Crafting

Bowcraft/Fletching

Bowcraft/Fletching is the bowyer’s trade. It takes the same boards Carpentry works and makes the whole archery line from them — the Bow, the Crossbow and the Heavy Crossbow in every wood, the arrows and bolts they shoot (fletched with feathers), and the quivers that carry them, cut from leather. A better wood makes a better bow and a harder-hitting arrow; a better hide makes a deeper quiver.

How you train it Work the bench with a Drawknife. Every recipe trains it at the same pace for the boards it spends, and it asks a little less of them than Carpentry does on the way to Grandmaster.

What you need An active Drawknife, and boards to work — which a lumberjack must carve first.

What the bowyer makes

Skill	Item	Cost
No requirement	Bow	5
No requirement	Crossbow	7
No requirement	Heavy Crossbow	10
No requirement	Arrows	1 Boards + 2 Feathers
No requirement	Bolts	1 Boards + 1 Feathers
No requirement	Leather Quiver	100 Leather
65.0	Dull Leather Quiver	100 Dull Leather
70.0	Shadow Leather Quiver	100 Shadow Leather
75.0	Copper Leather Quiver	100 Copper Leather
80.0	Bronze Leather Quiver	100 Bronze Leather
85.0	Golden Leather Quiver	100 Golden Leather
90.0	Agapite Leather Quiver	100 Agapite Leather
95.0	Verite Leather Quiver	100 Verite Leather
99.0	Valorite Leather Quiver	100 Valorite Leather
100.0	Black Leather Quiver	100 Black Leather

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A QUIVER IS THE ARCHER'S OFF HAND. Worn in the shield slot beside a bow or crossbow — and only beside one — it holds arrows and bolts (load a stack into it from the pack), the bow draws from it first, and it carries the archer's crit chance: a bow or crossbow has no crit of its own from its wood, only what its quiver's hide lends it. A better hide holds more and crits more. It wears with use like a weapon, and mends at a Repair Bench in the leather it was made from. Any Dye Tub colours it.

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EVERY SHOT SPENDS ONE. A bow looses an arrow and a crossbow a bolt with every swing, hit or miss — the stack you have nocked first, or else the best wood you carry. Run out and the bow is useless: you wrestle until you find more. Arrows and bolts are made five at a time, from a board and feathers, and a better wood raises the floor of every shot: up to +4, the whole of a bow's range, for Blackwood.

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FEATHERS come from harpies — thirty to fifty on every kill in Covetous, Wrong, Despise and Orc Fort, and a handful more plucked with a Skinning Knife — and from the hens that scratch about every town, which can be slain for a few.

Wood tiers

Rarer wood makes a better bow, and each tier asks more Bowcraft before you may work it at all.

Tier	Board	Bowcraft required
1	Wood	—
2	Dullwood	65
3	Shadowwood	70
4	Copperwood	75
5	Bronzewood	80
6	Goldwood	85
7	Agawood	90
8	Veriwood	95
9	Valiwood	99
10	Blackwood	100

What the material buys in a fight

The same curve Blacksmithing's metals ride — a Board and an Ingot of the same tier buy a weapon exactly the same bonuses. A bow or crossbow takes no crit from its wood — that column is its quiver's, by the quiver's hide.

Board	Damage	Hit chance	Crit — two-handed only	Durability
Wood	—	—	2%	—
Dullwood	+1	+3%	3%	+5
Shadowwood	+2	+6%	4%	+8
Copperwood	+3	+9%	5%	+12
Bronzewood	+4	+12%	6%	+15
Goldwood	+5	+15%	7%	+20
Agawood	+6	+18%	8%	+25
Veriwood	+8	+21%	10%	+32
Valiwood	+10	+25%	12%	+40
Blackwood	+11	+27%	13%	+45

Rares

Five yard pieces found only by working this skill. Any work at the skill can turn one up — every swing or craft, success or failure, and the hours you put in while logged out as well. Each stands in your yard or your house, carries its own story on its tooltip, and trades like any other item.

Piece	Its story
The Siege Bow of Trinsic	A yew longbow taller than the man who drew it, said to have held the Trinsic gate alone for a night and a day. Its string has been replaced eleven times and its stave never once. No bowyer since has managed to draw it to the ear, and every one of them has tried while nobody was looking.
The Fletcher's Rack	A standing frame of a hundred arrows, each with its own fletching, cut by a Skara Brae fletcher who swore no two of her shafts would ever be alike. She ran out of birds long before she ran out of ideas, and the last row is fletched with ribbons. Those are the ones that fly straightest.
The Straw Target	A straw butt on a wooden easel, its painted rings faded to a ghost of red and gold, from the archery green at Yew. One arrow sits dead in the centre and has never been pulled out, because the archer who loosed it bet the whole town it could not be done twice. Nobody has collected yet.
The Heron Quiver	A tall quiver of grey-dyed leather tooled with herons in flight, made for an elven ranger who never missed and never explained how. It still smells faintly of pine and wet stone. Every arrow put into it comes out pointing the same way, which is to say north, and nobody has worked out why.
The Ballista of Serpent's Hold	A crossbow so large it was wheeled rather than carried, built by the Hold's engineers to answer the sea serpents in the bay. It fired four times in its whole service, missed all four, and frightened the serpents off for a century anyway. The knights of the Hold still salute it on the way past.

Other Crafting skills

Blacksmithing Carpentry Tinkering Alchemy Tailoring Inscription Cooking Item Identification Cartography