Gathering Materials

Table of contents

• Materials in General
• Looting Weapons & Armor
• Material Types
  • Siggested Material Names
• Surveying for Materials
• Harvesting Materials
• Using Tools or Weapons
• Too-Good Materials
• Harvesting Example
• Random Rank Materials
• Buying & Selling Materials
• Critters
• Gems
• Star Fragments
• Monster Parts
• Dual-Use Resources
• Begging, Busking, & Odd Jobs
• Smashing Clay Pots

Materials in General

All Materials have a Rank, from 0-5 stars. This determines the quality of the material, and in turn, affects how potent it is (and what you can make out of it).

Rank 0 Materials are common chaff and scraps, often the castoffs of actual materials. The average person probably works with Rank 1 and Rank 2 materials in their day-today life. Heirlooms, and the expensive custom-made gear owned by nobles and the wealthy, are more likely to be Rank 3 and 4. Rank 5 materials are legendary and rare, and a typical person will likely never see even a scrap of them – let alone enough of them to actually craft something with them.

When you use Materials to craft, you can always substitute a higher-rank Material for a lower-rank one. If you want to make a Rank 2 sword, but are a little short on Rank 2 Materials, you can use a little Rank 3 stuff (of the same type) to fill in the gaps. The conversion is 1-to-1 though, so it’s in your best interest to do so sparingly.

Looting Weapons & Armor

You can often take weapons from your defeated foes (or steal them out from under their noses, if you’re quiet enough).
Weapons have no worries about proper sizing – a tiny Fairy Hero can wield a massive Lynel’s weapon just fine.

Even if you have no intention of wielding the weapons and armor you take from foes, you can deconstruct it. This destroys the item, but yields some of the Materials used to make it. See the Deconstructing Equipment section for more information.

Material Types

Ancient items are often used in the most powerful and deadly equipment, with blades or shielding made out of solid light. Ancient weapons tend to be quite useful against Ancient Guardians and in deflecting blows from other Ancient weapons. Ancient material is only found in forgotten ruins, by defeating Guardians and other Ancient technology, or by scavenging the worn-out refuse from battles with the same. The secrets to creating Ancient materials are lost today, and they are not found in nature.

Ancient materials can be used anytime Cloth, Metal, or Wood materials can. They do not conduct electricity, are not magnetic, do not rust in the rain, and do not catch fire – in short, Ancient materials will never betray you.

Cloth tends to be the simplest material to work with, but is unsuitable for weapon-making. It can only be used to make Civilian clothing, Light Armor, Medium Armor, Packs, and some Tools, but it may also be used in lots of miscellaneous civilian applications.

Critters are used in creating Elixirs. Every Elixir requires at least one Critter, and Critters can be found just about anywhere. (Critters are insects, lizards, snails, and other small, low-order animals, the size of a person’s hand.) Critters are also cheaper to buy or sell than most other types of Materials.

Gemstones are used in Enchanting. They can be found in many of the same places that Metals can, such as ore nodes – but since gemstones have been valued since ages long passed, they can also be found in treasure hordes, tombs, or dungeons.

Food materials are used in crafting, well, food. Many of these can be eaten raw for very minor benefits, but are far and away better used in cooking actual Dishes. Food Ingredients are also cheaper to buy or sell than most other types of Materials.

Metal is the most common material to make arms and armor out of. Metallic items are susceptible to magnetic and electric attacks, including attracting lightning during thunderstorms. Metal can be used to make Medium and Heavy Armor, as well as any kind of weapon.

Monster Parts aren’t used to make things on their own, but the various substances contained in different monsters’ parts can have useful properties for a wide variety of applications, including smithing, alchemy, and enchanting. This makes them valuable as a supplement to all other Material types.

Wood is typically used in the construction of bows and shields, but is occasionally used for spears, boomerangs, and even swords. Wooden objects are susceptible to fire, and will burn to ash in your hands if you let them. Wood can be used to make weapons and shields, but not armor. It can also be used to make fires, or to build houses and other large structures.

