Raw Materials

Raw Materials comprise of everything harvested from nature that can be used to make other goods.
For the purposes of this article, ITEs are not included. Please see their separate article for more information.

Basic

Basic raw materials include wood, stone and mud, and are some of the easiest materials to find and stockpile.

Wood

Wood is the most basic of resources. It can be harvested en masse by chopping trees on the surface. Its bushes can also be planted and once grown, automatically harvested via the Production Menu. As wood is consumed in large quantities throughout the entire game, a forest plantation will usually become necessary as the game progresses.

It is used in the creation of most items, eg: doors, utilities, walls and containers. It can also be used to craft basic wooden weapons and armor, including the wooden bow. In addition, wood is necessary for many of the more advanced weapons available in the game, including all gold weapons.

Stone

Stone can be found by mining underground. Stone tiles, dungeon walls and dungeon rooms all give stone. A Mineshaft can be placed on Dense stone to produce unlimited quantities of stone.

It too is used in many creations, such as different utilities and tools, stone walls, roofs and several decorations. There are also stone weapons, which are exceptionally good for how early they are available. Stone has very limited uses other than as a building material, meaning that the usefulness of stone will depend on how you choose to construct your buildings. Either way, it is the most easily available raw material in the game, as there is an almost unlimited supply of it available from mining the walls of the dungeons, as well as a literally unlimited supply available from mineshafts built on dense stone deposits deeper in the dungeon.

Mud

Mud can be found by mining grass or jungle tiles at the surface or dirt tiles found underground. Mud has a low drop chance compared to other mineable resources, and only about one in four dirt tiles will yield mud. It is commonly available on the surface of most map types, but can mostly be found from underground dirt tiles on desert maps.

Mud is used is useful for the production of glass and mud walls, as well as various garden decorations like bushes and flowerbeds.

Sand

Sand can be found by mining sand tiles on the surface. It is extremely plentiful on desert maps, but fairly rare on most others.

Sand is used as a material in the production of glass and two different types of sand walls. As glass can also be made from mud, sand walls are the only thing that specifically requires sand to make.

Bamboo

Bamboo is a resource that was added in v9. To gain bamboo, you must either harvest it in the wild, or plant and grow it yourself. It must planted in humus on grass or humus on jungle, and must be within two spaces of water.

Bamboo may be used to craft items such as Bamboo Walls or the Bamboo Stick.

Special

Special materials are those harder to find than basic materials, but do not fit into any other categories, such as Ores or Gels.

Snow Pile

Snow piles can be found by mining Snow tiles underground. These are normally only found on snow, mountain and mixed type maps.

They can be gathered into Snow Buckets using the production menu. Snow can be used to build ice walls, but nothing else.

Flint

Flint can be found by mining Gravel tiles, found both at the surface and underground.

It is used to create Cooking Fires, which enable you to cook meat before making a stove. Flint currently has no uses once you have access to the iron necessary to make stoves, although you can still sell it to some merchant caravans.

Glass

Glass is used to create windows, lamps, glass walls and glass floors. It has no practical uses other than decoration, although lamps will boost happiness more effectively than candles. Glass can be created in the materials section of the auto-production menu. It is made from sand or mud and requires a smelter. There is currently no way of controlling which of the two will be used to make the glass, which can be a problem on desert maps where mud (used to make various decorations such as flowerbeds) is often rare.

Animal

Materials derived from animals such as bones and skin are listed here.

Bone

Bones can be harvested from dead animals and monsters, be it cows, pigs or ogres. They are available on the production menu but require a Butcher Table to be automatically harvested from Livestock.

Bone can be used to craft early weapons and armor as well as some furniture and decorations. There is also a bone wall available. You will usually end up with a very large quantity of bones after clearing a dungeon level. Because of this, you can set townies to automatically burn excess bones in the burner.

Animal Hide

Animal hides can be harvested from cows, bulls, reindeer, or does. They can be collected using the production menu under Vanity but require a Hide Skinning Table to be automatically harvested from Livestock.

Animal hides can be used to craft hats, leather armor and the tent-like market roof. As basic leather armor is required to make all of the more advanced types of light armor, animals hides are vital if you want to provide higher quality equipment for lightly armored heroes.

Badger Hide

Badger hides are harvested from badgers. They are available on the production menu under Vanity but require a Hide Skinning Table to be automatically harvested from badgers.

