Guides:Starting with Nothing

Wurm is unusual in sandbox games in that it allows you to start with nothing. No weapons, no tools, just a shirt and pants, no shoes even. Noobs start with a set of starting weapons and tools. These can be lost, or thrown out. Wurm allows that. It isn't easy, starting over in Wurm, but it is possible.

If you:

• Lost everything to raiders on a PVP server

• Threw away your noob gear, then died and found yourself needing basic tools again

• Want to try Wurm's hard mode

then this is for you. This is not for the faint of heart, even more so than Wurm normally is. But if you like a challenge, you may find it rewarding.

Make a crude knife

Your first order of business is to find a rock face, the bigger the better. By all means, forage on the way to it (do NOT throw away branches, you will need a couple) but get to a rock face. It is there that you will find what you need to make your first tools.

Once you find a rock face, you need to rummage over it. Rummaging is like foraging but for rock instead of grass, trees, or steppe. You will likely only turn up two types of items: rock shards (in smaller amounts than you would mine) and iron rock. You will need both to make your first tool, a crude knife.

Decisions, decisions

Now that you have a crude knife, you can make either a crude pickaxe or a crude shovel. Personally, I find the pickaxe to be more useful, but either one can cut down a tree. Before you start chopping though, be sure it is either a fruit tree or a mature tree. Why? Because you can't cut a felled tree into logs! Not with any of these tools, anyway. Still, you need to make a mallet, and you will need wood for a fire.

If you made a crude pickaxe, you can get started prospecting for iron ore. If you went with a crude shovel, you'll need to rummage for more iron rocks. Either way, get your hands on some more iron (ore or rocks). It's time to start making iron tools.

Make some new tools

From here on out, the only difference between hardcore and normal Wurm is the lack of weapons while you are building your own set of tools and weapons (and armor and whatever else you decide to build). Being able to defend yourself is an undeniable advantage, but tools are far more important to you at this point. Especially an anvil, a pickaxe, a hatchet, and a carving knife.

Since the anvil must be made first, you need to make a mallet. This tool is only necessary to make the anvil to begin with, and once the anvil is made, its importance diminishes. Fortunately, it is easy to make.

The hatchet and carving knife seem to me to be the most important tools to make. You do need to replace the crude pickaxe with a better one as soon as you can, though. You also need to locate an iron vein to get better quality ore. Iron rocks are always low QL. Also, until you make a stone chisel and find some clay, you will need to smelt your ore in a campfire. This is much slower than using a forge, but until you have made some basic iron tools, it's all you have.

This should be enough to get you going. Good luck in the lands of Wurm!