Albion Online Glossary

Clear definitions of the economy, crafting, and trading terms you’ll meet across our guides and the in-game market.

Economy & Silver

Silver: Silver is Albion Online's primary in-game currency, earned from combat, gathering, crafting, and trading. It is used for almost every transaction: marketplace orders, crafting station fees, taxes, and travel. Gold Market Tax
Gold: Gold is the premium currency, bought with real money or traded for Silver on the in-game gold market. It is used to buy Premium status, name changes, and cosmetics; its Silver exchange rate floats with player supply and demand. Silver Premium
Laborer (Laborers): A Laborer is an NPC you place on your island or in a guild hideout who, when fed a Journal full of Fame, returns resources or items as a reward. Laborers turn the Fame you generate from gathering, refining, or crafting into a steady passive income stream. Journal Fame
Journal: A Journal is a craftable item carried while gathering, refining, or crafting that captures a portion of the Fame you earn until it is full. A full Journal is handed to a matching Laborer, who returns resources or items, making Journals the link between active play and passive Laborer income. Laborer Fame
Black Market: The Black Market is an NPC in Caerleon that posts buy orders for finished gear and feeds the items it buys into mob, chest, and faction loot drops across the world. It only buys — never sells to players — and acts as both a demand source for crafters and a gear sink that removes some lower-tier items from the economy. Caerleon Black Market city guide

Progression

Premium: Premium is a paid account status (bought with Gold or real money) that boosts Fame gain, Silver gain, focus regeneration, and unlocks personal islands and other benefits. Most serious crafters and gatherers keep Premium active because the focus and yield bonuses pay for themselves. Gold Focus Fame
Specialization (Spec): Specialization is the deep mastery levels on a specific item on the Destiny Board, earned by crafting that exact item many times. Higher specialization raises your Resource Return Rate and Item Power for that item, so a fully specced crafter produces the same item cheaper and stronger than a generalist. Destiny Board Resource Return Rate Mastery
Mastery: Mastery is the broad node on the Destiny Board that unlocks a whole category (e.g. all bows) and provides general bonuses, sitting above the narrower Specialization levels for each specific item. You level Mastery first to unlock items, then push Specialization on the ones you produce most. Specialization Destiny Board
Destiny Board: The Destiny Board is Albion's character progression tree covering combat, gathering, refining, and crafting. You advance nodes by earning Fame for the relevant activity, unlocking new tiers of weapons, armor, and crafting recipes as well as Mastery and Specialization bonuses. Fame Mastery Specialization
Fame: Fame is Albion's experience system, earned from combat (Combat Fame), gathering, refining, and crafting (Crafting Fame). Accumulating Fame advances nodes on the Destiny Board, which is how characters unlock and improve every weapon, armor, gathering, and crafting line. Destiny Board Premium
Learning Points (LP): Learning Points (LP) are a stored progression currency that can be spent to instantly complete a Destiny Board node instead of grinding its remaining Fame. They accrue over time (faster with Premium) and are most valuable for finishing slow, expensive crafting and refining specializations. Destiny Board Fame Premium

Crafting & Refining

Focus (Focus Points): Focus is a regenerating resource spent while refining or crafting to dramatically increase the Resource Return Rate, recovering more raw materials than a non-focus craft. You have a limited daily pool that regenerates over time (faster with Premium), so efficient crafters spend focus where it returns the most Silver. Resource Return Rate Silver per Focus Premium
Resource Return Rate (RRR, Return Rate): Resource Return Rate (RRR) is the percentage chance that raw materials used in a refine or craft are returned to you instead of consumed, effectively producing extra output for free. It stacks from the base rate, spending Focus, the city's Local Production Bonus, and Specialization, and is the single biggest driver of crafting profit. Focus Local Production Bonus Specialization Refining Guide
Local Production Bonus (LPB): The Local Production Bonus (LPB) is an extra Resource Return Rate granted for refining or crafting a city's specialty in that city — for example refining ore in Thetford or crafting bows in Lymhurst. Crafting or refining in the right city is one of the easiest ways to raise return rate and lower per-item cost. Resource Return Rate Royal City Best City to Craft
Enchantment (Enchant, .1/.2/.3/.4): Enchantment is an additional power level (.0 to .4) layered on top of a resource or item's Tier, written like T6.2. Higher enchantments require enchanted raw materials or runes/souls/relics to craft and meaningfully raise Item Power, so an enchanted item of the same tier is stronger and more valuable. Tier Item Power
Item Quality: Item Quality is a five-step grade — Normal, Good, Outstanding, Excellent, and Masterpiece — rolled when an item is crafted, with higher quality adding Item Power. Better quality comes from higher crafting specialization and luck, and commands higher prices for the same tier and enchantment. Masterpiece Item Power
Masterpiece: Masterpiece is the highest of the five Item Quality grades, giving the largest Item Power boost above the base item. Masterpiece items are rare crafting outcomes (more likely at high specialization) and sell at a premium, especially in competitive PvP gear tiers. Item Quality Specialization
Refining: Refining is converting raw gathered materials into crafting components at a refining station — ore into metal bars, fiber into cloth, hide into leather, wood into planks, and stone into blocks. Refining benefits from Focus, city Local Production Bonus, and Specialization through the Resource Return Rate. Crafting Resource Return Rate Refining Guide
Crafting: Crafting is turning refined materials into finished weapons, armor, tools, mounts, consumables, and other items at a crafting station. The cost per item depends heavily on the Resource Return Rate, which is why crafters chase Focus, the right city bonus, and high Specialization. Refining Resource Return Rate Best City to Craft
Transmutation: Transmutation is converting resources or items from one tier or enchantment level to another for a fee (Silver and sometimes resources), available at the Transmutation Tower. It lets producers respond to demand — for example upgrading lower-enchantment materials into scarcer, higher-enchantment ones. Enchantment Tier
Silver per Focus (SpF): Silver per Focus is the profit you earn for each point of Focus spent on a refine or craft, used to decide where to spend your limited Focus pool. Because Focus is scarce, smart producers always direct it toward the items with the highest Silver per Focus rather than just the highest raw margin. Focus Resource Return Rate
Nutrition: Nutrition is the fuel that refining and crafting stations consume to grant the station's Resource Return Rate bonus, replenished by feeding the station food. Station owners earn from the usage fee crafters pay, while crafters factor that fee into their per-item cost. Crafting Resource Return Rate