Badger hides can be used to craft badger hats, as well as leather armor and the market roof. They cannot be used to make other types of hats, but are otherwise equivalent to animal hides.

Unifallow Hide

Unifallow hides function similarly to animal hides except they have a different texture and can only be harvested from unifallow. They can be collected using the production menu under Vanity but require a Hide Skinning Table to be automatically harvested from unifallow.

Unifallow hides have the same uses as animal hides.

Skootenbeeten Feather

Skootenbeeten feathers are harvested from skootenbeeten. They are available on the production menu under Vanity but require a Hide Skinning Table to be automatically harvested from skootenbeeten.

Skootenbeeten feathers are used to craft feather hats but are otherwise useless.

Snake Teeth

Snake teeth can be found as a drop from Snakecrabs which roam around sandy areas, primarily on desert maps. There are only a finite number of Snakecrabs per world making this a limited resource.

Snake teeth are used to craft Wooden Snake Swords. They are useless once you have access to better equipment, but can be sold to some merchants.

Wool

Wool is harvested from sheep, wild sheep, snoat and wild snoat. It can be collected using the production menu under Vanity and it require Hide Skinning Table. Wool can be used to create Cloth Armor.

Ore

Ores are found by mining ore tiles underground, such as Copper and Iron. Except for silver and gold, they can all by mined indefinitely by building a Mineshaft on top of 4 adjacent tiles, but to mine it manually you'll have to dig down and use the mine command.

Coal

Coal tiles can be found in abundance on any layer of the dungeon, or even on the surface. Even surface coal can be mined with a Mineshaft, but you'll have to dig down and mine them underground to harvest coal manually.

Coal is used to craft torches, which are necessary for building mineshafts, and iron weapons and armor. It has little use in the late game, as it is not required to craft armor once you have progressed past iron equipment.

Copper

Copper tiles are also found in abundance regardless of floor, although they get even more common as you dig deeper.

Copper ore is used together with mob drops to make higher tier ITE equipment, but has few other items. While copper can be found early, it is useless until you gain access to the iron required to build an ITE smithy.

Iron

Iron is the most sought after ore in the early game. While iron tiles can be found on the surface, it is much more common the deeper you mine.

It is used to make iron weapons and armor as well as mineshafts, forge utilites, hide skinning table, cooking bowls, kitchen stoves and various decorations such as lamps. Iron is also used to build the iron bars decorative wall and bear traps. While vital for getting your economy going in the early game, as well as being used for iron equipment, the metal becomes much less important as you dig deeper and gain access to more advanced ITE equipment which instead requires copper to craft.

Silver

Silver, like gold, is found very deep in the dungeon, from silver tiles.

It is used to make one of the decorations, which increases the happiness and also to make the very powerful silver armor and weapons. As it is a precious metal, you cannot build mineshafts on silver tiles. This together with its rarity means that there is only a finite supply of silver available on any map, although small quantities of additional silver can be purchased from merchant caravans.

Gold

Gold is only found very deep in the dungeon, from gold tiles.

It is used to make decorations and also to make golden armor and weapons, which are currently the best craftable items in the game. Gold can also be used to build golden wall blocks. Like silver, it cannot be mined using mineshafts and so is only available in a limited quantity. Gold can sometimes be purchased from merchant caravans early in the game, allowing you to craft the extremely powerful gold equipment, which can make a big difference early on.

Gels

Gels are found on hostile slimes in the dungeon. They are dropped when the slimes are killed. They can be used to make gel engraved walls, gel roads, and colored hats.

Green Gel

Green gel drops from Green slimes. As sieges frequently include large numbers of green slimes, the outskirts your town can end up covered in green gel if you don't dispose of it.

It is used to make gel engraved green walls, green gel roads, and green hats. All of these can also be made with green color made from flowers, making gels a rather superfluous material, although building colored roads out of gel requires significantly less effort than doing so by other means. Many types of merchant caravans will pay fairly well for gels, making them a useful source of income if you can spare workers to actually gather them.

Red Gel

Red gel drops from Red slimes. These are found deeper down in the dungeon than green slimes.

Unsurprisingly, it is used to make gel engraved red walls, red gel roads, and red hats. Like with green gel, it is not essential to the production of any of these.

Blue Gel

Blue gel drops, amusingly, from Blue slimes. These are found deeper down in the dungeon than the other two.

Amazingly, it is used to make gel engraved blue walls, blue gel roads, and blue hats. Like with green and red, none of those specifically require gel to make.