Tool Workshop in 99 Nights in the Forest

Every other crafting station in the game is something you walk up to and use. The Tool Workshop is the exception: the station does not function until you have taken it apart and put it back together. You clear the cultists out of a three-floor stone building, find three pieces of an anvil on different floors, and drag them into a highlight on the ground floor before the anvil will craft anything for you.

Two things about it are easy to get wrong, and both cost you a whole run if you get them wrong. It only ever makes one item at a time, so your order matters. And which helmet it offers is decided by the biome you rolled at the start of the run, not by a menu you can shop around in.

Quick Answer

What the Building Is, and How to Recognise It

It is a large stone-brick building that looks like a small castle. The first floor has a broken ceiling, and vines grow up out of that hole — climb them and you reach the second and third floors. Once you have found the place, it shows on your map as an anvil icon.

The awkward part is that the workshop spawns at a random spot, and the map icon only appears after you have discovered it yourself. So walking the whole map is the default method, and there are two shortcuts described below.

Guarding it are two cultists and one crossbow cultist. Those are the same enemies described on our Cultist Stronghold page; the fight is a normal cultist fight, but it happens inside a building with three floors to fall off, so clear the ground floor before you commit.

How to Turn It On

The sequence is short but the order is not optional:

1. Clear the two cultists and the crossbow cultist.
2. Go up. Search the floors for anvil pieces.
3. Assemble the anvil. Drag all three pieces into the highlighted area on the first floor — the base on floor 1, the two upper parts on floors 2 and 3.
4. Pick a recipe. From that point on, only one craft at a time.

The Campfire Level Question Nobody Settles

What level the workshop needs before it will open to you is stated inconsistently by three sources, and we are not going to pretend they agree:

• One structure database lists the prerequisite as campfire level 2 or higher.
• One guide says the workshop "usually spawns at Level 3 campfire or higher."
• A second guide states campfire level 3 as a requirement, which is the number our own Infernal Helmet page records from a single source.

Read that list as "somewhere between level 2 and level 3, and nobody has announced which." In practice it means the workshop is a mid-run destination, not a Day 2 errand: you should not build a run plan that assumes you can reach it on the first night.

Which Helmet You Get, and Why It Is Not a Choice

This is the part most guides skip entirely.

The anvil's recipe list includes two helmets: the Mammoth Helmet and the Infernal Helmet. A wiki's trivia note records that the craftable Infernal Helmet used to be called the Mammoth Helmet — the name split when the game gained a second cold-ish biome. One guide states the rule directly: the third helmet is chosen by the biome you spawned into, the Mammoth Helmet with the Snow or Jungle biomes and the Infernal Helmet with the Volcanic one.

So the practical reading is:

You do not pick your helmet. The biome you rolled does.

Which means a run can plan for the Mammoth Helmet or the Infernal Helmet during the run's planning stage, but not both, and not on demand. Both recipes are cheap in materials next to what the helmet gives you, so the thing to plan around is the other three slots, which you control.

Our Infernal Helmet page has the full recipe and the shell-and-antler grind. This page is about the station, not the helmet.

One Craft at a Time — and What the Queue Costs You

Once a recipe is selected, it cannot be cancelled and nothing else can be crafted until it finishes. Before you choose, look at what is actually available in a run:

• Hammer and Bandages — always available
• One helmet — determined by your biome
• One item from a random four — the Chainsaw, the Riot Shield, the Tactical Shotgun or the Thorn Body

That is a station with four slots per run, and the fourth one is a lottery. If the random item is the one you wanted, you can take it only by giving up one of the guaranteed three.

The Bandage Inflation Nobody Adds Up

The bandage recipe is not a fixed price. Two sources state the same rule in the same words: every bandage you make raises the next one's ingredient count by one — starting at 2 Bunny Foot and 2 Wolf Pelt.

Adding that rule up for ourselves:

That table is our arithmetic on a rule the sources state, not a number any source prints.

The useful half is the comparison the sources make in passing and never follow through on: the Hammer's price never rises, no matter how many you make. So the Hammer and the bandages are not interchangeable refill tools. The Hammer is repeatable at a fixed cost — one source states it as 5 Log and 5 Scrap — while each bandage makes the next one slightly more expensive, and nobody has published whether that climb has a ceiling.

A Sensible Order, Stated as Reasoning Rather Than as Fact

Putting those two rules together gives a queue that is almost forced:

1. Craft the Hammer early. Fixed price, repeatable, and it moves structures that normally will not move.
2. Take the helmet when materials are in hand. It is the item with the long grind behind it — the Antler and the Scorpion Shells are kills, not craftable goods.
3. Leave a cheap slot for the random item. If you want the random Chainsaw or Riot Shield, the slot you give up should be the one that does not strain your run. Bandages are renewable at a rising price; the Hammer is flat. Which of the two you sacrifice is your call, and no source ranks them for you.

What Is Inside

Beyond the anvil you are assembling, the building has a loot side worth the trip on its own:

That item list is from one structure database, corroborated in outline by two guides. The one detail the wikis agree on absolutely is the chest on the third floor.

Scrap is worth calling out separately: it is the ingredient in almost every anvil recipe, and our How to Get Scrap page covers where it comes from generally. What this building gives you is the reliable portion.

