Inscription for Gold in Midnight: Pigments, Inks and What Sells

The short answer

Midnight Inscription turns cheap herbs into two inks, Munsell Ink and Sienna Ink, and almost everything a scribe sells is built on those two inks. Right now Munsell Ink sells for 10 gold50 silver and Sienna Ink for 18 gold97 silver at the lower grade, with the higher grade at 64 gold95 silver and 85 gold41 silver. The ink bill on 2026-10-08 was above the lower grade price and well below the higher grade price, so inks only pay when you hit the top grade. The best finished goods on our snapshot were the Thalassian Missive of Perception, which sold above its bill on one missive, and the Ace cards of the Darkmoon suits, which carry about four fifths of a suit's value on their own.

The Midnight ink chain

Our datamine of client build 12.1.0.69933 shows a short, clean chain. Herbs are milled into pigments, and pigments are combined into inks. There are four pigments in our item table and two inks.

The two ink recipes share a frame. Each takes twenty Powder Pigment, five Mana Lily Pigment and three Thalassian Songwater. Munsell adds ten Sanguithorn Pigment, Sienna adds ten Argentleaf Pigment. So the only difference in cost between the two inks is the price gap between Sanguithorn Pigment and Argentleaf Pigment.

What an ink costs and what it sells for

The break-even yield is the bill divided by the price of one ink: the number of inks one craft must produce to cover its reagents. Our recipe table does not carry the batch size, so this is the honest way to show the margin. If your inks come out one per craft, only the higher grade pays. If your multicraft or batch size gives you two or more, Munsell Ink pays even at the lower grade.

Sienna is the more expensive ink to make because Argentleaf Pigment costs more than Sanguithorn Pigment. Munsell is the cheaper ink to make and the one with the better ratio at both grades. A scribe who sells inks raw should make Munsell first.

Milling: the break-even per herb

The milling yield, meaning how many pigments a stack of herbs produces, is not in the client data and we have not measured it, so we will not print one. What we can do is tell you the yield you need. Divide the herb price by the pigment price and you get the number of pigments each herb has to produce for milling to beat selling the herb.

The striking line is Silver Sanguithorn. The herb was close to worthless on our snapshot, while one grade of its pigment sold for more than twenty herbs. If your milling turns Silver Sanguithorn into that grade of pigment at any sensible rate, milling it beats selling it by a wide margin. Gold herbs are the opposite: a Gold Argentleaf or Gold Sanguithorn has to produce more than one pigment each before milling pays, so sell Gold herbs raw unless your own test says otherwise.

Run your own test like this:

1. Buy or pick twenty of one herb at one grade.
2. Mill all twenty and count each pigment that comes out, by grade.
3. Divide the pigment count by twenty to get pigments per herb.
4. Compare with the right row of the table. If your number is higher, mill.

Missives: the steady seller

Thalassian Missives are the add-ons that pick the secondary stats on a crafted piece: combat stats for armor and weapons, crafting and gathering stats for profession gear. Each takes two Munsell Ink, two Sienna Ink, one Lexicologist's Vellum and one mote, so every missive costs almost exactly the same to make: between 96 gold42 silver and 96 gold90 silver on 2026-10-08. Their sale prices do not move together, because each one is wanted by different crafters.

Perception is the clear winner, selling above its bill on a single missive. Perception is a gathering stat, so it sells to herbalists, miners and skinners who outfit their gathering gear. The combat stat missives at the bottom of the table were cheap on the day we checked, which usually means the market is full of them. Make Perception first. The next two, Feverflare and Ingenuity, need about 1.4 to 1.5 missives per craft to pay, so make them only when your yield or rank gets you there, and leave the bottom of the table alone unless you hit the higher grade.

Notice that the bill is built entirely from your own inks if you make them yourself. A scribe who mills and inks for themselves pays the herb price, not the ink price, so their real bill is lower than the table shows whenever inks trade above their own reagent cost.

Soul Ciphers, Codified Azeroot and contracts

Higher up the chain, three intermediate goods are worth knowing:

Soul Cipher sold for 15 gold38 silver at the lower grade and 57 gold3 silver at the higher grade on our snapshot, so it only pays at the top grade. Codified Azeroot followed the same pattern: 74 gold99 silver against 187 gold94 silver. Both are good targets for Concentration, because the gap between grades is large. Contracts for The Amani Tribe and The Hara'ti sold for about 11 gold on a bill near 50 gold, so leave those alone unless you need one yourself.

