Okay, so let’s take a step back a bit.
Let’s think of it this way: there are three levels of crafting.
Level one: simple crafting. Your tailor, blacksmith, fletcher uses wood, ingots, whatever to make a single item. Goes no further than that. This is the BoD system. Make enough of one item and get points on a vendor for special stuff.
Level two: mixed crafting. This is when you use multiple crafting skills combined to make a simple item. For example, your smith makes double axe blanks and then imbues them to gave desirable mods. RNG had not yet entered the equation as what you produce is predictable every time. It may take you a few tries to get the mods you want to stick, and you’ll eat resources up, but you will get the item you intend. If you haven’t used it yet, try
https://www.knuckleheads.dk/ as an online tool to plan mods on whatever you want to craft at this level.
Level three: RNG crafting. This is where crafting gets unpredictable. You are still combining multiple crafting skills, but are now mixing in random number generator elements into the craft. So, for example, you want a double axe, but intend the final weapon to be 100% fire damage. So you craft thirty simple double axes and then use runic hammers to try for 100% fire elemental damage. You burn a ton of charges on those runic hammers (which come from crafting level one blacksmithing BoDs) until you get one good 100% fire damage double axe. You then take that axe and combine it with imbuing the mods on it you want, and hey presto your final weapon.
The double axe is a simple example. Level three crafting can become so complex that you are using a paid store item on the piece you are crafting that prevents you from failing and losing the piece entirely. Or mixing color ore to juice up something’s luck or elemental damage, or adding armor refinements to tailored items to go beyond 70 resists.
But what to understand here is… you don’t need to do this. You can play the game just as well as the majority of everyone else with the first two levels. You can make money just fine doing BoDs for the first level of crafting.
You mentioned something about being a gargoyle as necessary for imbuing. It’s not necessary, it just provides a 10% or so bonus to the chance of imbuing success for level two crafting. But that bonus is often not that important unless you are min/maxxing. You don’t have to go that far; it is your choice.
But what I do think is necessary to stress is that you can’t learn all this stuff in a single weekend. The only way to learn is to play the game for a good long while. I’ve been back for over five years and I still learn something new about UO every week. The very hardest thing I have learned, though, since being back is to stop trying to play the game like it was still 2000. It’s not an SNES game where the save file is still there waiting. I hope this framing helps clear some things up for you a bit. I also responded to you on discord, so feel free to dm me there if I can help explain anything else.