Woodsmen are those Men who live among the mighty forests of the Empire and other regions of the Old World, looking after trees they will later fell for timber to supply the needs of the Old World's civilisations.
Role[]
The more fortunate woodsmen work for noble families on large estates. The braver souls work on the edges of civilisation, helping to expand the settled lands. These woodsmen must deal with all the dangers of the forest, from pitfalls and bandits to wild animals and Beastmen. They always keep their axes handy, and not just for chopping wood -- woodsmen have been known to clash with Wood Elves, since the Asrai do not take kindly to the clearing of their precious forests.[1a]
Woodsmen have skin like leather, from constant exposure to the elements. When working in the heat of summer, some woodsmen are known to coat themselves in tree sap to keep insects away, which gives them a curious, woody smell.[2a]
Woodsmen know how to treat bark so it can be worked like thick leather. Woodsmen often have bracers, greaves and shoe soles made from bark, which is more durable than leather or cloth. Woodsmen are careful to maintain their patch of forest, planting an acorn where they fell an oak, nurturing saplings and clearing the forest floor of undergrowth that might stunt the growth of new trees.[2a]
For several misguided reasons, woodsmen have traditionally been considered mortal enemies of Wood Elves. In reality, they share a common interest in caring for the forest environment that sustains their livelihoods, but they each approach it from a different tack.[2a]
Woodsmen in the Empire[]
Wood is an ever-needed resource, and yet the forests of the Old World are not safe places to harvest it. A woodsman gambles with his life whenever he enters a forest to collect wood. It is not just the creatures that lurk within that he needs to be wary of, but the very trees themselves. Venom thickets, corrupted trees and grasping blood vines are just some of the flora that make this an extremely hazardous occupation.[3a]
There are many different types of wood that an Imperial timber mill can produce, depending on its location. Reikland Sternoak is often used for weapon shafts and for sturdy doors or even siege towers, while Hochland Beech Wood is more workable and therefore suitable for furniture.[3b] However like so many things in the Empire, it is the merchant cartels and the burgomeisters that control the wood trade. This allows them to throttle supply and create demand in certain areas, or over-supply the market to drive down the cost should they need to. Thusly, the rich stay rich and the poor stay desperate.[3c]
At the turn of second millennium, the Elector Count of Stirland invested heavily in sawmills, as he saw wood as the future -- an ever-renewable resource. A few years later a Sylvanian noble, Vlad von Carstein, was unveiled as a Vampire and the Vampire Wars began. The Elector's timber enterprise was in tatters, his network of sawmills left to ruin.[3e]
Woodsmen in Sylvania[]
"Foresting in Hunger Wood or the Spider Haunts is surely a fool's job?"
- —Description of the Forester's Shack from Total War: Warhammer.[3d]
Timber is required for building materials, fencing and many other reasons, even in Sylvania. Stout Talabecland oak is hard to come by, so denizens must put up with the twisted, rotting wood from Sylvania's dense and hazardous forests. A forester of Sylvanian origin in the employ of the region's ruling Vampire Counts is given certain privileges, allowing them to enter the copses largely undisturbed.[3d]
Sawmills once part of Stirland's burgeoning timber industry have remained in a ruined, yet operational state since the Vampire Wars.[3e] From these ruined sawmills, Zombie bearers transport their cursed loads to large sheds long-thought abandoned by mortals.[3f]
Should the provenance of a Sylvanian object or resource be uncovered it is shunned by most, destroyed on sight by many others. Dwarfs especially hate anything made by Sylvanian hands, living or no. The dark timber of Sylvania therefore is secreted onto the market by merchant spies and greedy factors, who store it in abandoned sheds, far from trade routes and out of sight of the emperor's Roadwardens.[3f]
Goblin Woodsmen[]
Goblins, being consummate tinkerers, have figured out that a great big saw is a way to cut up wood, "and yer mates!"[3g]
Goblin "sawmillz" are "automated" in the sense that Snotlings are trapped on a primitive conveyer belt and shown a particularly juicy mushroom, just out of reach, which gets them running like tiny green nutters, powering the conveyer which in turn spins the saw that cuts the wood...and any gobbo unlucky enough to be pushed into the blade's way.[3g]
Sources[]
- 1: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Core Rulebook (RPG)
- 1a: pg. 60
- 2: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Career Compendium (RPG)
- 2a: pg. 232
- 3: Total War: Warhammer (PC Game)
- 4: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC Game)