The Darkmoon cards

Our item table lists Midnight Darkmoon cards as Inscription trade goods, class 7 subclass 16, item level 90, in four suits: Blood, Hunt, Rot and Void. Each suit runs from Two to Eight plus an Ace. Our recipe table has no recipe that consumes a card, and we have not confirmed in our data which craft produces them; player reports say cards come from Inscription crafts as a random result, as in earlier expansions.

The arithmetic is the point. A full Hunt suit was worth 189 gold2 silver card by card, and the Ace alone was 153 gold45 silver of it. The numbered cards sold for 4 gold to 6 gold49 silver each, barely above their 2 gold vendor price. So the Aces are what make cards worth chasing, and a numbered card is close to vendor trash on its own. Sell Aces the day you get them and hold numbered cards only if you plan to finish a suit.

Ace of Blood Ace of Hunt Ace of Void Ace of Rot

Where scribes get their herbs

Inscription needs Sanguithorn, Argentleaf and Mana Lily for pigments, and every ink needs Powder Pigment from milling. We have not walked an herb route for this page; the zones below are where herbalists report these herbs.

Eversong Woods is tuned for 80 to 83, the start of the Midnight level range, so it is the first Midnight herb zone a new character reaches.

Zul'Aman is the other zone herbalists name for Argentleaf, and a reasonable place for a scribe who also picks.

Requirements

Level

80 or higher

Profession

Inscription; Herbalism optional

Reagents

herbs to mill, Thalassian Songwater from a vendor

Group

Solo

Walked route status

Pigment herb loop

Not walked yet

No hourly gold figure is published here until this route has been walked end to end with a timer and a full loot log. Until then this page gives you the inputs (live prices and what drops) and leaves the arithmetic to you.

What to do first

1. Mill a test batch of Silver Sanguithorn and record your pigments per herb. On our snapshot it was the best milling candidate by far.
2. Make Munsell Ink before Sienna Ink. It is cheaper and had the better ratio at both grades.
3. Turn inks into Missives of Perception while that missive sells above its bill.
4. Spend Concentration on Soul Ciphers and Codified Azeroot, where the higher grade was worth about two and a half to nearly four times the lower one on our snapshot.
5. Sell Darkmoon Aces fast and do not overvalue numbered cards.

Risks and what to watch

Missive prices move with crafting demand, which spikes when new gear recipes or a new season arrive and then falls. Watch the strip and do not build a stack of the cheap combat missives. Pigment prices are thin, with Mana Lily Pigment unlisted on our snapshot, so one large seller can move a pigment price fast. Check the live price before you mill a big batch. Inks are the safest thing to hold, because every missive, contract and cipher needs them.

A scribe's week, start to finish

Inscription rewards a steady loop more than big one off crafts. Here is a plan built from the numbers above.

1. Mill. Start with Silver Sanguithorn, the cheapest herb on our snapshot, and any Silver Argentleaf you picked yourself. Keep the Gold herbs to sell raw.
2. Ink. Turn pigments into Munsell Ink first, then Sienna Ink for the recipes that need it. Every missive needs two of each, so make them in pairs.
3. Craft to demand. Check the missive prices before you craft. Make the Perception missive while it sells above its bill, then the next ones on the list only when your measured yield beats their break-even column.
4. Concentrate on the big gaps. Spend Concentration on Soul Ciphers and Codified Azeroot, where the higher grade was worth about 2.5 times (Codified Azeroot) to 3.7 times (Soul Cipher) the lower grade on our snapshot.
5. Sell in small lots. Missives and inks are commodities, so list a few at a time and relist as they sell.

Mistakes scribes make in Midnight

• Pricing inks at market value when you made them yourself. Your real cost is the herbs you milled. Use that number when you decide whether a missive pays.
• Crafting every missive. The cheap combat missives sold for a third of their bill on our snapshot. Stick to the ones near the top of the table.
• Hoarding numbered Darkmoon cards. They sold for barely more than vendor price. The Ace is the card that matters.
• Milling Gold herbs. A Gold herb has to yield more than one pigment to beat its raw price.

Related reading

• Alchemy for Gold in Midnight
• Crafting Orders for Gold in Midnight
• Concentration in Midnight
• Argentleaf in Midnight
• All Midnight crafting guides

Changelog

• 2026-10-08: First version. Recipes, item classes and reagent counts from our datamine of client build 12.1.0.69933; prices from our US commodity tables, read on 2026-10-08 (US evening).
• 2026-10-08: Review pass. Reagent counts rechecked against our datamine of client build 12.1.0.69933; claims we could not confirm in our data are now labelled as player reports.