Heartwood is Pax Dei’s Tier 2 timber, described in-game as “the forest giant’s inner strength.” It sits at item level 20, stacks to 50, and feeds into fine wood components and charcoal. If you’re only seeing the occasional drop, you’re likely below the effective tool tier or chopping the wrong tree variants.

Unlock heartwood (skills and tools)

Heartwood starts to appear once you move beyond starter axes and into iron-tier tools and higher. The earliest consistent way to obtain it is with an Iron Chopping Axe or the Brutal Battleaxe on smaller, darker-barked trees. Expect only a small chance per tree at this stage.

For reliable yields, upgrade to a Wrought Iron Chopping Axe (the non-basic variant). This lets you fell the thicker versions of those same trees and produces materially better returns — roughly 30–60 heartwood per large tree is typical. Some tougher trees in cursed areas may require a Wrought Iron Axe to even register hits.

Visual cues matter: look for trunks that are darker than surrounding species, often with a rough, patterned bark. Tool tier, tree size, and your woodcutting level collectively influence whether heartwood drops at all and how much you get.

Find heartwood trees (oak, alpine juniper, haunted)

  • Oak: Common in greener forest regions. Smaller oaks can trickle heartwood with iron tools; thicker trunks shine once you have a wrought iron chopping axe.
  • Alpine Juniper: Found in stony, higher-ground biomes. Shorter, curved shape makes it easy to spot among straighter conifers.
  • Haunted trees (Forsaken forest): Higher durability and stricter tool checks. Bring wrought iron to make progress and budget extra time per chop.

As your woodcutting skill climbs into the 20s and beyond, more tree variants begin dropping heartwood and yields stabilize. If you’re stuck around a 1-in-10 drop rate, move up a tool tier or switch to the thicker, rough-barked versions of the same species.

Crafting with heartwood (fine wood and charcoal)

Heartwood converts into fine wood materials and charcoal under the Carpentry skill. The recipes below reflect the in-game outputs and their unlock thresholds:

Recipe Output Skill Difficulty Unlock (Carpentry)
Heartwood Charcoal Charcoal ×50 Carpentry 1 —
Fine Wood Beam Fine Wood Beam ×5 Carpentry 17 Level 7
Fine Wooden Plank Fine Wooden Plank ×10 Carpentry 19 Level 8
Long Fine Wood Stock Long Fine Wood Stock ×5 Carpentry 23 Level 10

These unlocks appear as your Carpentry levels up; difficulty values indicate how demanding the craft is relative to your current skill. If you’re missing a recipe you expected, check both your Carpentry level and whether you’ve obtained heartwood at least once to trigger related unlocks.

Troubleshooting low heartwood drops

  • Your tool is under-tier. Iron-tier begins the heartwood journey; wrought iron is where yields become consistent.
  • You’re chopping the wrong variant. Seek out thicker trunks with darker, rough-patterned bark. Small lookalikes often waste time.
  • Your woodcutting is too low. Around woodcutting level 20, heartwood begins to drop from more species and sizes.
  • You’re in the right biome but the wrong tree. In haunted or forsaken woods, certain trees require a wrought iron upgrade to harvest at all.

Once you’re reliably felling the heavy, dark-barked trees with a wrought iron chopping axe, heartwood stops feeling rare. From there, convert it into beams, planks, and stocks to open up fine-wood construction — or burn a batch into charcoal when your forges are hungry.