Been working on my various cultural armors and have noticed that nobody seems to do them thinking they are some super complicated ordeal and it seems people are getting seriously gouged in /auction and the bazaar for stuff that is honestly not that hard to do, I've seen expert's symbols selling for 5000 plat when they require about 200 in materials and 120 tailoring to make. So, the basics. Since my tradeskiler is a gnome, I'll cover gnomes but it's essentially identical for each race, just different hunt spots.
The racial ancestrial book
This is extremely easy. When you talk to your races quest NPC, this is the first option. For gnomes it's the task given when you say
-Your concentration?
-What armor?
-I am interested
To Vidi Cogsworthy in Ak'Anon. He will send you to crushbone to kill 20 legionnaires and loot a couple no drop items (Orc teeth), deliver them to him then go back and get a ribcage. You can be in a group for the kills, but YOU must loot the teeth/ribcage. When you hand them back you receive your Ancestral Book.
This is your pattern/mold book, and will provide you with 200 molds/patterns (400 for wrist) , 20 at a time, depending on what you combine it with in a book binding. To get patterns, combine a quill, ancestral gnomish armor book, compacted backpack, large bottle of ink, roll of plain parchment in a book binding. To get molds, combine ancestral gnomish armor book, compacted backpack, high quality firing sheet, huge block of clay, sculpting tools in a kiln. All the pieces are sold at the same vendor, at least for gnomes. The combine which is no fail will give you a backpack full of patterns/molds, 20 for each piece (40 for wrists). They are no trade.
First big misconception: You need DoN, or you need to do the other quests to make the armor. This is wrong, all you need is the patterns/molds and the components. For the former, you only need DoN for the grandmaster armor, journeyman->master can be done by players without the expansion. The second set of tasks are for the SYMBOLS, not for the armor. For example, a chest piece for gnome casters would be:
Journeyman: clockwork needle, journeyman's metalofiber swatch(3), large spool of fortified bronze thread, pattern for gnomish tunics
Expert: clockwork needle, expert's metalofiber swatch(3), large spool of fortified bronze thread, pattern for gnomish tunics
Master: clockwork needle, master's metalofiber swatch(3), large spool of fortified bronze thread, pattern for gnomish tunicss
Grandmaster: clockwork needle, grandmaster's metalofiber swatch(3), large spool of fortified bronze thread, pattern for gnomish tunics
The needle is made with smithing, about 60 trivial with all vendor bought items. The spools of thread are bought from a vendor, the same one who sells the parts to make the pattern/mold backpacks above, the pattern is the same for all pieces, the only piece the requires drops is the swatch (Or metal sheet for plate, links for chain, etc). Journeyman swatches are made from spider silk, experts from crystaline silk, masters from nightmare silk (PoN) and Grandmsaters from coarse silk from INSTANCED lavaspinners lair and stillmoon temple zones in DoN. Combine 2 to make a swatch, then combine with more bronze threads from the vendor. (Again, this is for GNOMES, each race will have different pelts/furs/whatever)
Note also that each race can use one of two tradekills for it's armor. The above require tailoring but there are similar recipes for tinkering for the cloth armor. Plate can use either smithing or tinkering. Each races combines can only be done by that race.
Symbols
The second task given by your tradeskill NPC are for your symbols. The NPC will offer 4 zones for you to hunt in, the four options correspond to the journeyman, expert, master and grandmaster symbols. Each task will provide you with a book that works similar to the armor ancestrial books and will provide a pack of 20 patterns for each slot 10 times. Each symbol requires vendor bought items and two mob dropped items.
Jourman's require a jade shard and warbone chips
Expert's require a lambent stone and fire opal
Master's require crushed diamond dust and shissar scales
Grandmaster's require purescale ore and metallic drake scales.
You combine the former with water of the deity of your choice (Or of the skeptic for agnostics) to make the blessed water of <God>. You then combine the water, pattern and second item to get the symbol. Just like the armor, there are two recipes (The above is for tailoring), most are either tailoring OR smithing, the recipe differing by the second item... for journeymans chest symbols for smithing you need a silk swatch instead of warbone chips for example. The water & gem combine require jewelcraft, but not much (95 for GM) and the water is tradeable.
Misconception: The symbols are racial or class or some other restriction. ANYONE can make ANY symbol provided thay have the patterns and the items from mobs. My agnostic gnome has made symbols for various gods without a problem, the only restriction is who can USE the symbols as they are deity restricted.
It's really worth doing, even if you stop at master (since GM trivials at 300 skill, master is 250 so would only need around 230 with a skill mod item for acceptable failure rates), all the masters symbols have either mana regen or health regen plus a few other things like +attack and damage shield. I think a full set of masters has +4 or 6 mana regen and +10 or so health regen, GM is around +8/+12. Plus the armors will still have 2 aug slots open, a type 7 for everyday/LDoN stuff and a type 12 for those Uber DoN augs or OoW cut gems later on. While I haven't done every race, safe bets seem to be tailoring for cloth/leather and smithing for chain/plate as they will allow you to make both the armor and the symbol, only requiring things like 60-70 brewing or 90ish jewelcraft to do some of the sub combines.
Example for a Brell master chest symbol in a plate chest:
AC: 51
STR: +10 STA: +11 WIS: +9 INT: +9 AGI: +2 HP: +90
MANA: +90 Endurance: +90
SV FIRE: +9 SV MAGIC: +7 SV POISON: +9 SV DISEASE: +4 SV POISON: +4
Mana regeneration: +1
Damage Shield: +1
Plus a type 7 and type 12 aug and you got a fairly decent piece.
If you have the pocket change to go for grandmaster:
AC: 99
STR: +17 STA: +16 WIS: +18 INT: +5 AGI: +15 DEX: +11 CHA: +11 HP: +145 MANA: +145 Endurance: +145
SV FIRE: +13 SV MAGIC: +10 SV POISON: +13 SV DISEASE: +6 SV COLD: +6
Mana regeneration: +2
Damage Shield: +2
Recommended level of 69
Required level of 65
Lastly: The various symbols are NOT restricted into what DoN armor they can go into. If you manage to crank out GM armor, you can put your master symbol's into them until you can manage to make your GM symbols for example, and DoN augs can be removed with the birdbath/solvent at LDoN camps/Guildhalls like regular augs.