Clay — How to Get, Where to Find & Uses

Quick answer: Dig clay with the rusty shovel at the large pit in the southeast of the Yard, inside the Inquisition Base — no river crossing. Each dig costs 6 energy and yields 4 Clay, and the pit never depletes, so your energy bar is the only real limit. No vendor sells clay, so digging is the only source.

Where to find clay

• The pit: a large circular patch of brown earth that looks like a sinkhole, in the southeast of the Yard, still inside the Inquisition Base.
• The route: from the Yard head east, follow the cobblestone path south, pass the stone ruins and the archway, and keep going into the woods until the trees open up and a cliff face is in front of you. The clay patch is right there. You never cross the river.
• Brown clay mounds are scattered across the map, but the sinkhole pit southeast of the Yard is the one worth farming.

How to get clay

1. Put the Rusty Shovel on your hotbar. An axe does not work on clay.
2. Walk to the pit southeast of the Yard.
3. Press F to dig. Each dig costs 6 energy and produces 4 Clay.
4. Hold F to chain digs — you don't need to re-press for every scoop.

Is the pit finite? No — it is unlimited. It refills instantly, and you can backfill it. The real constraint is the energy bar, so the efficient play is to dig straight after sleeping rather than at the end of a work day.

Storage gotcha: workstations only pull materials from crates in their own area. Clay sitting in a crate across your base will not show up for the Potter's Wheel — keep it in a crate beside the station you're actually crafting at, or carry it on you.

What clay is for

Recipe	Input	Output	Station
Clay Plates	2 Clay	3 Clay Plates	Potter's Wheel
Brick	TBD	TBD	Kiln

The chain runs: Pottery I (10 Red + 5 Green tech points) unlocks the Clay Plates recipe and the Potter's Wheel blueprint; Brick Making unlocks the Kiln blueprint. Once the Plague Doctor's lab is open, clay is also used in processing corpse fat.

One dig (4 Clay) makes 6 Clay Plates — exactly the hand-in the Twins' fishing rod quest asks for.

Other uses

• Alchemy: clay is a reagent and carries runes, but the specific recipes and rune values are TBD against the retail build.
• Studying: the study cost and tech-point payout are TBD (demo-era data listed 1 Science + 1 Faith for 55 tech points — unverified).
• Clay Digger Stand (automated clay digging): TBD — not confirmed in the retail build.
• Kiln building cost: TBD.
• Clay Urn, Clay Molds, Tableware and the Smithy brick lines are retail content; their recipes and unlock tiers are TBD.

Common problems

• "Where do I buy clay?" — You can't. Dig it.
• "The axe does nothing on the clay pit." — Correct. The shovel is the only tool that works.
• "I stop digging after a few scoops." — That's the 6 energy per dig cost, not a broken pit. Sleep, then come back.
• "My Potter's Wheel can't see my clay." — Move the clay into a crate in the same area as the station, or keep it in your inventory.

Related

Pottery — turn clay into plates · Fishing rod quest · Health potions & alchemy

Last verified: September 2026 — data from post-launch guides; all values below source to their linked URL.