Abilities

First aid

The latest medicinals, 'healing medicinals' from Iceforge, will let you bind 'carefully' while drunk if your first aid ability is high enough.

Rhynst:
First aid is raised from using bandages from Drakhyra. Unfortunately,
these bandages are inferior to normal medicinals as they fall off the
second the bandaged person enters combat.

Tinuviel's comments:
Now available in Iceforge: healing medicinals which raise first aid
ability and act more like Fredd's medicinals!  Some say they heal
better as well, but that may depend on ability.

Fishing

Rhynst:
Fishing is one we’ve probably all run into. Buy a net or fishing rod from
Salty John, find a nice stretch of water and fish away. The fish range
from little carps to sharks to giant squids (which are worth 9000 or
more experience). You’ll have to beat the fish to death, then you can
treat it like ranger meat – can be salted, cooked or eaten raw. The
squids don’t turn into Calamari rings. Fishing nets seem to pull up
smaller fish than poles, but you can get more than one at a time, and
also various random items, like puzzles, trash, and potions. It’s
something interesting to do while waiting for the Atlantis or Lizette, or
while just chatting

Tinuviel's comments:
Giant squids can stack quite a bit and are very popular kills, so if you're
not able to kill it yourself, shout out and let the higher levels know where
it is.  It seems that some areas are easier to fish in than others for those
with low ability, so keep poking around to find new spots as your ability
goes up. There are many different kinds of fish, and some sharks as well,
which can do a fair amount of damage to a newbie, so be careful.  You
can stockpile fish for ranger wolves or sell it to Dermott in Tantallon or at
any shop that buys meat.  Rangers can make their own fishing poles with
sinew and a beam.As your ability goes up, you generally catch things a
lot faster.  At 100, I usually get a tug very soon after casting my line or
tossing my net.

Folding

Tinuviel's comments:
This is basically origami which you can do with parchment from Redcliff
(on Infidian).  There is an NPC there which gives lessons that gives you
some initial ability, and then gives you paper to practice with.  You can
go back for further lessons.  You can 'smooth' or 'unfold' the parchment
to fold it again, though after a few uses it becomes so creased all you
can do is ball it up and throw it at someone.

Languages

From Rhynst's Newbie Guide:
The Languages don’t have much practical use, but certain areas and
quests and items require proficiency in various languages to understand.
If you need a boost in a certain language, ask a helpful mage to cast
magic mouth or comprehend languages on you, or get the ring of tongues
from the Academy. Humans generally end up with 100 or almost 100 in all
languages, Orcs are bad with Elvish, and vice versa, and so on. Your
languages go up with intelligence and wisdom, and funnily enough, deaths.
Therefore, an elf who dies a lot can even have 100 Orcish.

Tinuviel's comments:
The reason languages go up with deaths is because your stats drop a point
with death, but your language abilities don't.  Therefore you can continue
boosting your language abilities further by dying and readvancing your
intelligence and wisdom.  If you really want a character with maximum
languages through this method, start with a level 1, advance wis and int to
2, die, advance wis and int to 2, die, rinse, repeat until max.  This is a
good time to find interesting ways to die, like jumping into mine shafts and
out of trees.

Mining

The combined knowledge of Snowfolk guild members, founders of the Northern Miners' Association of Anguish

Intro

Mining is a great source of gems, minerals, and metals, which artificers can use just like the components they collect across the countryside. It also is a surprisingly good source of experience for a non-combat ability, up to 30k an hour, if not more. All it requires is a pick, sp, and patience.

As there are two related and neighboring areas referred to as Iceforge but some important distinctions between them, in this guide I refer to the older section (which goes through the mountain) as Iceforge tunnels, and the newer area (which includes the Bawdy Miner and the smith) as the Iceforge expansion.

Equipment

Picks can be found in a few different areas, some without any killing required, and often can be found at Elmor's as well.

You can buy picks in the Iceforge expansion. The mithril pick gives +10 to mining, but requires a higher strength to wield than most other picks (12).

