Building

Lay a foundation on open ground, then raise walls, ceilings, doorways, fences and furniture upon it. With a building hammer in your pack you can raise any piece you have the materials for (see BUILDS for what each one takes).

Building is hard labour of both kinds. It burns STAMINA as fast as running flat out, and FOCUS as fast as staring something down, for as long as the hammer swings — the back and the head together, which is what setting a joint true actually asks. A great piece is a long swing and a long swing is a great deal of both, so a better hammer pays for itself twice over. Start a piece worn out or scattered and you will not lift the hammer at all; run either dry halfway and the work is abandoned — though your materials are not lost.

Breath returns on its own. Steadiness of mind does not — it comes back only by sitting to rest, faster at a fire, or by sleeping. On a long day's building it is your focus that gives out first.

REPAIRING

Every build has its health: hold aim on one to see its bar and the number. To mend it, draw a hammer and strike the build, walking or standing still (you cannot swing at a run). Each blow that lands spends material and mends 200 health for every piece of it, up to full:

• Wood builds — any hammer, 1 Wood a blow.
• Stone builds — a Stone or Iron Hammer, 5 Stone a blow.
• Iron doors and gates, the Anvil, the Cauldron and the Strongbox — only an Iron Hammer, 1 Iron a blow.
• A few mend with their own stuff, with any hammer: a Tent with Leather Strips, a Balloon with Cloth, a Ladder with a Wood Stick, a Mushroom Pot with Clay. A Water Well takes 5 Stone a blow and a Stone or Iron Hammer.

A blow costs its full price even when only a sliver is missing, and wears the hammer a little. A build already whole, or one you lack the material for, takes nothing from you. Mending needs no skill and spends no focus, and anyone may mend any build, theirs or not. Builds never decay on their own — only blows, blasts and fire wear them down — but one brought to nothing is gone for good, and everything resting on it comes down with it.

UPGRADING

Humble wood can be upgraded in place to stone, and doors and gates to iron, each tier three times tougher than the last. Aim at your own build (or your clan's) and press Z: it must be at full health and not burning, and a wall, ramp or ceiling needs stone beneath it first. Stone takes Large Stones, Stone and Clay, a Stone or Iron Hammer and the Builder skill; an iron door or gate takes Iron, an Iron Hammer and the Tinker skill.

FIRE

Beware — wood burns; stone and iron do not. A torch will set an enemy's walls alight. A burning build loses health ever faster as the fire grows, sets alight the wood resting on it, and never goes out by itself, and mending it does not put the fire out. Aim at it with a Full Waterskin in your pack and press X: each waterskin knocks the fire down a stage, and the last one puts it out and keeps the build safe from fire for ten minutes. Anyone may douse a fire, but not in the middle of a fight.