Wood
Wood is a solid, flammable building block: fire and lava turn it into flame, and acid eats it quickly.
- Movement
- Solid — stays where you paint it
- Weight
- 7 / 9 (heavier sinks through lighter)
- Lifetime
- Permanent
- Glow
- None
Wood is static, so it keeps whatever shape you give it: beams, platforms, the frame of a hut. Powders rest on top and liquids pool against its sides. Its weight of 7 has no bearing on movement, since static cells are never displaced.
Fire is what undoes it, and both sides of the contact can start the burn. Wood’s own table gives a 12 percent chance of catching when a flame is next to it, and a further 15 percent comes from the flame’s side. When either roll succeeds the wood cell becomes fire and the original flame keeps burning. That new flame is touching the next plank, so burning moves through timber as a front, one ring of cells after another, rather than all at once.
Lava is a harsher igniter, setting wood alight on 40 percent of checks, and the lava is not used up in the process. A lava pool resting against a wooden wall keeps lighting it for as long as any wood remains in contact.
Acid is the third threat, and wood is its favourite target at 30 percent. Dissolving leaves an empty hole and nothing else, and unlike a burn it does not travel by itself; it only goes where the acid flows.
Real wood leaves charcoal, ash and smoke when it burns. In Sandlab a plank simply becomes fire, and fire eventually becomes empty space, so a burned structure disappears without a trace. Paint ash and smoke yourself if you want a sooty aftermath.
Try it yourself
- Watch a burn front. Paint a solid rectangle of wood and touch one corner with a small dab of fire. The edge of the burn advances unevenly, with a ragged orange border and short-lived flames lifting off the top, until nothing of the rectangle is left.
- Two huts, one moat. Build two identical wooden huts. Pour lava straight against the first; for the second, lay a line of water between the hut and the lava first. The first hut catches almost immediately, while at the second the advancing lava turns to stone against that water and the wood is spared.
- Carve without flames. Draw a thick wooden beam and drip acid onto its centre. A clean notch opens downward with no fire and no spreading, and the acid drops out of the bottom once it has cut all the way.
Reactions
Odds are per contact check: each tick, touching cells inside the same two-by-two block are checked against the reaction table, so even a small chance happens soon after contact.
When wood touches something
- Touching Fire: turns into Fire. (steady, 12% per contact check) →
When something touches wood
- Touching Acid: this Wood dissolves away. (fast, 30% per contact check) →
- Touching Lava: this Wood turns into Fire. (fast, 40% per contact check) →
- Touching Fire: this Wood turns into Fire. (steady, 15% per contact check) →
Tip
Ignition needs direct contact, so a gap of empty cells works as a firebreak. Flames climb as they burn, which means wood stored beside a fire is much safer than wood stored above it.