Mine and Forest resources, though Aether Crystals and Herbs are sometimes required as well.
The time required to craft an item is normally one third of the time between Confluences, i.e. you can craft up to 3 items during a single Round of Downtime.
There is an exception to the Downtime requirement for crafting, in that some things can allow your character to rapidly enchant an item overnight in a fugue state of creativity and magic. During each Confluence, while an Enchanter is in Veilguard they can craft one item overnight. This effect can also be achieved via the O-Del’s Ironbound Focus and Anvil, Forge, And Grindstone rituals, which allow an Enchanter to craft items overnight, either in addition to the one they can craft thanks to Veilguard’s magics or when they are outside of Veilguard in Mundus.
These are the steps you need to go through to craft an item:
Enchanted items do not last forever; in fact, they only tend to last a few years. Whenever you craft an enchanted item, it will have four (4) Confluences’ worth of charge in it. At the end of the fourth Confluence, it loses its power and becomes a mundane version of the item. Another enchantment can be applied to it at that point, but the old enchantment is gone.
The only way to intentionally make an enchanted item permanent is to use Orichalcum in its construction. Some particularly spectacular or holy feats may imbue an item with power, causing its enchantment to last much longer than usual, but these instances are incredibly rare and totally unpredictable. Items with permanent enchantments are referred to as Artifacts.
In order to benefit from a magic item a character must be Attuned to it, bringing their personal energies into harmony with the item’s magics. This is accomplished via the Binding Thread Of Fate spell, which all mages and Enchanters learn and are able to cast.
A character can only be Attuned to one item of each type (Weapon, Armor, Accessory, & Standard) at a time. If they wish to Attune to another item of a given type, they must end their current Attunement to an item of that type and then be Attuned to the new item. If the character and both items are present, this can be performed with a single casting of Binding Thread Of Fate.
Weapon, Armor, and Accessory magic items can only be Attuned to one person at once. If one character wishes to Attune to such an item that is already Attuned to another character, the second character’s Attunement to the item must be ended before the first character can Attune to it. If the item and both characters are present, this process can be performed with a single casting of Binding Thread of Fate.
Standards are unique in that they are designed to have many people Attuned to them at once. A group of people who are Attuned to a single Standard are a referred to as a Band. A single casting of the Binding Thread Of Fate spell can affect any number of people who are Attuned to a given Standard, or who wish to become Attuned to it, provided that they are all present during the spell’s casting. This means, for example, that a single casting of the spell allows a Band to switch their collective Attunement to a new Standard, without requiring multiple castings to switch each individual character’s Attunement to the new Standard.