An early alpha version of Wrath of the Lich King was playable at Blizzard’s Paris 2008, WorldWide Invitational. An Inscription Trainer can be found in the main Alliance town in the Borean Tundra, Valiance Keep.

Training Inscription adds 2 abilities to the spellbook: “Inscription” and “Milling”. Milling crushes 5 herbs to create paste for inks. Presumably different herbs would give different pastes.

Only 2 “spells” can be learned from the trainer:

1. Ivory Ink – 2 Peacebloom and a Vial, to create a “white” quality item called Ivory Ink.
2. Silver Ink – 2 Silverleaf and a Vial, to create a similar item called Silver Ink.

Sharp-eyed readers will note that Milling and Ivory/Silver Ink serve very similar purposes. And none of the real “meat” of the profession – altering spells and abilities – has been added yet.

Blizzard’s lead game designer, Tom Chilton, stated the following:

“Currently it looks like we’ll be using Herbalism as the associated profession [for Inscription].”

This has been widely reported as “Inscription will use herbs”, but the line was spoken with uncertainty. Blizzard’s design approach is constantly evolving, right up until release (that’s just how they perfect the game). Since so little is yet implemented, Inscription may still change quite dramatically.

(Out of respect, I have not been posting leaked/hacked information from the Wrath Alpha. All the information here was seen with my own eyes, at an official event. I assume I am completely free to document it here.)