Trees are where your wood comes from. You fell them with the Mattock: each one drops 4 to 6 logs and a burst of spirits, and leaves a stump. Every land has its own trees, and each land also has one rare sister tree whose wood is needed for a metal tier's tools. Sister trees only give way to a mattock of the right metal.
Felling a tree
Hold the Mattock and press click or F next to a trunk. Each blow takes some of the tree's toughness away; when it runs out, the tree creaks, leans and falls the way you struck it. A moment later the trunk breaks into logs that you walk over to pick up.
- Logs: 4 to 6 from every tree. Some of the mattock's spirit powers add more (see Spiriting Table).
- Spirits: they rise out of the fallen trunk and drift to you. Each kind of tree gives its own mix (tables below).
- A sapling: 1 in 2 trees you fell drops a sapling for your seed pouch.
- Stamina XP: 6 for every tree you fell.
A plain Stone Mattock takes off 4 toughness a blow. Each better metal hits 3 times as hard: Bronze 12, Iron 36, Steel 108, Endurium 324. Spirits bound into the mattock can raise this further.
The mattock's edge wears by 1 point for each swing that hits a tree. A dull edge does half as much.
Stumps
A felled tree leaves a stump as tough as the tree was. You can leave it or pull it up:
- Left alone, the stump regrows: a sapling stands there after about 60 seconds, and the full tree is back after about 150 seconds (once you're out of the way).
- Chopped out, the stump is gone for good and nothing grows there again. It gives 1 log of the tree's wood, always gives the tree's sapling, and teaches 3 Stamina XP.
Common trees
Every common tree can be felled with any mattock, even stone. "Toughness" is how much the trunk takes before it falls; "Stone blows" is how many blows a plain Stone Mattock needs.
| Tree | Land | Toughness (stone blows) | Gives | Spirits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oak | Woods | 16 (4) | 4 to 6 Wood | 7 Earth, 3 Water |
| Pine | Woods, a few in the Rocky Highlands | 20 (5) | 4 to 6 Wood | 7 Earth, 2 Water, 1 Fire |
| Crag Pine | Rocky Highlands | 20 (5) | 4 to 6 Wood | 7 Earth, 3 Wind |
| Spruce | Tundra | 22 (6) | 4 to 6 Wood | 6 Earth, 4 Water |
| Rime Fir | Tundra | 18 (5) | 4 to 6 Wood | 6 Water, 4 Earth |
| Dwarf Birch (a low shrub-tree) | Tundra | 12 (3) | 4 to 6 Wood | 5 Earth, 2 Fire |
| Saguaro cactus | Desert | 10 (3) | 4 to 6 Cactus Flesh | 4 Earth, 4 Water, 2 Fire |
| Palm | Desert, by the water | 14 (4) | 4 to 6 Wood | 5 Water, 4 Earth |
| Hollow Oak | Haunted Wood | 18 (5) | 4 to 6 Wood | 6 Earth, 3 Wind, 1 Fire |
| Black Pine | Haunted Wood | 20 (5) | 4 to 6 Wood | 6 Earth, 4 Wind |
Sister trees
Each land except the desert has one rare tree whose wood belongs to a metal tier. Tools of that metal are hafted with it instead of plain wood (bronze tools with beechwood, iron with ironwood, steel with rimewood, endurium with ghostwood; see Metal Tiers). None grow near where you start: they appear further out, and more often the further you go. The copper beech is found closest in, then the ironwood, then the rimewood pine, and the ghost birch furthest out.
| Tree | Land | Mattock it needs | Gives | Spirits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copper Beech | Woods | Bronze | 4 to 6 Beechwood | 8 Earth, 4 Fire |
| Ironwood | Rocky Highlands | Iron | 4 to 6 Ironwood | 12 Earth, 6 Fire |
| Rimewood Pine | Tundra, far out | Steel | 4 to 6 Rimewood | 14 Earth, 8 Water |
| Ghost Birch | Haunted Wood | Endurium | 4 to 6 Ghostwood | 10 Earth, 8 Wind, 6 Water, 6 Fire |
A sister tree is 3 times tougher than the one before it (48, 144, 432 and 1,296), so a plain mattock of the right metal fells any of them in 4 blows. A mattock behind the tree's metal does only a fifth as much for each tier it's behind: a Stone Mattock on a copper beech needs 60 blows, and a Bronze Mattock on an ironwood 60 as well. When your mattock is one tier behind, the tree says "it barely gives"; two or more tiers behind, "it won't give".
Saplings
Saplings go into your seed pouch and are planted in a bed with the Hoe like any seed (see Farming).
| Sapling | Where from | Grows into |
|---|---|---|
| Sapling | Any common tree: 1 in 2 when felled, always when its stump is pulled up | The common tree of the land it's planted in |
| Copper Beech Sapling | A copper beech felled (1 in 2) or pulled up | A copper beech |
| Ironwood Sapling | An ironwood felled (1 in 2) or pulled up | An ironwood |
| Rimewood Sapling | A rimewood pine felled (1 in 2) or pulled up | A rimewood pine |
| Ghost Birch Sapling | A ghost birch felled (1 in 2) or pulled up | A ghost birch |
A tree grown from a sapling is a normal tree: you can fell it, its stump regrows, and you can pull it up. Growing sister trees at home saves the long walk for their wood.
Twigs
Twigs lie on the ground near trees. Press E on one (or hit it) and it bursts into 1 Wood and 1 Earth and 1 Water spirit. See Gathering.
Tips
- Leave stumps standing in a spot you'll come back to: the tree grows back on its own.
- Pull stumps up when you want the ground clear, or when you want a sapling for sure.
- Saguaros and dwarf birches fall quickest (3 blows of a Stone Mattock); spruces take the longest (6).
