Crafters

[Karasi]

Either as a guild, or a branch of the Traders, I think crafters who specialized in making items that were more masterful than other players would be tremendous asset, and in high demand.
Here are my ideas:

Allow them to gain boosts to woodworking, leather-crafting, jewelry-making, and other skills such as tailoring, making beaded and other jewelry that other chars would have to grind. Since there are people who craft already, this wouldn't off-set the balance, and it would still allow other players to make the items they're already good at making. What it would allow, with crafters, is a greater variety of customization of a number of more items that other players might not otherwise have access to:

Jewelry
Not just metal jewelry. Metal bands, and links, and filigreed. More than one gem on a single piece, if the crafters' skill is high enough. example: I have a ring in RL that has seven gems across the top--amethyst and citrine alternating, that I would love to see possible in-game.

Beaded jewelry: wood, glass, clay, stone beads and the ability to make or buy them, perhaps both, like with arrows. Hemp and other string usable for stringing the beads. Charms for such pieces, and/or for metal-based jewelry.

braided or knotted jewelry. Simple stuff mostly for fun, not for long-term wear.

Crocheted or knitted handbags, area rugs, blankets. some clothing--sweaters, socks, caps, mittens.

Tailoring. The ability to purchase or have made by others, bolts of cloth--silks, cotton weaves, wool, fleese, leather, denim, etc. The ability to make patterns and then sew the clothing, dye it, introduce patterns if skilled enough.

describe it. Allow describing for jewelry as well as clothing, and all other custom items. Make a task for all people who want to become crafters that they write out their own description, approved by admin or other players, that would allow them access to this ability. Perhaps this could be gained as an optional freedom within the guild when a certain rank or level of skill is reached, to cut back on poor writing skills in descriptions.

Wood-carving. Mostly for beads, pendants, and other items to be placed on clothing, or the bottoms of shoes if desired. Small chests could be crafted, or jewelry boxes, but the larger items would be left as a specialty either for more advanced crafters, or open to all, as they are now. The ability and skill to carve wooden plates, bowls, vases, figurines/small statuettes.

Glass-blowing and other work. Endless jewelry and figurine possibilities. Charms, pendants, medallions, beads, figurines, glasses, mugs, bowls

leatherwork. The same as what's already implemented in-game, perhaps with a few patterns added that aren't already there, or the ability to tool patterns into the leather, stitch it differently or with more flare. Something to make them attractive, without taking away from the good leatherwork we already have from several player chars.

Limited access to:
ivory
pearls
stone (for beads, cookware)
gems (from miners and stores)

My thinkin is this whole list of ideas could be broken down into specialties, so that all crafters could do a little with everything, but only specialize in one or two crafting abilities. I liken this to the elemancers, from what I understand of them.
This way we would not have super-powerful know-it-all, can-do-it-all crafters that would overpower the others in-game who can already craft.

I'd love to see hair items more available, and customizing those could be added as well, for either the simple braiding/threader types, or the jewelry, depending on the want of customers or interest of developers to even tackle such a huge list of things.

The ability to describe is one that I would especially like. Even if we had the ability to take already-made items from store and add our own custom descriptions, we could be payed in-game to do our word artistry, that is, to write up reasonable and nicely-worded descriptions for clothing, jewelry, small items.