Leather Tanning
Leather tanning in Wanderfolk is a three-step crafting pipeline — skin, tan, craft — that converts creature hides into wearable clothing and armor. It spans two crafting stations (tanning rack and weaver loom) and 20 total recipes.
The Pipeline
Step 1: Skin a Creature
Kill a creature that drops a hide. 30 species across all biomes produce hides when harvested. Common examples:
| Creature | Hide Drop |
|---|---|
| Wolf | Wolf pelt |
| Bear | Bear hide |
| Boar | Boar skin |
| Deer | Deer hide |
| Shadow Wolf | Shadow fur |
| Mountain Goat | Goat hide |
See Creature Behaviors for a full list of creatures with drops.
Step 2: Tan the Hide
Bring your hides to a tanning rack — an outdoor crafting station found near blacksmiths in most villages. The tanning rack supports 16 tanning recipes, one per hide type. Each recipe converts a raw hide into a usable leather material.
Tanning uses the standard crafting minigame system. Your performance determines the quality of the leather — higher quality leather produces better finished goods.
Step 3: Craft at the Weaver Loom
Take your tanned leather to a weaver loom — found inside weaver buildings, a tier-2 structure in villages with textile traditions. The loom produces 4 clothing items:
| Item | Key Materials | Equipment Slot | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linen Shirt | Cloth, thread | Body | Defense |
| Wool Cloak | Wool, cloth | Back | Weather resistance |
| Leather Gloves | Tanned leather | Hands | Grip, tool efficiency |
| Wool Socks | Wool, thread | Feet | Movement, warmth |
Hides as Trade Goods
Not every hide needs to become armor. Excess hides sell to merchants at reasonable prices — especially useful early game when you lack the reputation to access tanning racks and looms. Stockpile hides and process them in bulk once you’ve unlocked the stations.
Tips
- Build reputation with blacksmiths to access tanning racks — you need village access (+50 reputation) to use interior crafting stations
- Tan in bulk — gather multiple hides before visiting a village, since travel time is the real cost
- Quality compounds — excellent-quality tanned leather produces better clothing than normal-quality leather
- Wolf pelts are the most common hide drop and the easiest entry point into the tanning pipeline
Universal Monster Drop Recipes
Every monster hide and fur drop in the game now has a tanning recipe. This applies across all biomes and creature tiers — common wildlife, overland monsters, dungeon creatures, and lieutenant-class enemies alike.
Previously, certain exotic or rare drops (lieutenants, biome-specific monsters, dungeon-only creatures) had no tanning recipe, making them useful only as vendor items. That gap is closed. If a monster drops a hide or fur, you can tan it.
A few examples of drops that now have recipes:
| Drop | Source | Tanned Result |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow Fur | Shadow Wolf | Shadow Leather |
| Revenant Hide | Dread Revenant | Corrupted Leather |
| Wyvern Scale | Stormcaller Wyvern | Storm-Scale Leather |
| Elder Hide | Frostbound Elder | Frost-Cured Leather |
| Druid Bark-Skin | Thornweaver Druid | Bark Leather |
The tanned results feed into higher-tier loom recipes for rare armor and clothing. Nothing from a monster hunt is vendor trash anymore — if you can kill it and it drops a hide, the tanning rack has a use for it.
To access recipes for exotic leathers, you still need the standard tanning rack and the village reputation threshold (+50) to use it. The recipe list expands automatically as you acquire new hide types.
Related Articles
- Crafting Stations — tanning rack and loom locations in villages
- Creature Behaviors — which creatures drop hides and how to hunt them
- Quality System — how tanning quality compounds into finished clothing stats
- Weapons & Equipment — equipment slots for leather clothing
- Biomes — where to find specific creatures across the world