Siggested Material Names

Gems and Critters have very specific names and uses, while Monster Parts, Foods, and Elixirs have too many possible combinations to count, let alone name in this rulebook. Ancient, Cloth, Metal, and Wood materials might have different names in different places. Below are suggestions!

Surveying for Materials

To scavenge for materials, you must first find them. You may be lucky enough to stumble upon a vein of ore or a fine, sturdy tree in the woods; in that case, you may skip right to harvesting it (below).

If you’re intentionally seeking out resources, though, you’ll need to do some Surveying. First, select the kind of Material you wish to scout for. Then, make a Trait check, using the “Seek With” Trait in the table on the previous page. (Harvesting Tools are not used in this check, though other Tools, circumstances, or Enchantments might aid you.) The roll’s result determines the Rank of Material found, as per the table below.

Heroes may decide to Survey for a specific subtype of Material (such as a particular type of Gem, Food, or Critter). The GM should increase the DC of the Surveying check by +1 to +3, depending on the likelihood of finding that particular subtype of Material.

Note that surveying for Monsters will generally find you live foes, so watch out!

A location can only be Surveyed for a particular type of Material once per day.

Harvesting Materials

Once you find a resource node, you may attempt to harvest it for Materials. When you do so, you automatically get (5, minus the resource’s Rank) Materials, even before you roll! (There is no roll when harvesting Monsters for Parts; instead, you obtain Parts based on the Monster’s Difficulty.)

Then, roll a Trait check, plus the rank of the Tool used. (If you used a Weapon instead of a Tool, do not add the Weapon’s Rank to your Trait check.) Then, if you are not dealing with Food Ingredients, divide your Trait check’s result by 5. This final total is the amount of Materials you receive. After this, the resource is exhausted, and cannot be harvested again for a while.

Thus, the total formula for most resources is:
(5 – Rank) + ((2d6+Trait+Tool’s Rank)/5)

For Food Ingredients only, the formula is:
(5 – Rank) + (2d6 + Trait + Tool’s Rank)

Using Tools or Weapons

You’ll want to use the right Tool when harvesting Materials. Using a Harvesting Tool to harvest the Material it was designed for consumes no Durability, and thus is highly recommended!

In a pinch, however, Heroes can use Weapons to do the job, dulling their edge in the process. For the Material types listed below, using a Weapon of the type listed below uses 1 Durability, and using any other Weapon uses 2 Durability.

• Ancient material is best scrounged with Ancient weaponry.
• Metals and Gems are best mined with blunt weaponry.
• Wood and Cloth are best chopped with sharp weaponry.

Using a Weapon to harvest Materials provides no Tool Bonus to the Harvest roll.

Finally, a Hero truly in a bind can use their bare hands to harvest these Materials – at a grave cost. Harvesting Ancient, Cloth, Gem, Metal, or Wood Materials with your bare hands will force you to Burn (Rank+1) Stamina from exertion, and cut the total amount of Materials you obtain by half. Of course, you’ll have no Tool bonus on your harvesting check, either.

Harvesting Food or Critters does not require the use of Tools or Weapons, and thus cannot consume Durability of a weapon, even a poorly-suited one; nor does using one’s bare hands result in a smaller yield.
However, using a proper Harvesting Tool can still help improve your Trait check, allowing you to gather more Materials!

Too-Good Materials

Don’t fret if you stumble upon materials too high-quality (and thus, too difficult) for you to efficiently harvest: Once a resource has been found, the harvesting Hero may always decide to treat it as a Rank lower than it actually is, all the way down to Rank 0.

This can be handy if you want lots of lowquality material, rather than just a smidgen of high-quality stuff. However, this decision must be made before the harvesting Hero rolls the Trait check to harvest.

Harvesting Example

Savelle the rogue is in the Faron Woods, and decides to scavenge for wood while he’s here. First, he must find a suitable tree!

