Elin:Digging
Digging allows the player to dig up the ground, flooring, and buried treasure.
Overview
- A player's digging power is influenced by their digging level and the hardness of the material of their shovel. A higher skill and stronger shovel will allow the player to dig faster, and dig up stronger flooring.
- Digging up flooring can cause the player to learn a random flooring recipe.
- Digging will also train strength.
Obtaining/Upgrading a Shovel
A shovel must be crafted at the Tinker's table with 2 stones/ingots, a stick, and a string. For a list of materials to upgrade or replace a lost or destroyed shovel, see Elin:Mining.
Training Digging
Early game
Once the player has learned the Digging skill from the trainer in Yowyn, they can begin to level the skill.
Earning digging experience requires a player to dig the ground with their shovel, with harder materials granting more experience.
To obtain soil in large quantities a player should enter the world map, select their shovel, and right click the ground to dig. Holding the right mouse button will automatically continue to dig up soil. Performing this action in Snowfield tiles will produce chunks of snow. (Note: chunks of snow cannot be used to make coldproof blankets - they require chunks of ice, which are obtained from mining ice block walls (which appear randomly in Snowfield wilderness tiles.)
Sand cannot be obtained from digging on a beach tile on the world map; it will produce soil. Instead, the player must enter a beach wilderness tile and dig a tile of sand. The sand can then be used at a kiln to create fragments and then glass for the Jewelry and Alchemy skills.
Resources by Floor Types
| Floor type | Item gained |
|---|---|
| Brick | Brick |
| Carpet | Dye |
| Glass | Glass |
| Grass | Grass |
| Metal grille | Ingot |
| Mirror | Glass |
| Modern | Ingot |
| Plank | Plank |
| Sand | Sand |
| Stone | Stone or cut stone |
| Tile | Gem |
| Wooden floor | Log |
Notable Digging Locations
Digging up 'owned' flooring (such as in a town or other form of settlement) will decrease the player's karma by 1 and cause any witnesses to become hostile.
If a player intends to steal high value flooring despite this, they are advised to either keep out of sight or use Incognito scrolls and spells to disguise themselves. Casting the Incognito spell will halt all aggression from hostile NPCs, but will not prevent a player's allies from retaliating on the now-pacified NPCs. It is therefore useful to keep a Whistle of Peace on hand (and use it before attempting any crimes), as murder (even if performed by allies) will reduce a player's karma by 5.
- Aquli Teola has iron and steel ingot flooring, as well as meteorite and ether carpet flooring, which can be mined for dyes.
- Derphy's streets are made of basalt stone.
- The Derphy's Thieves's Guild's vault floor and walls are made of gold stone.
- The Embassy north of Palmia has a ring of obsidian stone floor around the building.
- The Fighter's Guild in Port Kapul has diorite, basalt, iron, and chromite stone floors, as well as meteorite carpet, which can be dug up for meteorite dye.
- The Fortune Bell has iron and adamantite ingot floors, as well as many rubynus carpets to obtain dye. Additionally, the walls can be mined for rubynus ingots. Mining the floors of the Fortune Bell is dangerous, as it creates holes in the floor that cannot be transversed.
- The Mansion of Younger Sister has several ether carpets. Additionally, the walls can be mined for ether dye (and later turned to stone via hammer alchemy)
- The Void's floors and walls have a chance to be generated from any of the standard stone materials (i.e. phyllite, granite, etc.), and only the layout of the entrance and the last floor a player has reached will be saved. Any floor between will be randomly reset, giving the player a chance to obtain large quantities of any standard stone type.
Materials by Location
The following is a partial list of locations where materials can be obtained. Many of these locations have NPCs nearby, giving the player a high chance of being caught stealing the floors.
