Allow crafting black dye from charcoal/black coal

[JAGIELSKI]

It makes sense, so why isn't it a thing already?

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, JAGIELSKI said:

It makes sense, so why isn't it a thing already?

Black pigment for paint is fairly easy to get. Black dye for clothing is a lot more difficult. Historically, black cloth was very rare and essentially "rich people material". Usually it was made from iron, hence why it requires metal bits to make it in the game.

[Michael Gates]

Paint would be a whole new game mechanic, because you can paint nearly anything... blue mountains! green bauxite! yellow moons!... I'd love to see it, but I don't expect it. And yeah, you'd have to have a whole new set of substances to apply color. If people think limestone is rare, wait until they start hunting lapis for aquamarine!

[LadyWYT]

13 minutes ago, Michael Gates said:

If people think limestone is rare, wait until they start hunting lapis for aquamarine!

At least you can just buy lapis from an artisan trader! Though woad and cornflowers also work for blue dye, if I'm not mistaken.

As for black dye, metal scraps are easy enough to find in underground ruins or pilfer from locust nests. One alternative I could see to using rusty metal though, that still retains historical realism, is possibly mixing strong tannin with blue or green dye(or even some other dark color), to achieve black dye. You couldn't make gray from it, but it would save you the metal cost.

[Thorfinn]

49 minutes ago, Michael Gates said:

Paint would be a whole new game mechanic, because you can paint nearly anything... blue mountains! green bauxite! yellow moons!... I'd love to see it, but I don't expect it. And yeah, you'd have to have a whole new set of substances to apply color. If people think limestone is rare, wait until they start hunting lapis for aquamarine!

Right. All you need for a paint is a more or less translucent binder system that entrains your pigments. Dye is another thing.

That said, charcoal dust is very hard to remove from fibers. I'm sure you could use charcoal to stain cloth, but it would be more of a temporary pigment than a dye.

Edited January 6, 2025 by Thorfinn

[JAGIELSKI]

22 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

At least you can just buy lapis from an artisan trader! Though woad and cornflowers also work for blue dye, if I'm not mistaken.

As for black dye, metal scraps are easy enough to find in underground ruins or pilfer from locust nests. One alternative I could see to using rusty metal though, that still retains historical realism, is possibly mixing strong tannin with blue or green dye(or even some other dark color), to achieve black dye. You couldn't make gray from it, but it would save you the metal cost.

What if someone plays without ruins/lore locations? The only other recipe is literally expensive (and I don't think you're going to get 8 rusty gears with lore locations disabled either).

[LadyWYT]

4 minutes ago, JAGIELSKI said:

What if someone plays without ruins/lore locations? The only other recipe is literally expensive (and I don't think you're going to get 8 rusty gears with lore locations disabled either).

I'd still opt for mixing strong tannin with some other dark color as an option; in the case of natural dyes, "black" isn't really black at all, but a really dark shade of a different color. But it also couldn't hurt to allow iron nuggets(either smelted iron or ore bits) to be soaked in a barrel until they produce gray/black dye. That makes the black/gray colors obtainable in Homo Sapiens, while still being relatively accurate to historical tradition.