Making things by hand
Someone trained in Woodcraft makes weapons, bows, armour, and clothes anywhere, with a knife, from wood, bone, horn, hides, sinew, and stone. How well a piece comes out is under Crafting.
You need:
- Skill: Woodcraft. Rangers start with it, a craftsperson may take the Wright trade, and a commoner may have it as their trade (others: Which skills you start with). No one teaches it.
- Tools: a knife in your pack.
- Place: anywhere.
Making a weapon by hand
Some weapons need no forge. With Woodcraft and a knife in your pack, you can make them anywhere: open Woodcraft… and choose one. The lists are the same as at the anvil: the stock for each part (a knife’s flint or bone, a spear’s head and then its haft of wood), then a gem if the weapon has an ornament. Without a knife the recipes are greyed out “no knife”.
What you make depends on the recipe, not the material. A flint knife is Woodcraft’s, made with Dexterity; a steel knife is Metalcraft’s, forged with Strength. A smith’s spear still takes a wooden haft, but it is a Metalcraft recipe all the same.
Bows, crossbows, and instruments
Bows, crossbows, and slings are made by hand too, never at an anvil. A bow is carved from wood, horn, or dragonbone and strung with a length of sinew (a piece of it); a composite bow takes two. Sinew is not a part of the bow: it is used up, like the stock. After the bow’s material you choose the sinew to use. A composite bow of horn is the true one; one of wood is a cheaper copy, named plain “composite bow”.
A crossbow is made of wood, but its lock and trigger take one ingot of any metal. After the wood you choose which ingot to use. Without sinew or an ingot the recipe is greyed out “no sinew to hand” or “no metal to hand”.
A lute (strung with sinew) and a long-stemmed pipe are made the same way. They have nothing to improve, so they always come out plain, however well the work goes.
Some weapons are never made by hand. A battle axe or a great axe of stone would shatter, a stiletto is a slim steel point, and a sword of dragonbone is only ever found.
Making armour and clothes by hand
Woodcraft also works hides. With a knife in your pack you can make shields, a leather jerkin, studded leather, scale mail of bone, caps and helms, cloaks, gloves, boots, and plain clothes and shoes, anywhere. Choose the stock for the main part, as for a weapon: a shield may be of wood, hide, chitin, or dragonscale; scale mail of bone or dragonscale.
A hide weighs 1.4 kg, so it goes much further than a billet: a small shield takes 13 billets of wood but only 2 hides. A leather jerkin takes 3 hides, a fur cloak 2 fur pelts, and a pair of shoes 1 hide. The tables below give every count.
Studded leather and hobnailed boots also take one ingot of any metal for the studs or nails. You choose which ingot after the stock; it is used up and is no part of what you make.
Armour, shields, helmets, cloaks, gloves, and boots come out Fine, Marvellous, or a Masterwork like a weapon. Clothes and shoes have nothing to improve, so they always come out plain.
Some things are never made yet: the padded coat, the wool cloak, and anything else of cloth or wool wait for a craft that weaves; a reed kilt is only bought or found.
Batches: arrowheads, arrows, and stones
Some recipes make a batch of many: arrowheads by the score at an anvil, arrows and crossbow bolts (see Fletching), sling stones chipped from a block of stone (no knife needed), and flaming arrows, arrows wrapped in rag and soaked in a flask of oil. A batch has no grade. Your check sets how many you get:
- beat the difficulty, and you get the whole count;
- fall up to 3 short, half of it, rounded up;
- fall up to 6 short, one;
- fall further, none: “You spoil the whole batch.”
A natural 2 always spoils the batch; a natural 24 always makes the whole count.
An arrowhead is the one thing a smith makes for someone else: one ingot of any metal makes twenty, of that metal. A fletcher puts one on each arrow, and the arrow takes its metal. Bone and flint need no smith: a shard or a block heads a whole batch of arrows by itself.
A batch only uses what it makes. One billet of wood is enough for up to 11 arrows or 4 bolts; a batch makes no more than your billets and arrowheads cover. Flaming arrows take one arrow each, so four arrows make at most four. If the batch is spoiled you keep your arrowheads and arrows, and get half of the wood or the metal back (a single billet or ingot always comes back whole).
