Building and waterworks

Placing pieces

Craft building pieces (most at the Workbench), hold one and place it with the left mouse button. Pieces snap together on a grid: foundations and floors, walls with doors and windows, roofs, stairs, fences, furniture, lights and chests. X turns a piece. Open the build palette with B.

Your Build Hammer takes a piece down (hold the button; you get it back) and repairs with the right button.

A first home

1. Lay a few foundations (they sit level, even on a slope).
2. Put up walls, a doorway and a door.
3. Add a roof.
4. Place a Leaf Bed and sleep in it once: it becomes your home.
5. Add a chest for your things and a torch or two.

Stations

Stations are pieces too. Each makes its own recipes: see Recipes.

Your land

A Home Totem claims the land 12 m around it: only you and friends you add can build, dig or open chests there. You can have up to three. Land rests again if you stay away for 30 days. Nobody can build in the village.

Storage

Your satchel starts at 8 tool-belt slots and 40 more, and it grows with level. Three craftable bags grow it again, for good, the first time you use one:

• Leather Satchel: +4 slots, woven at a Loom from Riverlands cloth, rope and fibre.
• Wolf-Pelt Pack: +8 slots, woven at a loom from Frostlands wolf pelts, ice shards and frost crystals.
• Dragonhide Pack: +12 slots, built at the Workbench from Dragonfire Isle dragon scale, bone and eggshell.

Each bag works once per character; a spare one of the same kind just sits in your satchel unused.

Every chest screen has:

• Sort, which groups its contents by kind, then name.
• Search, which dims whatever doesn't match, so a full chest is easy to scan.
• Deposit all, which sends every satchel stack (never the tool belt) into any open chest nearby that already holds it.
• Name this chest (its owner only): the name shows over the chest and at the top of its screen.

Blueprints

Built something you love? The build palette's Blueprints tab takes a copy: a glowing box (16, 24 or 32 m) around your building. Later, pick the blueprint and a blue ghost shows where the copy will go. Place it, and the pieces come from your satchel and nearby chests. You can keep up to 8 blueprints, and undo a copy right after placing it.

Waterworks

The river is the heart of the valley, and you can make its water work for you. The build palette's Water tab has:

• Stone Weir: holds water back up to its top. Stack them for a taller dam.
• Sluice Gate: a board that holds water back; E lifts it and the water runs under.
• Waterwheel: stand it where water flows. A turning wheel powers a mill close by.
• Water Mill: grinds wheat into flour and saws logs into planks while a wheel within 6 m turns.
• Spring Stone: a moonstone relic that wells up clear water forever.
• Drain: swallows standing water.
• Stone Channel and Channel Bend: a water course between low walls. Raise them on pillars to carry water over low ground, like an aqueduct.
• Reed Bed: plant it in shallow water. Reeds clear muddy water around them, and the whole valley heals a little while they stand in it.
• Float Switch: stand it at the water's edge with its arm over the water. When the water reaches its mark (0.5 to 2 m; E moves the mark), it opens the sluice gates and drains within 3 m and stops the springs. When the water falls below the mark, it closes them again. A pond that never floods, a lodge that dries itself.
• Tide Clock: a dial on a post that opens the sluice gates and drains within 3 m, and runs the springs, at high tide, at low tide, by day or by night (E turns the dial).
• Relay Post: carries a signal on. It listens to the float switch, tide clock, timer, current vane, clarity jar or relay post behind it (up to 12 m away; its yellow arrow points the way the signal goes) and works the gates, drains and springs within 3 m of itself the same way. E turns it over, and then it does the opposite: put one by a flood gate and it shuts the gate when a float switch sees the water rise.
• Water Timer: a sand glass on a post that turns itself. It opens the gates and drains within 3 m for a while, then shuts them for as long, over and over (10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 or 2 minutes; E changes it).
• Current Vane: a copper vane on an arm over the water. It rides the water and swings round to point the way it runs. When the current is faster than its mark (a trickle, a stream, a rush or a torrent; E changes it), it opens the gates and drains within 3 m and runs the springs; when the current slackens, it shuts them.
• Clarity Jar: a jar on an arm that rides the water and fills with it, so you can see how clear the water is. Set it for clear or muddy water (E): while the water is that way, it opens the gates and drains within 3 m and runs the springs. Freshly dug channels and storm floods run muddy; still water and reed beds clear them.
• Lock Lever: pull it (E) and every sluice gate, drain and spring within 5 m changes over: open ones close and closed ones open. Build a canal lock with it: a chamber between two gates, the lower one open and the upper one shut. Paddle your canoe in and pull: the lower gate closes, the upper one opens, and the chamber fills and lifts you (a gate holds 2 m of water). Pull again to go back down.