Some popular free picks are:
Ivory pick (from Cave Orc area west of Snowfolk guild)
A mining pick (Iceforge expansion)
Shiny mining pick [+15 to mining] (Iceforge tunnels)

You can kill various dwarves to get picks as well, including in the old dwarven mines, which ironically do not support this type of mining. If you have a weapon called a pick or mining pick, and it doesn't seem to work, odds are you're just in an area that can't be mined.

Bonuses can also be had from the helmet and boots from Iceforge tunnels.

Happily, you can now purchase the helmet in the Iceforge expansion, so the +10 is available even to those who can't figure out the miniquest. You may also find a helmet in the expansion's mines sometimes.

A light source is strongly recommended, though it is possible to mine in the dark. Note that the steel mining helmet, in addition to giving a +10 bonus to mining, has a bit of fire gem in it so provides light as well.

Where to mine

Once you're all equipped, you need to find an area which has mining enabled. Note that of the many underground, cave, and tunnel areas, only a few are minable at time of this writing:

Iceforge (the older tunnels and the newer expansion)
Yeti Caves
Shadow Elf Caves
Storm Dragon
Anakim
Eagle Clan (one room I've found so far, might be more?)
Drow caverns
Riognach tunnels (underground forest)

Players are hopeful that more cave/tunnel areas will continue to have mining enabled!

Areas to monitor in the future:

Manspider caves
Orc caves (way up north)
Magic cave (by Quildar's)
Orc king's mountain palace
Troll's den
Dwarven Mines
Star caverns
Mithril mountain (zombie miners)
Alton's caverns
Rodentid area
Blor's hideout
Ravel tunnels
Mt. Kresh

(two older areas have been retro-fitted for mining, so there is hope for others!)

HOW-TO TIPS

When you are first getting started at mining, try different rooms until you find a vein. Finding veins will be your main source of scoring ability points, since you're too unskilled to successfully mine specific veins. Once you have a few ability points, or if you are using something that gives a bonus to ability, mine "easy" veins until they're gone. Easy veins tend to be those that aren't real valuable: coal, lead, tin, iron, limestone, etc.

You'll notice as you get better that you're able to mine the much more appealing veins such as platinum, mithril, sapphire, opal, etc. The ability increases very rapidly at first, slows down when you're in the 60's, and then really starts to crawl in the 80's. There is a level cap of 5/level, so if you haven't advanced inmining for a long time, that might be the problem. For low level characters, it is extremely difficult to get any ability points at all. If you are able to dual wield shiny picks and wear a helmet, you will have a +40 bonus, which seems to help.

A notable exception is the dwarf, who has a natural mining ability which makes it much easier to start mining, and less tiresome (costs less sp).

Mining costs sp and gives experience. Most people lie down, smoke, and drink while mining to try to keep sp up. I think this really adds to the flavor, especially if you start making up goofy mining songs like Snowfolk do :)

While lying down, be cautious. Wandering cave-rats in Iceforge are aggressive.

As you succeed in getting bits out of the wall, you build up piles in your inventory which can be separated and combined. The more difficult veins (rarer materials) give more experience than easy ones. It is possible to get 30k exp (if not more) in one hour just by mining. Veins, once fully mined, take some time to reset. In general it seems that if platinum was found in a room during a particular reboot, it will likely be found there again after resetting. You can sell piles to the smith in Iceforge expansion or to the artificer shop. I recommend the latter because the materials are then available for your fellow players to purchase and use.

CAVE-INS

Cave-ins are a serious thing because they cause damage to anyone in the room (around 70 hp) and can cause players to be trapped in rooms on the other side of the cave-in. You can most definitely die from a cave-in. They also block the room for a while, thus cutting off access to desirable veins, as most of the unstable rooms are the ones with difficult veins of rare materials. You can dig the rubble to help clear the cave-in, which seems to take some combination of digging and waiting. As noted in 'help mine' causing a cave-in deliberately to trap, hurt, or kill another player could constitute player attacking.

