This quick guide should help you get started with mining, and most will apply to herbalism and hunting as well.

Mining is an extremely important profession in South Vormis, since it goes a long way to keep the economy going by supplying crafters with the ore necessary to create many weapons and suits of armor.

An apprentice miner must first accomplish a daunting task - collecting the tools necessary to begin their art. Mining requires the use of a Miner's Axe or a Pick of some sort. Miner's Axes are cheaper and easier to find than Picks, and Guard Kelann from the Kaj Blood Keep has informed me that he wishes novice miners to know that there are a number of Kobold Miners in the Kaj Blood Mine that possess these Miner's Axes. (Be careful, though. The Kobolds in the mine are quite aggressive, and often attack in groups. You may wish to enlist the services of a few other adventurers to help you acquire a Miner's Axe, or purchase one from Haridos, in the Kaj Blood Quarry.)

Miner's Axes are two handed weapons that use the axe skill. You can use them in combat if you are attacked while mining.

Once you have a Miner's Axe or Pick equipped, open your character information screen (F10), and scroll down to the gathering skills. Drag the Mining icon down to your quickbar.

If you wish to mine, press the button you dragged the Mining icon to.

The higher your skill, the wider of an area you cover with each mining attempt, and the better chance you have of successfully mining an area. Each mining attempt will degrade your pick a little bit, and each successful mining attempt will degrade the area around you.

If an area has a low density of minerals, you'll get one of several messages letting you know. If the message is "This area looks completely played out of minable ore", that means you're in a very bad place for mining. (You won't find anything useful in the Keep, for instance. )

Some areas have much higher amounts of ore than others. Some have... er... other items that you can dig up. Most of it makes some logical sense, and there are often visual clues as to where there might be higher concentrations of minerals.

You'll often find "Unrefined Ore". If you collect a stack of ten or more, you can take it to Haridos, in the Quarry, for refining. Give him the stacks in multiples of ten for the best results, since it's a ten to one ratio (or a full stack of 99, for which he'll give you 10 units of ore in return).

Currently, mining does not increase through use, nor does it give experience yet on successful attempts. We will be changing both of these in the near future, but it will increase at a much slower rate than the crafting skills do.

The Baron thanks you for your efforts at rebuilding the Kaj Blood economy, and wishes the very best of luck.