Blueprints

Blueprints are a late-game way to make gear: find or buy a blueprint sheet, study it from your Bank, and its forge recipe appears permanently on Smithing or Crafting. There are 19 to collect. Twelve are the original wave, sourced from biome Guardians and the deep Caves — all but one: Apexforged Edge drops only from rogue-clan outposts (the Ember Throne) and rival tribe spoils, never from a Guardian or a cave. The other seven are the v0.53.0 top wave, one recipe per forged slot, sold only at the Rift Bazaar once you've Ascended three times. Forging is where the best gear you can make yourself comes from — and a lucky Primal forged top-wave cast is the one way forged gear can beat the game's best drop-only set.

How forging works

• Study a blueprint from the Bank and its recipe unlocks for good — on Smithing (weapons, shield, barding) or Crafting (armour, saddle).
• Every forged piece rolls a quality grade, then its stats inside that grade's own slice of the blueprint's band. See Cast quality below for the grades and their odds.
• Salvage a bad roll back into about half its rare materials — the common inputs are spent, but the rare ones mostly come back.
• Forged gear lives in your Gear Locker on the Player page: equip it over your crafted gear, and fit forged saddles and bardings straight onto your dinos.
• Forged gear is bound to you — unlike crafted gear it is never the piece torn off when you die.

Power check: an average forged piece beats the best gear you can otherwise craft; most max rolls stop at or just under the expedition sets. The exception is the rare Primal forged grade on the top wave, the one cast that can beat the matching Primal set piece outright. The Mostly Harmless legendaries stay above the forge regardless.

Cast quality

Every forge action rolls a grade for the whole piece before it rolls stats, so a Masterwork cast is Masterwork on every stat it carries — the grade rides along in the piece's name in your locker, battle sheet, and completion toast (a plain Common cast adds no word; a "Masterwork Gloomglass Visor" says so wherever it's listed). Each grade owns a fixed slice of the blueprint's roll band, from Common at the bottom to the rarest grade at the very top:

Grade	Below your 3rd Ascension	Ascension 3+
Common	70%	70%
Fine	24%	24%
Masterwork	6%	5%
Primal forged	—	1%

Only a Masterwork-or-better roll can reach a stat's true ceiling, which is what the ★ in the table below marks — about 1 in 80 for a single stat, and rarer still across every stat on a Perfect Cast. Past your third Ascension, the very top sliver of that same band is carved off into Primal forged instead: the rarest grade the forge can produce, and the only cast that can out-roll a matching Primal set piece (see The top wave, below).

Not happy with a roll? The Rite of Refinement re-forges a piece you already own — worn, fitted to a dino, or sitting in the locker — right where it stands: pay 15,000 Amber plus about half the blueprint's rare-material bill, or a single Quality Whetstone instead, and the forge rolls it fresh. You always keep the better of the two casts (grade first, then total stats), so the Rite can only help. Like the top wave, it's unlocked only past your third Ascension.

Blueprints

Roll ranges are the stat's minimum up to its ★ ceiling — see Cast quality above for how a cast's grade decides where in that range it lands. Level is what your Smithing or Crafting level must reach to use the recipe once it's learned (studying a sheet itself has no level requirement). Rare inputs are the forge-only materials each recipe needs, on top of the common materials the action also burns.