World & Cities

Tier (T1-T8): Tier (T1 through T8) is the base power and progression level of a resource or item, with higher tiers requiring more advanced gathering and crafting. Most economic activity centers on Tiers 4-8, where gear is viable for serious PvE and PvP. Enchantment Item Power
Item Power (IP): Item Power (IP) is the single number summarizing a piece of gear's strength, derived from its Tier, Enchantment, Item Quality, masteries, and any bonuses. Higher IP means more damage, healing, defense, or utility, so players compare gear and price it largely by IP. Tier Enchantment Item Quality
Royal City: The Royal Cities are the five biome-based safe-zone hubs on the Royal Continent — Bridgewatch, Fort Sterling, Lymhurst, Martlock, and Thetford — each giving a Local Production Bonus for one refined resource and several crafting categories. They are the backbone of the safe-zone economy alongside Caerleon and Brecilien. Local Production Bonus Caerleon City guides
Caerleon: Caerleon is the central black-zone city of the Royal Continent and Albion's most liquid market, with no single refining or crafting specialization. It is the only home of the Black Market, which makes it the default hub for cross-city arbitrage and for selling finished gear. Black Market Royal City Caerleon city guide
Brecilien: Brecilien is a hidden city inside the Roads of Avalon, reached through Avalonian portals rather than the open map. It has a full set of refining and crafting stations and is the only city with a potion crafting bonus (also boosting capes and bags), serving players whose loop lives in the Roads. Avalonian Brecilien city guide
Avalonian: Avalonian refers to the rare materials, gear, and content tied to the Roads of Avalon — a shifting network of portal-linked zones. Avalonian gear is among the strongest in the game and its materials are valuable, so the Roads and Brecilien form their own high-end economy. Brecilien Tier
Hideout: A Hideout is a guild-built base in the open world (including black zones) that provides housing, crafting stations, and storage close to gathering and PvP content. Hideouts let guilds run a full refine-craft-sell loop without hauling everything back to safe-zone cities. Crafting Laborer

Trading & Markets

Sell Order: A Sell Order lists an item on the marketplace at a price you set, where it waits until a buyer purchases it or you cancel it. Sell orders usually fetch a higher price than instantly selling to existing buy orders, but you wait and pay listing-related taxes. Buy Order Setup Fee Market Tax
Buy Order: A Buy Order posts a price you are willing to pay for an item, where it waits until a seller fills it. Placing buy orders lets you accumulate resources below the instant-sell price, which is the foundation of most refining and flipping strategies. Sell Order Arbitrage / Flipping Setup Fee
Setup Fee (Order Setup Fee): The Setup Fee is a small charge (a percentage of the order value) paid when you place a buy order or a sell order on the marketplace, taken whether or not the order ever fills. It is the cost of using the order book and must be factored into any flipping or crafting margin. Market Tax Sell Order Buy Order
Market Tax (Sales Tax): Market Tax is the percentage cut taken when a marketplace transaction completes, on top of the Setup Fee charged to list. The rate is lower with Premium, so taxes and fees together are what every trader subtracts when calculating real profit. Setup Fee Premium Arbitrage / Flipping
Arbitrage / Flipping (Flip, Flipping, Arbitrage): Arbitrage (flipping) is profiting from price differences — buying low and selling high, either between cities (transport flipping) or between buy and sell orders in the same market (order flipping). Profit is the price gap minus the Setup Fee, Market Tax, and any transport risk. Buy Order Sell Order Market Tax Live flips
Fast Travel / Transport (Transport): Transporting is moving goods between markets, either by fast-travel (paying Silver, limited by weight) or by physically hauling with a mount through the open world at PvP risk. Price differences between cities exist largely because of this transport cost and risk, which is what transport flippers get paid to bridge. Arbitrage / Flipping Royal City
Spread (Margin): The Spread is the gap between the highest buy order and the lowest sell order for an item in a market. A wide spread signals a flipping opportunity, but only after subtracting the Setup Fee and Market Tax; a thin spread means the item is efficiently priced. Buy Order Sell Order Arbitrage / Flipping