Smith

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A long time ago years ago in a neolithic village someone (for simplicity sake we'll say a potter) figured out that if you took a certain green rock, put it in a kiln and got it really hot you would get a lump of shiny comparatively hard reddish material that could be heated up and shaped into a wide variety of tools and ornaments. Thus humanity learned how to work copper and the world gained it's first Smiths. As time went on said villages grew into towns and then cities, these guys got better at their job and figured out that one could add tin to molten copper to make bronze. Latter some of them worked out how to work iron and make steel, these guys became known as blacksmiths. Blacksmithing is a much less common trade in the modern day than it used to be, but the profusion of historical reenactment/weapons historian/arms collection communities on the internet have made many kinds of smithing a valuable and profitable niche trade. During the Industrial Revolution, blacksmiths eventually made the transition into machinists, or even automotive mechanics, filling much of the same roles but with better technology.

Smiths are by far /tg/'s favorite premodern artisans.

Types of smith

• Farrier: A guy who makes horseshoes and fits them onto horses.
• Village Smith: The most common type of blacksmith in the middle ages, these guys made farm tools, nails, pots, pans and basically the majority of simple metal implements (usually made from tin, iron was very hard to come by and as such only used for specialized irreplaceable tools) needed by a small community of peasants. Occasionally they would make simple weapons and armor as well but these would be of low quality.
• Bladesmith: A smith who makes knives. When swords became obsolete, many sword smiths transitioned into crafting knives.
• Weaponsmith: A smith who specializes in making weapons.
• Swordsmith: A smith who specializes in making swords, these guys were very much in demand.
• Gunsmith: A smith who specializes in the manufacture of firearms. Before the industrial revolution, parts for firearms had to be custom-fitted to ensure that gun worked properly, so even minor repairs required specialist work.
• Armorer: A smith who makes armor. A regular village Smith with a lot of time on his hands could easily make some mail, but anything more complicated than that required a specialist.
• Toolsmith: A smith that makes tools, including for other blacksmiths.
• Goldsmiths: Smiths who do fancy work with gold. Gold has a low melting point and bends easily, so instead of hot forges and anvils, Goldsmiths uses precision instruments to make fine adjustments. More of an artisanal than utilitarian profession, these guys typically made jewelry and other expensive and ornamental objects.
• Silversmiths: Smith who do fancy work with silver; despite using the same skills as a goldsmith, silversmiths primarily made cutlery in additional to ornamental objects that were more commonly used, such as mirrors, pitchers, candlesticks, etc.
• Tinsmith: The poor man’s silversmith, who made a lot of the same utilitarian kitchenware and household items, but out of pewter.
• Whitesmith: Did finishing work such as filing, lathing, burnishing, and polishing. Also used for a smith that works with light-colored metals, making it sometimes synonymous with tinsmith.
• Incest Smith

Smiths on the Tabletop

Though their existence is central to most fantasy or science-fiction worlds (it's hard to have swords and sorcercy without swords, or raygun gothic without rayguns), smiths are very seldom seen as dedicated character classes or roles in TTRPGs. While it's often common for games to have crafting systems of some kind to allow their players to build or customize their own gear, its rare to see a class that is 100% dedicated to nothing but item creation. Simply put, building cool weapons and armour isn't much fun if you can't use them. The Artificer sometimes fills the smith roll in a variety of different systems, but their emphasis is often more on gadgetry than on building simple tools.