Fletching

Fletching is the art of creating arrows, bolts, and darts for use in combat. This guide is here to help you on your way to being a successful master of the art of Fletching.

Tools

This is a list of the tools available in Fletching. Some tools are required, while others are not.

Required

• A Handaxe based OHE weapon
• A Dagger based OHE weapon or Hook-knife based Brawling weapon
• A Short, Composite or Long Bow for arrows
• A Light or Heavy Crossbow for Light or Heavy Bolts
• A completed Dart for darts

Optional

• A Drill
• A Scriber

Materials

This is a list of the available Materials used in Fletching. Some materials are required, while others are not.

Required

• A source of Wood
• Fletching Glue
• Fletchings

Optional

• Paint
• Paintsticks
• Arrowheads
• Caps

Tools Guide

If you are unfamiliar with any of the tools in fletching, this section will help you. Below you find out what exactly these tools are, and what they are used for.

Handaxe

A Handaxe based OHE weapon is used to create shafts of wood from various sources used to make your projectile of choice. Current available projectiles for fletching include arrows, light/heavy bolts, and darts. You must specify the projectile you wish to make in order to get the correct shafts from your source of wood. Any Handaxe that INSPECTs as a handaxe based OHE should be compatible with fletching.

Dagger

A Dagger based OHE weapon is used for the more fine and precise steps in making your projectile that are not possible with a Handaxe. Paring the projectile shaft to a more precise shape, making the shaft the correct length after measurement, cutting nocks in the end of an arrow, and whittling the end of the projectile shaft to a point are all steps that require the use of the dagger. Any Dagger that INSPECTs as a dagger based OHE should be compatible with fletching.

Bow, Crossbow, or Dart

A Bow, Crossbow, or Dart are required to measure your projectile to the correct length required. Short, Composite, or Long bows are needed to measure arrows. Light/Heavy crossbows are required to measure Light/Heavy bolts. Only a completed Dart can be used to measure the correct length of a dart shaft. Arrows currently will be the same length no matter which bow is used to measure. However light bolts must be measured and used by light crossbows, and the same goes for heavy bolts.

Drill

A Drill is required to drill out a hole in the end of an arrow/bolt shaft if you wish to add an arrowhead. Though this tool is optional, its certainly a great way to spice up your projectile to your liking.

Scriber

A Scriber is used to etch markings into your projectile for decoration. Various scribers have been released by merchants or at events. There are even rumors of Scribers that allow the fletching to scriber their name into their projectile.

Other Tools

There are also other various items and tools that have been released throughout Elanthia. Keep your eyes peeled and you never know what you may find.

Materials Guide

Unfamiliar with all the materials available in fletching, or not exactly sure how to use them? This section will explain each material in detail and how they are used in fletching.

Wood

Plain Wood

Plain woods can be found from a variety of sources scattered around Elanthia. Either by purchasing them from town fletching shops or FORAGEing for them in the wilds. Certain creatures also can provide a skin that can be used as a shaft material, mainly bones.

Magic Wood

Magic woods are woods that have inherent bonuses in them that can be used to increase your Ranged AS. Click on the material in the table below to see applicable information about each one. You can also refer to the Materials Guide on the Gemstone IV website if any of the information happens to be missing.

Unfortunately the woods can only be purchased either by having back-room access at town fletching shops, or by traveling/event merchants.

Below is a table showing you the different woods available at town fletchings shops. These woods come in three sizes: stick (S), branch (B), or limb (L), where stick is the smallest and limb is the largest.

Wood

Landing

Solhaven

Ice Mule

Ta'Vaalor

Sylvarraned

River's Rest

Teras Isle

S

B

L

S

B

L

S

B

L

S

B

L

S

B

L

S

B

L

S

B

L

Carmiln

X

X

X

X

X

Deringo

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Faewood

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Ironwood

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Kakore

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Messile

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Mossbark

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Rowan

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Villswood

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Process

The process for creating an arrow, bolt, or dart varies slightly. The instructions below cover an arrow, which has all the require steps for producing any of the three, but the other two will no require all of these steps. This will be expanded in time, but basically:

• With wood and handaxe out: cut arrow shafts with my handaxe from my wood. This produces one ore more shafts for your use.
• With a single arrow shaft and your dagger: cut my shaft with my dagger. This pares down the shaft.
• If you want to use paint or a paintstick, then now is the time.