Since he’s looking for Wood, he rolls Nature. Savelle rolls a 13 on his Nature check – good enough to find a Rank 2 Tree, a fine example of Moruge Wood.

Savelle begins cutting the tree down. He’ll automatically obtain 3 pieces of Moruge Wood by default, but now it’s time to see how much more he can get!

The roguish Hylian has a Rank 1 Saw, which means he doesn’t have to worry about dulling his weapon on the tree. He has a Smithing Trait of 3, and rolls poorly - his 2d6 only roll a 5. Adding them all up (1 + 3 + 5), he got a roll of 8 - which is enough to obtain an additional 2 pieces of Wood (as 8/5 = 1.6, which rounds up to 2).

In the end, Savelle has obtained 5 pieces of Rank 2 Wood Material from his jaunt. He won’t be able to survey for Wood in the Faron Woods again for the rest of the day, though, so he decides to be on his way.

Random Rank Materials

If you need to randomly determine the Rank of a Material (or the Rank of something made from Materials), use the table at right.

For sources of common materials, use just 1d6. For sources that include rare materials, use 2d6.

Buying & Selling Materials

While Heroes will often make their money by selling their cast-off arms and armor, or finding piles of errant Rupees in treasure chests, they may wish to supplement their income by buying and selling Materials. Because they’re so useful to so many kinds of crafters, Materials are a common trade item in Hyrule and beyond: even if a Merchant doesn’t specialize in selling Materials, they’ll gladly buy them from Heroes.

Prices for most Materials – buying from Heroes, Market Value, and selling to Heroes.

Prices for Food Ingredient and Critter Materials only.

Critters

As Critters are living, wild animals, there are many ways to capture them. Heroes might try to capture them, lure them into their grasp with bait, or get stung by them!

Critters may be attracted with the use of Food Ingredients or Monster Parts, with some Critters liking certain things more (depending on the type of Critter, at GM discretion). Using a Food Ingredient or Monster Part in this way works like using a Harvesting Tool, providing a bonus or (Rank/2) to the rolls to Harvest Critters. Regardless of how the roll goes, however, the bait is consumed after the attempt.

When a Critter is wronged – due to a failed attempt to capture it, or for harming it or its home – they may attempt to fight back! Critters have an Accuracy of (Rank x 2), a Combat of (Rank), and 1 Hit Point. Critters are only capable of making Basic Attacks, and do not have a Weapon (and thus, no Weapon Accuracy bonus). Additional effects of a Critter’s attack are at the GM’s discretion, based on the type of Critter.

Heroes may also want to capture a Critter alive, for use later – perhaps someone’s asked them to catch a live Critter, or they want to keep it as a small pet or memento. Critters can only be captured alive in a Bottle of at least the same Rank as they are. Once encapsulated in a Bottle, a Critter will be safe and sound indefinitely.

Gems

In some respects, Gems are much like other Materials, particularly metals. They’re found in clefts of rock, they come in Ranks of 0 – 5, and they help make weapons and armor. However, Gems also have an additional facet that must be taken into account: their Type.

All Gems are of a specific type. A Gem’s type determines the Enchantments it can provide: for instance, if you wanted to enchant a weapon to produce fire, you’d need to find a Ruby – no other type of Gem will do.

A Gem’s type is typically based on its location, taking on the properties of the environment. For example, beaches and rivers, being quite wet, often produce Opals, which provide Water-based magical power. Sometimes, a large deposit of Gems of a certain Type might affect the environment in return – a large vein of Topaz Gems might cause the air to smell of ozone and crackle with static, or attract lightning strikes.

Gems can also be found in treasure chests, dungeons, and other dangerous places, as part of the treasure and loot within.

Star Fragments

Star Fragments are wildcard Materials.
(When used as Critters, Food, or Gems, you may choose their properties.) Individual Star Fragments rarely fall from the heavens at night, and could be discovered anywhere.

