Woods

This is a list of both common and exotic woods one can find growing in Lithmore Kingdom and their main characteristics, though it should be kept in mind that being a relatively fast-replenishing natural resource, variation exists even within single species of trees - this should be a reference, not a rulebook. In general, woods will start out relatively pale in color and become more saturated and vibrant as they're stained and varnished; paint and lacquer can also dictate final color.

Other varieties of wood exist and can be used in crafting. These are merely samples.

Common Woods

• Maple - Maple sapwood ranges from almost-white to pale blond with a tendency towards warm, yellow or pearl-pink undertones. Heartwood tends towards darker reddish-brown, but is much less commonly used.
• Oak - Natural oak is strong and heavy, and tends toward a relatively light, but cool, beige, or more uncommonly, champagne hue. Occasionally, weathered oak can develop a very slight, blue undertone. It is a popular wood for floors and casks.
• Yew - Yew tends to show quite a lot of tonal variation, with a wavy pattern (sometimes ranging from ivory to chocolate within a single tree). It will often have a vibrant vermilion color with plenty of warmth, though pearl-blond varieties with pale pink undertones exist. Its springy and often used in bows, beads, or other decorations.
• Pine - Pine is most commonly warm, pale, and reddish or yellow-blond, and darker where knots form, giving it a freckled appearance in larger bodies such as floors or furniture.
• Birch - Most characteristic of birch is its striking bark - silvery with blackish mottling. The bark can be steamed and bent into shapes for boxes, mugs, canoes, et cetera, and the wood is typically extremely pale, either silvery or pearl-pink.
• Walnut - Unfinished walnut is very firm, cold or ash brown in color with a little light and dark variation in its grain. Even the lighter walnut tends toward a moderate grayish-brown, and it is popular to varnish it dark to bring out an almost chatoyant natural grain.
• Spruce - Unfinished spruce is pale honey-blond, characteristically very warm and sometimes lightly freckled, and its flexibility and density make it well-suited to provide the body of resonant instruments such as lutes. When stained and varnished, its chatoyance is very pronounced.
• Fir - Fir, unfinished, is often light with coppery undertones. Occasionally a fir tree will produce extremely pale, silvery or ivory wood. It's a suitable, abundant wood for cheaper flooring and firewood.
• Ash - Ash sapwood tends to be very pale and silvery, either cool-pink toned or with a more buttery color; heartwood is darker and can sometimes have a vaguely purple hue.
• Hickory - Hickory shows tremendous light-dark variation within single trees, and single pieces can be streaked with pale, sandy blond through to rich gold. It is incredibly hard, heavy, and strong, and it's well-suited to steam bending, floors, and furniture.
• Poplar - Poplar is usually very light and warm in color, and a bit unusual in that it will sometimes have a characteristic pale green or chartreuse hue or undertone that shimmers through even after it has been varnished.
• Sycamore - Sycamore is typically fine-grained with a pearly or champagne color; it also has a strong disposition towards chatoyance when polished due to its rippling, watery grain texture; it can strongly resemble blond damascus.
• Myrtle - Myrtle is well-suited to varnishing to bring out its striking mottled grain; its hue can range from pale camel or ecru through to darker, chocolate tones that often have purple, greenish, or even blue undertones. The trunk of the myrtle tree is highly irregular, sometimes resembling a fluttering, gathered skirt with the way it layers upon itself.
• Alder - Natural alder is very light, warm pink, salmon, or champagne-toned, with a subtle grain. Its lightweight and suited to both lightweight furniture and the bodies of instruments.
• Elm - Elm can come in a variety of light, natural colors from warm to cool; more unusually it can be found in a grey-streaked, beige-blond variety. Elm heartwood is a light to medium reddish-brown. It is hard and resilient, but still bends quite easily when steamed.

Fine Woods

• Teak - Natural teak is a warm, medium-brown, ranging from camel-colored to cinnamon. It tends to have a very long, thin grain, and is dense enough to be sanded and detailed very finely.
• Cypress - Cypress trees are tall and straight-trunked; they can provide long planks with irregular bark edges, suitable for decorative banquet tables. The heartwood is dark and can take on a purplish hue. Cypress knees, cone-shaped growths on the buttress roots, are sometimes harvested for decorative furniture legs or sawed into snowflake-shaped tabletops depending on size.
• Cherrywood - Unfinished, cherrywood is pale and beige with hints of pink or dark red, and is often varnished entirely dark and reddish to show off those undertones. It is highly coveted for decorative furniture.
• Sandalwood - Fragrant and dense, Farin sandalwood is a good option for elaborate, small, decorative objects, as it can be carved with incredible detail in the same manner as ivory. The color of the wood is always warm, ranging from vanilla-white to deep vermilion. It releases a pleasant, warm scent when burned.
• Mahogany - A tree most often found on the Charali plains, light, unfinished mahogany has pinkish to purplish undertones that can be varnished through vibrant cinnamon down to a deep, blushing chocolate hue.
• Nightpine - A rare relative of the common pine with cool-colored, silvery sapwood, characteristic black rings, and bark that resembles burnt charcoal. When sanded and finished in black, it retains its cloudy, icy shimmer. Certain, rare trees will boast near-black heartwood with violet and blue undertones, flecked with pale pips which make it resemble the night sky. Woodcutter lore warns it is only safe to seek nightpine around high noon; the rest of the time the shadows are too deep and dark to be safe.
• Black Star Pine - A highly chatoyant close relative of nightpine, the two trees look almost identical until cut into. Where nightpine has grayish sapwood, black star pine is a buttery champagne, with inky heartwood. A cross-section of the tree will sometimes reveal a starburst quite like a black star sapphire near to the roots; rounds make popular, expensive tabletops.
• Ebony - Ebony is naturally very dark, a burnt-chocolate brown, and is often stained to a warm, velvety black color. Striped and mottled varieties exist, the latter being a bright cream with jet-black water-stain patterns like fine lines.
• Ironwood - Ironwood is, as its name suggests, remarkably heavy and hard, with a typically cool hue. Its density allows it to be sanded incredibly smooth. Tarnlands Ironwood is sought for the heaviest sort of recurved military longbows.
• Rosewood - The rosewood tree does not, in fact, grow roses; it is named for the deep, violet-toned heartwood that can be varnished to a rich, striking red or Tubori purple. The sapwood is warm champagne, and slabs or cross-sections can be used to showcase this contrast.
• Bloodwood - Witchcraft is imperfect, and when a witch turns a man into a tree, it is left with pale hardwood the colour of flayed skin; more horrific is that when struck with an axe, it will bleed, and reportedly, groan in pain.
• Bamboo - Strong and springy, typically with a green to yellow hue (though striking black varieties exist), bamboo can be used in lightweight arrows, light composite bows, as furniture slats, or cut into strips and woven together for baskets or mats.
• Jadewood - An unusual and rarely seen wood which fell out of use after Dav's Consolidation, jadewood can be acquired only in the Orkinwood Forest. Named for its emerald-like wood and deep, dark heartwood, jadewood is typically seen only in antiques.