Blueprint	Slot	Forge	Level	Stat roll (min–max ★)	Sheet source	Rare inputs
Starmetal Blade	weapon	Smithing	50	attack 29–38	Scorched King guardian (20%)	Starmetal Ore ×3, Primal Sinew ×2
Heartwood Warbow	weapon	Smithing	62	attack 37–48	Frostmaw guardian (20%)	Heartwood Core ×3, Wardstone Fragment ×2
Apexforged Edge	weapon	Smithing	78	attack 51–66	rogue-clan outposts (Ember Throne) / rival spoils only	Apex Scale ×3, Emberheart ×2, Starmetal Ore ×2
Wardstone Bulwark	shield	Smithing	66	defense 30–40	Ash Tyrant guardian (20%); Ashen Gallery cave (4%)	Wardstone Fragment ×3, Gloomglass Shard ×2
Frostbound Barding	barding	Smithing	70	guard 20–26, power 9–12	Glacier Hollow cave (4%)	Frostbound Hide ×3, Starmetal Ore ×2
Sunpetal Hood	head	Crafting	48	defense 24–31	Old Growth Tyrant guardian (20%)	Sunpetal Resin ×3, Gloomglass Shard ×1
Gloomglass Visor	head	Crafting	72	defense 42–55	Sky Sovereign guardian (20%)	Gloomglass Shard ×3, Abyssal Pearl ×2
Sinewweave Vest	chest	Crafting	54	defense 29–37	Hollow King guardian (20%)	Primal Sinew ×3, Sunpetal Resin ×2
Emberheart Plate	chest	Crafting	76	defense 42–55	The Sundered One guardian (20%)	Emberheart ×3, Apex Scale ×1
Tidewoven Leggings	legs	Crafting	56	defense 29–37	Murk Sovereign guardian (20%)	Abyssal Pearl ×2, Sunpetal Resin ×2
Wardweave Leggings	legs	Crafting	74	defense 42–55	Vale Abyss cave (4%); Amber Door cave (6%)	Wardstone Fragment ×2, Frostbound Hide ×2
Sunstride Saddle	saddle	Crafting	60	swiftness 13–17, power 5–6	Tide Leviathan guardian (20%)	Heartwood Core ×2, Sunpetal Resin ×2
Valeglass Warblade	weapon	Smithing	88	attack 73–102	Rift Bazaar, 2,000 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Apex Scale ×3, Emberheart ×2, Starmetal Ore ×2
Riftwarden Aegis	shield	Smithing	92	defense 60–84	Rift Bazaar, 1,800 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Wardstone Fragment ×3, Apex Scale ×2, Gloomglass Shard ×2
Sky-Tempered Casque	head	Crafting	90	defense 60–84	Rift Bazaar, 1,600 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Gloomglass Shard ×3, Abyssal Pearl ×3
Vale-Heart Cuirass	chest	Crafting	99	defense 60–84	Rift Bazaar, 2,200 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Emberheart ×3, Apex Scale ×2, Primal Sinew ×2
Stormstride Greaves	legs	Crafting	97	defense 60–84	Rift Bazaar, 1,900 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Wardstone Fragment ×3, Frostbound Hide ×3
Moonshadow Saddle	saddle	Crafting	93	swiftness 14–22, power 7–10	Rift Bazaar, 1,500 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Heartwood Core ×3, Sunpetal Resin ×2, Abyssal Pearl ×2
Moonlit Barding	barding	Smithing	95	guard 24–34, power 11–15	Rift Bazaar, 2,100 Shards (Ascension 3+)	Frostbound Hide ×3, Starmetal Ore ×3, Apex Scale ×1

Any of the original twelve you can't wait on: the Mark Exchange's Sheet Commission (150 Fang Marks) buys whichever one you haven't studied yet, no drop roll required. The seven top-wave sheets aren't on that list — the Rift Bazaar is their only shop.

The top wave

The seven blueprints below Sunstride Saddle in the table above are the v0.53.0 top wave — one recipe per forged slot, shipped alongside the Cast quality system. They work like any other blueprint once unlocked, but three things set them apart:

• Sheets are bought, not dropped. Every top-wave sheet is sold at the Rift Bazaar for Rift Shards, one-time — none of the seven ever appear on a Guardian, in a cave, at a rogue-clan outpost, or anywhere else.
• Both the sheet and the recipe wait on Ascension. The Bazaar won't even list a top-wave sheet, and the matching Smithing or Crafting recipe stays hidden, until you've Ascended three times.
• Their Primal forged roll can beat the Primal set. At Common, Fine, or Masterwork a top-wave piece stays at or under its same-slot Primal set piece, same as the original twelve; only the rare Primal forged grade edges past it (by roughly 1%, at the head/chest/legs/weapon/shield pieces that have a matching Primal set piece to chase). Moonshadow Saddle and Moonlit Barding have no Primal-set equivalent — they're simply anchored one tier above Sunstride Saddle and Frostbound Barding instead.

Rare materials

Ten new materials feed the forge. Each has one main home across the valley, with trickles from Dispatch squads, dig sites, the Mark Exchange, Tilda's gift baskets, and themed rival tribes.

Material	Main source
Sunpetal Resin	Foraging — the flowering hives
Heartwood Core	Logging — the great trees
Starmetal Ore	Mining — the silver and gold veins
Abyssal Pearl	Fishing — the deep lines
Primal Sinew	Hunting — big game
Frostbound Hide	Hunting — the frozen corners
Gloomglass Shard	Expeditions / Caves
Wardstone Fragment	Expeditions — on patrol
Emberheart	Expeditions — the hot corners
Apex Scale	Expeditions — the deadliest game

Achievements

• Forgemaster track — pieces forged: 1 / 10 / 50, with the Forgemaster title at the top.
• Perfect Cast — forge a piece with every stat at its ★ ceiling for the Perfect Cast title.
• Primal Smith — land your first Primal forged cast for the Primal Smith title.
• The Vale's Own Maker — land six lifetime Primal forged casts, one for every forged slot, for that title.

See Achievements for the full list.

See also

• Smithing and Crafting — the skills the recipes attach to
• Expeditions and Delving — Guardians and caves, the source of most blueprint sheets
• Tribe and Rivals — rogue-clan outposts and rival spoils, Apexforged Edge's only source
• Rifts — the Rift Bazaar, where the top wave's sheets are sold
• Equipment and Dino Gear — what forged gear equips over
• Sets — the expedition sets, and the Primal set a top-wave cast can beat

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