Artisan's Prize

The Artisan's Prize is the single best augment a tradeskiller can earn in EverQuest. It's an ear-slot aug that scales with your tradeskill prowess, and at maximum power it provides stats that rival or exceed augs from current endgame raids. If you've put serious time into tradeskills, this is the payoff. If you haven't — well, this quest might be the reason to start.

Introduced with The Broken Mirror expansion, the Artisan's Prize rewards breadth across all tradeskills. The more skills you push past 300, the stronger the aug gets. A character with every tradeskill at 350 will have a dramatically more powerful aug than someone who just scraped together the minimum to complete the quest.

Why You Want This

At its base, the Artisan's Prize is already solid — roughly 800 HP, 700 mana, 700 endurance, 60+ to all stats, and meaningful amounts of heroic stats, spell damage, heal amount, and clairvoyance. It also grants a worn effect called Artisan's Finesse that reduces tradeskill combine failure by 5%.

But here's the real hook: the aug scales. For every 7 tradeskill points you earn above 300 (or above 200 for fishing), the aug gains approximately 1% of its maximum stats. Max it out and you're looking at around 3,000 HP, proportionally scaled mana and endurance, and heroic stats that would make a raider jealous.

To hit maximum power, you need 420 total skill points past 300 spread across your tradeskills. That means pushing the seven core tradeskills (baking, brewing, smithing, fletching, jewelcraft, pottery, tailoring) plus spell research toward 350, and fishing toward 250. Class-restricted skills (alchemy, make poison, tinkering) count too if your class has access to them.

Prerequisites

Before you even talk to the quest NPC, you need to complete four things. These are serious quest lines in their own right — plan to spend days or weeks on them if you're starting from scratch.

1. Earring of the Solstice

This is a Shadows of Luclin-era tradeskill quest that requires you to craft nine items across multiple tradeskills and combine them in a forge. The resulting earring gets turned in to Rebecca Cabbageleaf in Fungus Grove to receive the Earring of the Solstice.

The nine items you need to craft:

• Blessed Fishing Rod
• Ceremonial Solstice Robe
• Demi-Sec Champagne
• Golden Idol of Tunare
• Lotus Pie
• Lucky Cabbage
• Mistletoe Cutting Sickle
• Misty Thicket Picnic
• Star Ruby Encrusted Stein

All of these items are tradeable, so you can buy them from the bazaar or get help from guildmates.

2. Signet of the Arcane (or Signet of Might)

This comes from the Aid Grimel quest series in New Tanaan, tied to Planes of Power progression. You need to be flagged through the Elemental Planes and have at least 220 unmodified skill in seven tradeskills (baking, brewing, smithing, fletching, jewelcraft, pottery, tailoring).

Casters receive the Signet of the Arcane; melee classes receive the Signet of Might. Both work for the Artisan's Prize. If you need to swap between the two versions, talk to Councilman Taldarius — just make sure the signet has no augs in it first.

3. Eron's Jewelry

A Secrets of Faydwer quest obtained from Eron Nurwistle in Dragonscale Hills. This is a seven-stage quest that takes you through pottery, baking, smithing, fletching, brewing, tailoring, and jewelcraft. Each stage requires roughly 250 skill in the respective tradeskill, and the final combine in each stage uses jewelcrafting.

4. The Artisan's Wares (Achievement)

This achievement requires collecting 16 ground spawns scattered across Norrath. Some are in zones that require progression flags or a group to access. Here's the full list:

The Main Quest

Once you have all four prerequisites handled, it's time to talk to Lebounde ab Dolmen.

Finding Lebounde

Lebounde is located in Halas (the revamped version). His house is in the top-left circle of the zone, the bottom-left hut. He roams the eastern section of the city during the day.

Getting Started

The 12 Tradeskill Sub-Quests

Each supply task requires 300+ unmodified skill and a maxed (7/7) trophy in the respective tradeskill. You craft five items per task and turn them all in to Lebounde for an Artisan Seal.

Here are the individual sub-quest guides with full material lists and crafting instructions:

Core Tradeskills (All Classes)

Class-Restricted Tradeskills

Maximizing the Augment

Getting the Artisan's Prize is just the beginning. The aug starts at roughly 40% of its maximum power. Pushing it to 100% requires advancing your tradeskills well past 300.

How Scaling Works

The aug gains approximately 1% of its maximum stats for every 7 tradeskill points you earn above 300 across all applicable tradeskills. Fishing counts points above 200 instead of 300.

To reach 100%, you need 420 total points past the threshold. Here's a realistic target spread:

That gives you 450 points — 30 more than the 420 needed. Class-restricted skills (alchemy, make poison, tinkering) also contribute if available to your class, giving you even more headroom.

The 301-350 Grind

Skilling up past 300 works completely differently from the 1-300 grind. You don't gain skill from repeated combines anymore. Instead, your effective skill tracks the percentage of qualifying recipes you've learned (successfully completed at least once). Every new unique recipe you complete inches the bar forward.

This means you need to systematically work through hundreds — sometimes thousands — of recipes per tradeskill. See our Skilling Up 301 to 350 guide for the full breakdown of how this system works, what recipes qualify, and how many you need per skill.

Tips and Common Mistakes

Don't destroy your prerequisites. You need the actual Earring of the Solstice, Signet, and Eron's Jewelry items — not just the achievements. If you deleted one, you'll need to redo that quest.

Equip your trophies for every combine. The 15% modifier from a maxed trophy makes a real difference on high-trivial combines. Get in the habit of swapping the right trophy in before every craft.

Some items need an Enchanter. Several sub-quests require enchanter-made items: Vial of Viscous Mana, Vial of Purified Mana, Vial of Distilled Mana, Enchanted Platinum Bar, and various enchanted diamonds. If you're not an enchanter, make friends with one or buy these from the bazaar.

Small Block of Magic Clay shows up everywhere. Nearly every supply task requires one. These are created by an enchanter casting on a Small Block of Clay. Stock up.

The Ceramic Clay items share a trivial. Most sub-quests include a "[Tradeskill] Ceramic Clay" combine at trivial 262. The recipe uses the same base materials (Relic Fragments from Katta Castrum: Deluge plus a Small Block of Magic Clay) with a tradeskill-specific component.

GoD flagging matters. A couple of sub-quests require items that only drop in Gates of Discord zones that need the refinement flag. Make sure your progression is current.

Lebounde is on a schedule. He sleeps 7 PM to 5 AM. Don't waste time running to Halas only to find him napping. Check the time first.

Seals are tradeable — use this strategically. If you're on a rogue alt who can't do alchemy, or a non-gnome who can't tinker, those seals aren't required for your class. But if you want to skip a particularly painful supply task on a character that does have access, buying the seal from the bazaar is perfectly valid.

Failed combines return materials. Most supply task combines return ingredients on failure. Don't rage-quit if you fail a high-trivial combine — just try again with the same materials. The notable exceptions are any sub-combines where the recipe is flagged as consuming on failure, so check trivials and use modifiers.

Plan your farming routes. Many sub-quests share zones for material farming. Sunderock Springs, The Steppes, Elddar Forest, Vegarlson, and Doomfire come up repeatedly. Hit all your targets in one trip rather than zoning in and out multiple times.