I somehow ended up the proud author of two separate mods that use paper and ink as materials, so I thought it was probably time to create a mod for making paper and ink. If you're here for another reason but might like something else to do with your paper and ink, check out my mods Scrivener and Dino's Spell Discovery.


What this mod does

This mod adds a set of recipes for a paper and ink crafting process. For ink:

• Char bone meal, small or large antlers, or horker or boar tusks in a smelter to make bone char
• Mix ink using bone char in a cookpot, OR
• Cook canis root, jazbay grapes, or juniper berries in a cookpot to make tannic acid
• Use tannic acid and an iron ingot in a cookpot to make ink
  

And for paper:

• Make linen wraps from tundra cotton at the cookpot
• Make paper from a linen wrap, grass pod, or spiky grass pod at the cookpot
  

Bone char can be used as an alchemy ingredient; I tried to ensure the properties were reasonable and not too similar to any existing ingredient. There's also an optional patch for Alchemy Adjustments, which just changes this single ingredient to bring it in line with that mod's ingredient strengths. Tannic acid can also be used as a weak poison if you'd like.

I had a very light eye towards realism when putting these recipes together; to my understanding it is true that you can use bone char or tannic acid plus certain iron salts for ink-making, and that cloth and reeds were historically used to create paper. However I can't speak to the accuracy of being able to do this with a smelter or cookpot! Some decisions were made for gameplay reasons instead: iron ingots are used rather than ore because at least in my game they're equivalent or easier to get. Additionally I don't have a recipe for using firewood because it doesn't cost any effort other than time and I find that pretty boring.

The rough intended balance is that for each alchemy ingredient used in crafting, you should ultimately get 3 inkwells or rolls of paper. There are also two plugins to change this in the optional files; the less scarcity version will give you 10 ink or paper per alchemy ingredient, and the more scarcity version will give you 1 ink or paper per alchemy ingredient. Fair warning, the tannic acid recipe in the less scarcity version gives you 40 inkwells at a time; I am not responsible for any over-encumbrance that may result.

Exact recipes for the curious; differences between versions are written out as default / less scarcity / more scarcity:


Compatibility

This mod shouldn't conflict with any others; it only adds recipes and two new items (bone char and tannic acid).  If you find that there's an issue with the alchemy properties for bone char (as in, they're drastically different from those in an alchemy overhaul you have, or bone char shares 3-4 properties with another ingredient), let me know and I'll look at making a patch.


Alternatives

If you don't like this mod's recipes, never fear! You can also try these:

• Scroll Ingredients
• Shops Sell Paper
• Writing Materials for Spell Research