[Bungleau]

Once you get the Bless or Enchant skills, which is after you get the occultist or cabalist trait, you can bless items at the temple or enchant them at the wizard's guild. When you do, that's when the Artifact skills come in to play. The blessings or enchantments that you can do are determined by the artifact skills you know.

So for the first part of the game, they don't do a whole heck of a lot for you. They only really come in to play once you're level three in the temple or wizard's guild and can learn those traits.