Early Axes

Early axes are a craftable axe weapon made at a Workbench. They fill the role of an early-game chopping tool and combat weapon at the same time: like all axes, they can be used to cut down trees and can also be swung against creatures. Higher axe skill reduces the stamina cost of swinging axes and increases damage dealt to enemies, while the woodcutting-related skill affects damage against trees.

The weapon is upgraded through quality levels, with each tier increasing both slash damage and durability:

• Quality 1: 30 slash, 175 durability
• Quality 2: 35 slash, 225 durability
• Quality 3: 40 slash, 275 durability
• Quality 4: 45 slash, 325 durability

Crafting Early axes requires wood, leather scraps, and two special axe heads. The basic crafting costs are:

• Quality 1: 1 Curious Axe Head, 1 Mysterious Axe Head, 4 Wood
• Quality 2: 6 Wood, 2 Leather Scraps
• Quality 3: 8 Wood, 4 Leather scraps
• Quality 4: 10 Wood, 6 Leather scraps

The two rare components are found in Abandoned House chests:

• Curious axe head can be found in a chest in variant 6 of the Abandoned House.
• Mysterious axe head can be found in a chest in variant 2 of the Abandoned House.

Early axes are most useful as a flexible early weapon because they can serve as both a combat tool and a resource-gathering tool. Their damage scales cleanly with upgrades, so improving them increases their value in both roles. Because the recipe eventually asks for both axe heads plus wood and leather scraps, the main progression bottleneck is exploring the right Abandoned House variants and looting the required chests.