Logging

Logging is felling trees and working the wood into logs, timbers and planks. Carpenters build with the planks and timbers, miners shore up their tunnels with logs and timbers, and a province sawmill buys all three. The Logger's Hall teaches it.

What you need

• A felling axe to choose, fell and hew trees.
• A two-man saw and a partner to saw planks.
• A shovel, if you mean to dig your own saw pit.

The Logger's Hall sells iron axes and saws. Smiths forge better ones in steel, from plans sold at Sobrin's Trinklets below the Hall of the Master Artisans in Vaerlon. Every member carries a woodsman's knife; look at it for the commands.

Finding a tree

Go out into a forest with your axe. select tree searches for a good tree, and select <species> looks for one kind, such as select oak. Spruce, fir, larch and yew grow in evergreen woods; oak, ash, elm and maple in broadleaf woods; a mixed forest has both. Dense forest gives finer trees that are harder to fell. Knowing your trees finds the one you want sooner, and finds better ones.

mark <tree> with <name> marks a tree you mean to come back to, and unmark <tree> forgets it.

From tree to plank

1. fell <tree> chops it down and leaves a log.
2. hew <log> squares a log into a timber.
3. saw <log> with <partner> or saw <timber> with <partner> saws it into planks. You need a saw pit, and your partner must be in your party. Dig a pit with dig saw pit. For a partner, bring a friend. A member of the Logger's Hall can also blow horn out in the wilds: the hall sells brass horns that call a hired hand, who joins when you party invite him.
4. split log splits a log into firewood.

Every step can spoil the wood a little, and every step goes better with skill. Logs are heavy: stack helps, and a cart helps more. A province storehouse lends a handcart, and its stables lend and sell wagons.

At a province sawmill

Every province sawmill has a saw pit and a sawyer, so a member of the Logger's Hall can saw there alone: invite the sawyer to your party and saw with him. The pit stands in the lumber yard of a Restored sawmill and in its own room, east of the yard, from the Improved tier. A better sawmill gives better planks, especially of the finer woods. The yard's buyer pays for logs, timbers and planks (list, then sell <item>).

Oak, yew, larch and maple are the fine woods. Carpenters need them for the beams, trusses, panels and joinery that province buildings want at the higher tiers; see Carpentry.

The skills

The Logger's Hall teaches felling, hewing, sawing and timber maintenance. Knowledge of trees, saw work and axe work grow as you work; leave the hall and they return to their old level when you rejoin. Anyone may join, the hall takes profession levels, and it is one of the three guilds that open the way to the Master Artisans.

See also

• Logger's Hall, for the guild
• Carpentry, for what becomes of the wood
• Province buildings, for the sawmill and the charcoal pit
• Crafting, for the other crafts