• Paint should be applied before paintsticks.

• To paint the shaft, paint my shaft with my paint.
• You will have to wait for the paint to dry before you can do anything else with the shaft. This takes approximately 10 - 15 seconds.

• Paint sticks can be used to add cresting or banding to an arrow.

• To apply a band, paint my shaft with my paintstick.
• After applying that paint, you will have to wait for it to dry. Like above, this takes approximately 10 - 15 seconds.
• You can apply bands 2 - 3 times (need to check which) and have multiple bands of the same color or multi-colored bands.

• With the cut shaft and your dagger: cut nock in my shaft with my dagger.

• If you didn't paint your shaft, you will have to do this twice as it asks you to confirm.

• With the nocked shaft and your bow out: measure my shaft
• With the measured shaft and your dagger out: cut my shaft with my dagger
• With the trimmed shaft and a bottle of glue: put glue on my shaft

• Note that after applying the glue, you have approximately 30 seconds to apply the fletchings before the glue will dry and you will have to reapply the glue.

• With the shaft with glue on it and a bundle of at least 3 fletchings: put fletching on my shaft.

• After you apply the fletchings, you will have to wait for the glue to dry. This takes approximately 30 seconds from the point that the glue was applied.

• After the fletchings are done, you can either carve a tip for the arrow or apply and arrowhead/cap on it.

• To use an arrowhead or cap:

• With your drill and the shaft in your hands: turn drill on my shaft.
• With your shaft and your arrowhead or cap: Turn arrowhead/cap on my shaft.

• To carve a tip:

• With the shaft and your dagger in your hand: Cut my shaft with my dagger.
• You will have to perform the above step twice to confirm that you really want to cut the tip and not to apply an arrowhead or cap.

Congratulations, you've created an arrow.

Arrowheads and Caps

Landing

• a steel broadhead arrowhead
• a mithril conical arrowhead
• an ora swept arrowhead
• an imflass arrowhead
• a vultite triangle-bladed arrowhead
• a steel broadhead cap
• a mithril conical cap
• an ora swept cap
• an imflass cap
• a vultite triangle-bladed cap

Custom Arrowheads Sometimes custom arrowheads can be purchased at merchant events. These arrow heads may add flares to your arrow.

Fletchings

Landing

• a bundle of fletchings (plain, don't show up)
• a bundle of plain white fletchings
• a bundle of dingy grey fletchings
• a bundle of light brown fletchings

Custom Fletchings Sometimes custom fletchings can be found in boxes as treasure. There are also merchants (such as Surriel) who will make custom colors for you. A number of merchant events have also distributed special fletchings.

Paints and Paintsticks

Generally all paint and paintsticks come in 30 uses. Some treasure found ones can come in uses of 100 or more.

Paints Available in All Towns

• bright golden
• fiery orange
• (more)

Paintsticks

Custom Paints and Paintsticks Sometimes custom paint or paintsticks can be found in boxes as treasure. There are also merchants (such as Surriel) who will make custom colors for you.

Experience

You can gain experience from felcthing in two ways. While you are learning, you will gain experience each time you gain a rank. For example, if you gain your 100th rank, you will gain 100 experience.^* Also, once you have mastered, you will gain 5 experience for creating an arrow. There is, however, a cap on the amount of experience you can gain for a particular time period by completing arrows as a master.

^* Note: This is only true if Fletching is your only artisan skill. Reference Artisan Skill Experience to see the complete details.

Notes

• The enchant of an arrowhead and of a wood will not stack. The highest enchant will be used. The +5 from being a master fletcher will stack though. So it is possible to make upto 5x arrows.

Reference Links

Archery Shop Listing from Keelty's Glade

Official Simutronics Guide - This is somewhat out of date because it does not include the most recent changes to fletching.