The Woodcraft recipes
The skill each is listed from, how long it takes, and how hard it is:
| Recipe | Listed from | Time | Difficulty | Made at Woodcraft 50 / 100 / 200 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arrows | 0 | 10 minutes (600 s) | 12 | 85% / 98% / 99% |
| Bone amulet | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 10 (-1 work) | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Buckler | 0 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 10 | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Clogs | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 7 (-1 work) | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Club | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 8 (-1 work) | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Crossbow bolts | 0 | 10 minutes (600 s) | 12 | 85% / 98% / 99% |
| Dagger | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 10 | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Flaming arrows | 0 | 10 minutes (600 s) | 8 | 98% / 99% / 99% |
| Fur cloak | 0 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 10 | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Hand axe | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 10 | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Hide tunic | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 8 | 98% / 99% / 99% |
| Hobnailed boots | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 7 | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Javelin | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 9 | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Knife | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 9 | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Leather apron | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 8 | 98% / 99% / 99% |
| Leather boots | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 9 | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Leather cap | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 9 | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Leather gloves | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 9 | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Leather jerkin | 0 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 11 | 90% / 99% / 99% |
| Long-stemmed pipe | 0 | 10 minutes (600 s) | 7 (-1 work) | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Quarterstaff | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 9 (-1 work) | 98% / 99% / 99% |
| Sandals | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 7 | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Shoes | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 7 | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Short bow | 0 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 11 (-1 work) | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Sling | 0 | 10 minutes (600 s) | 8 | 98% / 99% / 99% |
| Sling stones | 0 | 10 minutes (600 s) | 6 | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Small shield | 0 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 10 (-1 work) | 96% / 99% / 99% |
| Soft boots | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 7 | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Spear | 0 | 30 minutes (1800 s) | 10 | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Travelling cloak | 0 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 10 | 93% / 99% / 99% |
| Turnshoes | 0 | 20 minutes (1200 s) | 7 | 99% / 99% / 99% |
| Iron helm | 10 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 11 | 90% / 99% / 99% |
| Pick-axe | 10 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 11 | 90% / 99% / 99% |
| Large shield | 20 | 1 hour and 30 minutes (5400 s) | 12 (-1 work) | 90% / 99% / 99% |
| Long war bow | 20 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 13 (-1 work) | 85% / 98% / 99% |
| Mattock | 20 | 1 hour (3600 s) | 12 | 85% / 98% / 99% |
| Studded leather jerkin | 20 | 1 hour and 30 minutes (5400 s) | 13 | 81% / 96% / 99% |
| Crossbow | 30 | 1 hour and 30 minutes (5400 s) | 14 (-1 work) | 81% / 96% / 99% |
| Great helm | 30 | 1 hour and 30 minutes (5400 s) | 13 | 81% / 96% / 99% |
| Ironwood staff | 30 | 45 minutes (2700 s) | 12 (+3 work) | 69% / 90% / 99% |
| Scale mail | 30 | 2 hours (7200 s) | 14 | 75% / 93% / 99% |
| Tower shield | 30 | 2 hours (7200 s) | 14 | 75% / 93% / 99% |
| Composite bow | 40 | 1 hour and 30 minutes (5400 s) | 15 (-1 work) | 75% / 93% / 99% |
| Lute | 40 | 2 hours (7200 s) | 14 (-1 work) | 81% / 96% / 99% |
| Heavy crossbow | 60 | 2 hours (7200 s) | 16 (-1 work) | 69% / 90% / 99% |
Stock is counted in pieces of the base material (an ingot is 500 g of steel). Another material takes as many pieces of its own: a mithril ingot is lighter, and so is the blade made of it. The difficulty adds the base material’s work where it has one; another material adds its own instead (see the table of work above). A batch’s stock is what the most it can make weighs, for a maker untrained in the skill; a smaller batch takes less, and one piece always covers at least one. The last column is the chance the work comes out at all (for a batch, all of it), with an average stat.
See also: Crafting, Forging at the anvil, and Ammunition.