So, in what's probably a half-messed up recollection of Summon Night: Swordcraft Story, Artificer as a class, and something someone said in a D&D Next discussion, this came to mind.
Normally, if adventurers are adventuring for treasure, it seems to be because either the treasure itself is valuable (and therefore can be sold!) or can be used by the adventurers. But what if the 'treasure' was basically a lump of 'worthless rocks'? Well, not worthless--actually quite valuable--but useless to someone without the means to make it into something worthwhile.
Basically, adventurers get employed by craftsman's guilds to go out and find the materials that actually make magic items work. Normal stuff just won't hold a charge. So out the adventurers toddle, finding whatever material it is, generally guarded by either people that live there, or monsters that have some attraction to the environment it's found in, and go back for payment. Enough gold to get by for a limited time... and some items, made with said materials. Yes, there's magic item shops, but they're generally out of their price range.
Crafting in any sort of campaign would probably have to be extremely limited, otherwise the whole thing sort of ends like this:
Anyway, I don't really have the dedication or skill to make use of any such idea, and I don't want to just keep it in my head forever. ... also, any resemblance to anything is unintentional.