Star Fragments are always Rank 5, and have a Market Value of 1,000 Rupees.

Monster Parts

When Heroes defeat monsters, each foe provides their guaranteed drops, based on their Difficulty and other attributes. Typically (but not always!) these are Monster Parts.
Heroes do not roll any Trait checks to obtain Monster Parts from defeated foes.
Looting foes does require spending a few minutes searching their bodies, though.

A monster’s Difficulty and other attributes (such as whether it wields a Natural Weapon) determine the number of Monster Parts you obtain. The monster’s Rank determines the quality of the parts you obtain from it, just like with a resource you might find in the wilderness.

Taking parts from Monsters does not use up any of your weapons’ Durability, and does not require any Harvesting Tools. After all, you’ve already damaged them enough just bringing your foes down in the first place.

Creatures from player races – Hylians, Zora, etc. – do not give Monster Parts. (They make up for this by having Rupees, more equipment than a typical monster, or carrying their own Materials that you might be able to take off their cold, dead hands.)

Dual-Use Resources

Sometimes, a particular resource might qualify as two or more different types. For instance, a coconut tree might be both a source of Food Ingredients, and of Wood.

These cases are doubly-good for Heroes! The Hero makes only one Harvest roll, using any of the Traits applicable to the resources at-hand, but obtains Materials from the resource twice over – once for each kind of Resource. In short, a dual-use resource is a two-for-one bargain!

Heroes may only use one Tool to help assist their harvesting, though it may be for any of the resource’s relevant Material types. (For example, you might use either a Saw or a Sickle to harvest that coconut tree.)

Typically, all Materials obtained from a dualuse resource are of the same Rank. If the Coconut Tree were Rank 2, then both the Wood and the Food Ingredients harvested would be Rank 2.

Begging, Busking, & Odd Jobs

While in a civilized area (such as a town or city), Heroes may want to earn a little extra spending money by begging, busking, or doing odd jobs for the day. All of these function as a special kind of Survey & Harvest, for Rupees rather than Materials.

In cases like this, the Hero may select any two Traits to use in their side-hustle, and describe how they’re using those Traits. They then roll a Trait Check for each.

Don’t just pick your two strongest Traits, though! The GM may provide a bonus to one or both of the Trait Checks (+1 to +3), if your idea is imaginative, clever, or takes advantage of what the town has or needs.

Some possibilities include:

• Using Intimidate and Athletics to goad people into arm-wrestling at a tavern.
• Using Civilization and Perform to busk, singing songs about the city you’re in.
• Using Insight and Arcana to tell peoples’ fortunes in the market square.

Finally, multiply the result of the two Trait Checks: this is how many Rupees you earn.

Typically, Heroes may only engage in these kinds of side-jobs once per Extended Rest.

Smashing Clay Pots

Of course, no Zelda game would be complete without searching through peoples’ pottery to find small, useful tidbits – and breaking those pots in the process.

Checking a pot does not necessarily require breaking it open, though that is traditionally how it’s done by Heroes in search of goods. A pot can be smashed by bare hands, and if smashed with a Weapon, does not consume Weapon Durability.

While almost anything small can be contained in a pot, there are a few kinds of things one is generally liable to find in the knick-knacks and crockery of Hyrule:

• Ammunition (Arrows & Bombs)
• Crafting Materials
• Critters
• Dishes (already-prepared food)
• Elixirs (already-mixed potions)
• Food Ingredients
• Miscellaneous Tools
• Rupees

…along with whatever else the GM might deem fit to place inside a pot.

When a Monster Part, Food Ingredient, Critter, Dish, or Elixir is obtained from a pot, its type and special properties (if any) are either determined randomly, or based on where the pot is, and what a person who lives in that area might want to store for a later date. For instance, a pot found in cold climates might hold a Critter that can provide warmth in an elixir.

If you ever smash a clay pot, and want to randomly determine what’s inside it, just use the table below! Roll 2d6 to determine the row, and another 1d6 to determine the column.

---