Revision - foothills iron ore - Windrose Wiki

Foothills Iron Ore is the raw ore that makes the Foothills feel like a real progression jump in Windrose. The current live item page keeps the description simple: it can be used to make Foothills Iron Ingots, and it is found in the natural quarries of the Foothills.

Current Item Basics

Field	Current Live Value
Type	Resource, Common
Stack size	15
Source	Natural quarries in the Foothills
Ordinary vendor trade	The current base-item listing says Foothills Iron Ore is not bought or sold by ordinary vendors

Smelting Route

Input	Output	Current Duration
Foothills Iron Ore x3 + Charcoal x1	Foothills Iron Ingot x1	30 seconds at the Smelting Furnace, 15 seconds at the Large Smelting Furnace

What It Does and Does Not Feed

It is the direct raw input behind Foothills Iron Ingot.
It is part of the iron route that later supports the Iron Pickaxe, cannons, hull upgrades, nails, and better station pieces.
It is not listed on the current Merchant Contracts Natural Resources station page. That station currently adds sulfur, hardwood, and tree bark, not iron ore.

Why Players Care About It

It is the raw step behind the live Foothills Iron Ingot recipe.
It marks the moment the metal chain stops being about copper and starts feeding better tools, ship parts, and stronger upgrades.
It is one of the materials that makes the Foothills biome more than a combat stop. The ore is the reason many players keep going back.

Practical Collection Notes

Foothills Iron Ore is one of the cleaner gather-then-smelt materials in the live build. You do not craft the ore, and you do not solve the shortage through ordinary vendor trade. You go into the Foothills, mine the ore from its own biome, then decide how much of your charcoal supply you can afford to spend turning that haul into ingots.

Practical Notes

The ore item page itself is very direct, and that is a good thing. It keeps the role of Foothills Iron Ore clean: gather it in the biome it belongs to, smelt it into ingots, then decide whether those ingots are going into tools, stations, or ship-side progression.

Tool Gate: You Need a Copper Pickaxe First

Foothills Iron Ore cannot be mined with a Stone Pickaxe. The minimum tool requirement is the Copper Pickaxe, which itself costs 5 Copper Ingot and 5 Wood. Swinging a stone pickaxe at an iron deposit does not register damage at all, so the ore is effectively invisible to early-game tools.

Practical route: get a Smelting Furnace online, gather enough Copper Ore to produce at least 5 ingots, craft the Copper Pickaxe at the Workbench, and only then sail to the Foothills to mine iron. Trying to shortcut this order by heading to the Foothills with a stone pickaxe is the single most common wasted sailing trip for new players.

Revision 2