Coals at working heat in a blacksmith's hearth
A glowing bar of steel on the anvil

Blacksmithing by colour

Chanvilthe colour tells you when

A blacksmith reads the heat by the colour of the steel. Work the bellows, strike inside the window, quench at the right moment — and the piece either sings or cracks.

One heat, three decisions

  1. 1

    Bring the coals up

    Hold the bellows and the bar climbs through dull red, cherry, orange, yellow. Every colour is a different metal, and only one band takes the hammer.

  2. 2

    Strike inside the window

    Each blow knocks the heat back down, so the last strike is always a gamble: swing on what is left, or spend a turn at the bellows and lose the moment.

  3. 3

    Quench at the colour, not the clock

    Stop pumping and wait for the steel to fall to the quench band. Too hot and it warps, too cold and it never hardened at all.

A shop you come back to

The guild decides what you may make

You start with a horseshoe. Reputation earned from finished work opens the cleaver, the spearhead, the axe, the dagger, and finally the longsword — nothing is handed over on the first evening.

Days at the fire

Finishing a piece cuts a notch in a fourteen-day chain that pays in charcoal, oil and scale dust. The chain counts days you worked, not days you opened the app, and one missed day is pardoned.

Steam rising from the quenching barrel

The rack keeps every piece

Each finished item is graded from flawed to masterwork and kept on the rack with what it earned. Photograph a piece you are proud of and the picture stays with it.

From the shop floor

Chanvil onboarding: learning the bellows
Learning the bellows
Chanvil bench: choosing a pattern
The bench
Chanvil forge: the heat gauge mid-work
At the forge
Finished work resting on the bench
Finished work