Anvils are in a few places and yes they are very useful to fashion weapons out of bars, beat the armor and shields for various perks, especially removing movement penalty on armor.
Cyseal-behind the abandoned General store west side of town.
Silverglen behind the pickaxe tavern (or in the smithy before you help Bjorn).
Sacred stone in the smithy and out front of the smithy.
Homestead when the Armory is unlocked it has forge anvil and sharpening wheel, also hall of heroes has an anvil and a sharpening wheel.
Hunters edge has an anvil but you cant use it at first.
Even though player crafted items especially weapons lack special abilities ( I have not figured out how to make weapons do those yet, and not sure if you can) they far out-perform game weapons for damage, I craft a new 2handed sword every time I level simply because it is so much more damage usually 1/3 to 50% better, then I throw an elemental essence and or tenebrium on it and a Tormented soul and put it on the sharpening wheel.
You will probably want/need the anvil, the sharpening wheel and the forge for various reasons. Make sure your crafter is also your blacksmith and that both skills ( and later Tenebrium) are all as high as 5 as soon as possible, except tenebrium which doesnt seem to need to be higher than a 3.
I dont think potions are valuable at all ( except invisibility for that one part of the game), and I find enough scrolls, I never craft skillbooks I just buy or find them. Homemade Bows are awesome like other homemade weapons really worth getting homemade bow as often as you can after leveling up,
probably increased Wolgraffs lethality by 50% or more. Put a sextant on it and a tormented soul and an essence or tenebrium as well!