LOTS of warning is given before a cave-in occurs. It begins with messages about the walls being unstable. At this point, you can 'reinforce walls' with wooden beams (cut by a ranger) and a hammer. How successful you are at reinforcing the walls depends on how high your mining ability is. Keep reinforcing until you can't, sometimes it takes more than just once. When mining, you can 'stop' at any time, and it is wise to do this when given ANY messages about the instability of the room. The Iceforge tunnels have no unstable rooms, so it is recommended for those new to mining. Don't get this confused with the Iceforge expansion, which has many rooms which will cave in when mined by the unskilled.

Pottery

Rhynst:
Pottery is gained from moulding things from clay. The clay can be
obtained from Hopkins’ area. You can mould all sorts of things,
‘crush’ it, and start again. Every bit of clay can be used several
times before it dries up and becomes useless.

Tinuviel's comments:
Clay can now also be purchased in Gemynd, making it really easy
to raise this mostly-useless ability.  It would be really nice for this
to have a use someday, maybe by making jars / bottles or something
which hold larger doses of medicine than empty beer bottles?

Prospecting

Rhynst:
Prospecting goes up incredibly slowly and is incredibly brain numbingly
boring. You raise it by finding Dubo near the ranger camp, getting a
prospecting pan and spending hours sitting around waiting for gold –
rather like a real prospector, I’d imagine.

Tinuviel's comments:
I enjoy raising mostly-useless abilities, but this one is truly the most
painful.  It's best done when you need to sit around healing hp/sp
(perhaps before you go back to mining) and best done while you do
something in another window or read a book, typing 'prospect' every
couple of minutes.  Definitely do not expect to get rich doing this.  I'm at
34 for this ability after spending hours at it.  I haven't had much luck with
the rivers in Dubo's area, but rather in the northern rivers closer to
Snowfolk guild.  You can prospect on Infidian, too :)

Seduction

Rhynst:
Seduction is raised when being…affectionate to various orcs in
Drakhyra. There’s no real use for it, but while your tank’s busy buying
lambs at the tavern, you might as well have some fun with the dancing
girl, eh? It goes up pretty quickly.

Tinuviel's comments:
This one seems a lot more useful for female characters, as apparently
Drakhiya orcs are strictly heterosexual, and all the guards are male.  
If you get friendly enough with them, you can sneak into some places.
Just like real life, this works better if you start slow before working up to
the heavy petting ;)

Thrown weapon

Tinuviel's comments:
This is an actual useful combat-related ability which you can also advance
by playing darts at Ranor's Pride (Infidian, just south of Gemynd).  It caps
per reset, so you'll have to keep going back.

Tossing

Rhynst:
Tossing is from the fun dwarf/chicken/cow etc tossing game down
in Scythe camp. It’d appear strength and dexterity and timing govern
how well you toss the critters. Try it out, it’s a bid of sadistic fun.

Tinuviel's comments:
You can now also get a long-tailed toy to toss around.  It can be
found in a farm on Gemynd and sometimes Plekt the packrat has
one in his stash.  It is still much faster to raise at Scythe camp,
though.

Weaving

Rhynst:
Weaving actually can be raised in three ways. First, find Fae in
Arcadia, who will teach you the basics of weaving – up to 29 skill.
Then, the slow way to raise weaving further is by mending fishing
nets with fids. Otherwise, get spider silk from the freaky spider area
and weave rings out of it. There’s a possibility that weaving ability
actually makes some Drowgar spells better – those that involve
weaving, like spider armour and spider pack. When you have ample
silk, this skill goes up quickly – the problem is getting hands on the
silk in the first place – the area producing it has a maximum level
requirement.

Tinuviel's comments:
There are a couple new ways to raise this now.  You can weave the
grass from Gwot's place on Infidian into bracelets and mats and other
things.  You can also pick flowers in Gemynd to weave into circlets,
bracelets, and cloaks.