The Meteor Version Never Reverts

A Meteor Shower does not simply drop loot near the workshop. One structure database states that when the event happens, the workshop permanently transforms into a lava-like version with different inhabitants — Meteor Crabs replace the cultists — and a different recipe list.

What the transformed version offers is four meteor-tier items: an Axe Trim Kit, an Armor Trim Kit, Obsidiron Boots and an Obsidiron Chest Blueprint, built from Meteor Shards, Gold Shards and Obsidiron Ingots mined out of the crash site. That is a different station doing different things, and our Obsidiron Hammer page covers the meteor side of the game in more depth.

Two consequences worth holding onto:

• The normal recipes are gone for the rest of that run, not just while the meteors fall. The transformation is described as permanent, so if you were saving an anvil slot for the helmet, that plan is dead after the meteor lands.
• Wanted the helmet anyway? Our Infernal Helmet page notes the second anvil that appears after a Meteor Shower from day 5 onward, so that is where to look instead.

Three Names, Three Different Stations

Players mix these up constantly, and one of the three is not even a building:

If a guide tells you to "get the Old Rod from the Tools Workshop," it means the Tool Trader. There is no anvil in that transaction.

How to Find It Without Walking the Whole Map

Because the workshop spawns in a random spot and only shows an icon after you discover it, there are two shortcuts:

1. The Radar. Crafted at the Tier 3 Crafting Bench for 10 Scrap and 15 Wood, it points at the Tool Workshop, the Tool Trader, the Cultist Stronghold and the Locked Caves. Each scan costs 15 Scrap. One guide adds the detail that it will mark the location even without expanding the map first, as long as you built the Map before scanning. That recipe comes from a single source, so treat the exact costs as likely rather than certain.
2. A meteor. When meteors crash across the map, one lands on the Tool Workshop and marks it. If you are holding out for the meteor version anyway, waiting for the event solves two problems at once.

Failing both, it is a three-floor stone castle with vines, which is recognisable from a distance.

Where the Recipes Disagree

Two sources publish the anvil's recipe list and they do not match. The disagreements are small but they change what you save for:

The first row is the one that matters, because it decides whether you farm Alpha Wolf Pels or Wolf Pelts plus Bunny Feet.

Our own pages take the first reading: our Thorn Body and Riot Shield pages both list the Alpha Wolf Pelt version, and the wiki table is the more detailed of the two — it also records the Riot Shield's separate 25 Scrap, which the second source flattens away. We present the disagreement rather than picking silently, and each item keeps its own page with its own sourcing.

FAQ

Is the Tool Workshop always on the map? No. It spawns at a random position, and its anvil icon only appears once you have discovered it.

Can I craft two things at once? No. One recipe at a time, and you cannot cancel it.

Do I have to build the anvil every run? The anvil is part of the building, not something you carry, so nothing about it resets between runs — but the workshop's contents and its guards do.

Which helmet can I make? The one matching your biome: the Mammoth Helmet with the Snow or Jungle biome, the Infernal Helmet with Volcanic. Two guides agree on this; a third just lists both as available.

What happens if a Meteor Shower hits? The workshop becomes a lava version permanently, with four meteor recipes and Meteor Crabs instead of cultists. The normal recipes do not come back that run.

Is the Tool Trader the same thing? No. The Tool Trader is a merchant, and the workshop is a building. See the comparison above.

Is the campfire level requirement real? Two sources say level 3, one says level 2. We publish both rather than guessing.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-03.

Two or more sources agreeing: the three-floor stone-brick appearance with climbing vines, the anvil icon on the map after discovery, the two cultists plus one crossbow cultist guard, the three anvil pieces split across the floors, one craft at a time with no cancel, and the three guaranteed items plus one random item from a four-item pool — all stated by two or more of the sources we checked.

Single source, flagged: the guaranteed loot list inside the building; the campfire level 2 prerequisite; the campfire level 3 prerequisite on our Infernal Helmet page; the Hammer recipe of 5 Log and 5 Scrap; the Radar recipe and scan cost; and the meteor transformation with its four recipes.

Single source for a rule we then applied ourselves: the bandage ingredient increase (one wiki, restated by a second guide). Our bandage cost table is our own addition of that rule.

Disagreement we record rather than resolve: the campfire level, and the Chainsaw / Tactical Shotgun / Thorn Body pelts and scrap counts. Both are laid out above.

Nobody publishes: whether the bandage price increase has a maximum, whether the biome helmet rule is stated by the game itself or inferred from which recipes appear, and whether the meteor transformation can be reversed.

Related Pages

• How to Get the Infernal Helmet — one of the two biome helmets, and its shell-and-antler grind
• How to Get the Riot Shield — one of the four random anvil items
• How to Get the Thorn Body — the other random anvil item, and the recipe disagreement
• Warm Clothing — where the Mammoth Helmet sits on the warmth ladder
• The Mammoth — where the Mammoth Tusk comes from
• The Scorpion — where the Scorpion Shells come from
• The Cultist King — where the Antler comes from
• How to Get Scrap — the ingredient in nearly every anvil recipe
• Obsidiron Hammer — the meteor side of the workshop
• Cultist Stronghold — where the workshop's guards come from
• All Locations — every structure on the map, including this one