Warning: Digging in the Fortune Bell with create holes that cannot be walked over. It is advisable to bring basic flooring, scrolls of return/evacuation or carefully plan a digging route to prevent trapping and soft-locking yourself.
| Material | Hardness | Flooring locations |
|---|---|---|
| Hot Spring Water | 2 | Aquli Teoli (lower left corner room, carpet) |
| Hemp | 2 | |
| Cotton | 2 | |
| Silk | 2 | |
| Spider Silk | 2 | |
| Scale | 4 | |
| Hide | 4 | |
| Wool | 4 | |
| Cashmere | 4 | |
| Zylon | 4 | |
| Mica | 5 | |
| Coral | 7 | Fortune Bell (card table room, carpet) |
| Spirit Cloth | 7 | |
| Dawn Cloth | 8 | |
| Plastic | 10 | |
| Bone | 12 | Fortune Bell bedrooms (carpet) |
| Griffon Scale | 12 | |
| Dragon Scale | 12 | |
| Phyllite | 13 | |
| Ice | 15 | |
| Quartz Sand | 17 | Aquli Teola (mirror floor) |
| Granite | 18 | |
| Oak | 20 | |
| Crystal | 22 | Aquli Teola (mirror floor) |
| Silt | 24 | |
| Mahogany | 25 | Derphy Thieves Guild |
| Gold | 25 | Derphy Thieves Guild, Merchant's Guild (carpet) |
| Silver | 27 | Fortune Bell generator room (carpet) |
| Rosewood | 30 | |
| Limestone | 30 | Merchant's Guild |
| Pearl | 32 | |
| Copper | 34 | Machinarium Nefia, Merchant's Guild (carpet), Fortune Bell slots room (carpet) |
| Slate | 38 | Derphy Inn and Good's Store, |
| Marble | 40 | |
| Lapis Lazuli | 42 | |
| Bronze | 45 | Mansion of Younger Sister (top left bedroom, carpet) |
| Diorite | 46 | Port Kapul Fighter's Guild, Derphy (outer walls) Willow (Cetrus' room, carpet), Mysilia Blacksmith, Lumiest sewers (accessible through ditches) |
| Platinum | 49 | The Embassy (main room, carpet) |
| Onyx | 50 | Lumiest Mage's Guild, Aquli Teola, Palmia pub (carpet and tile), Palmia castle entrance (carpet), Seeker's Keep (upstairs, carpet) |
| Coralwood | 52 | |
| Basalt | 52 | Port Kapul Fighter's Guild cells, Derphy streets |
| Opal | 53 | |
| Cobalt | 54 | |
| Iron | 56 | Port Kapul Fighter's Guild, Aquli Teola, Fortune Bell (surface, outer ring) |
| Jade | 57 | |
| Turquoise | 58 | |
| Feywood | 60 | |
| Topaz | 60 | Port Kapul (carpets under the vendors), Mysilia Inn rooms (carpet), Yowyn inn (downstairs, carpet), The Mansion of Younger Sister (carpet) |
| Obsidian | 60 | Fortune Bell banker room (carpet), The Embassy (outer ring of the building) |
| Rose quartz | 65 | |
| Steel | 67 | Aquli Teola |
| Aquamarine | 68 | |
| Sapphire | 71 | |
| Amethyst | 72 | |
| Emerald | 75 | |
| Chromite | 85 | Port Kapul Fighter's Guild, Fortune Bell stage room, Seeker's Keep |
| Titanium | 89 | |
| Meteorite | 95 | Port Kapul Inn, Drug Dealer's house (carpet), Fighter's Guild (Thorran's room), Derphy slave auction (carpet), Mysilia church entrances (carpet), Noyel inn (carpet), Aquli Teola (top right corner room carpet), Palmia Inn (bedroom, carpet), Palmia noble houses and royal bedrooms (carpet), Fortune Bell Casino (carpet) |
| Mithril | 98 | |
| Diamond | 110 | |
| Rubynus | 110 | Thieves Guild entry room (carpet), Mysilia throne room (carpet), Palmia church (carpet), Palmia throne room (carpet), Fortune Bell casino (carpet), Nefu Village (top right buildings, carpet platforms) |
| Adamantite | 115 | Port Kapul Inn, top right room (carpet), Mysilia royal bedrooms (carpet), Fortune Bell casino (throwing game) |
| Ether | 120 | Port Kapul Pub (carpet), Aquli Teola (lower right corner room carpet), The Mansion of Younger Sister (carpet) |
Digging and Hammer Alchemy
'Hammer Alchemy' refers to how resources in Elin can be transformed into another type through disassembly. (A simple example: hammering stone sculptures will not revert them to cut stone; it converts them to logs.) The digging skill is an important factor to hammer alchemy, as it can allow any material type to be converted to stone (and then optionally, logs). This can be useful for furniture and sculpture-making to boost the value/tourism value of a player's home.
Please see this player guide page for more details and a diagram of how to convert resources through disassembly.