I think that the Arts skillset has such potential, and maybe with a few suggestions we could come up with some new ideas for abilities. I've included a couple which aren't exactly brilliant, but hopefully some others can be added!

Insignia ---- Declare your seal upon official documents.
Syntax: CARVE PERSONAL INSIGNIA / CARVE (organization) INSIGNIA
By carving a recognizable emblem into a wooden seal you will be able to imprint your official mark upon letters, scrolls and books. Once the item bears your seal, or that of any organization which you lead, it will no longer permit alterations. While wielding your insignia, you must SEAL (document) WITH INSIGNIA and have a silver or gold commodity in your inventory.
Components: wood 3 silver 1 gold 1

This skill would create an item 'insignia' that has a decay time of around a year. By sealing any kind of document, you would ensure nothing further can be written upon or in it, and also a line would be added to its examine description: "It bears the silver/golden seal of Contemplator of the Spirits, Elryn Greythane.", or "It bears the silver/golden seal of the Greythane Lineage." Hopefully this skill would be kinda low so that anyone with a bit of skill can preserve their documents. You can do it for letters, I know, but when different kinds of books come in, I think it would be neato for that too.

Calligraphy ---- Author your writings in any of the known mortal tongues.
Syntax: STUDY (language) FROM (teacher) / WRITE (document) IN (language).
The common speech is far too unwieldy for the most important of scholarly works. Now that you have gained a mastery of artistic penmanship, you may learn the written language of any race for which they can find a wiling tutor. Note that learning each additional language will require approximately 200 lessons, and these studies will not extend to understanding the spoken tongue.

This skill would allow you to find a tutor who likes you (ie, your race isn't an enemy of their race, your class and citizenship doesn't oppose theirs) and learn written languages of your choice. Letters, books and journals could be authored in any languages that you know. This skill would of course only make sense if everyone can write and read their own native language. This is completely stolen from Imperian, I believe.

Completely stolen, but I still like the idea.

I'd personally rather things like..

Papercraft: Make scrolls and journals as well (once libraries are put in).

Achaea has seals for letters, as cheap artifacts.

Expanding art would be fun. Papercraft would be nice, as would expanding wood/metal/glasscraft to be a bit more useful, even if just to make little toys or something that don't really do much.

I think the problem of putting journals into Papercraft would make an over abundance of books.

Put it in... I donno... Bookcrafting or something and you can craft normal journals (50 pages), tomes (100 pages), and record books (for libraries, 150 pages) and perhaps maybe even allow multiple authors like in achaean's manuscripts.

I like the ideas. Seems fine to me. I agree with aebrin though, that papercraft would not be an appropriate skill for making books. You should have it higher up on the skill level

Achaea has seals? Do they do the same thing?

They're an artifact, and allow you to seal a letter. When it is read, the seal is irrevocably broken, which shows in it's description.

Instruments please!!

ooers! I like the instruments idea. Maybe there could even be a new music skillset or something.

Lesson Pools:
BODY 0
FITNESS 0
MELEE 0
EMPATHY 0
COMMUNION 0
MAGNETISM 0
MIND 0
INTELLECT 0
ARCANA 0
ARTISTRY 0
PERFORMANCE 0
FINEARTS 0
SPIRIT 0
MYSTICISM 0
WILLPOWER 0


Bards later, anyone?

I hope it's no bards. I would hope that that performance pool is there for a common skill, like arts.

Ohh I hope its not a bard guild either. I don't want to have to be a bard to be taken seriously when I want to perform.

Manuscripts, player-made letters, dying player-made letters different colors, arts cartels so we can make a special design. (same comms, just different look, provided that the look could be achieved with, say, just iron or wood.)

I've been thinking about the book thing in Arts for a while, because Shinza wants another journal to keep trade records in, separate from her personal journal.

How about...

In Papercraft, you can make the individual leaves for the journal. So something along the lines of PAPERCRAFT BOOKLEAF or something.

Syntax: PAPERCRAFT
You can create simple paper crafts.
Ingredients:
Cards: wood 1
Bookleaf: wood 1


Then have another skill later on called Bookbind, like so:

Syntax: BOOKBIND
You can create basic books, ready to be made into journals or manuscripts.
Ingredients:
Book: leather 2 wood 2

(Whatever, syntax and ingredients supplied for example)

And the final step would be to take it to an enchanter who will enchant it and make it all magical and stuff...

I Love all these ideas .. however, letters are traditionally sealed with wax not gold and silver

Shinza's Idea of making books through 2 different skills and eventually having them enchanted is also great but we do need to diferentiate between ordinary journals which only the owner can edit and manuscripts which anyone can edit like they have in achaea.
Perhaps that can be in the nature of the enchantment

Also, once libraries are in, BOOKCASE in woodcraft which would allow us to craft a bookcase to hold a limited number of journals or whatever maybe needing 10 wood comms or somthing

I think it would also be helpful if post offices could sell contracts as well as letters. These would function identically to letters, ie, they can be written on, but then they are also able to be SIGNed by any number of people, which shows up on the PROBE description and also prevents the original contents from being altered. You couldn't force someone to sign, and these contracts would last indefinitely (and hence would be much more expensive than letters).

Fun for treaties and binding agreements.

I seriously consider people thinking about making an Arts Cartel.

Not only can you design your own letters and stuff, but also tomes and books and other pretty things like envelopes and paper planes.

Maybe because it's not a Trade Skill it can be a private Cartel. so 500K for the clan, 500k for the Cartel then another 100k for an Arts Cartel.