Chapter 3.3 Wildlife Claims

Wildlife Claim Basics
All ecosystems have creatures and resources that grows and multiplies based on a deity's strength. In the open world and in claimed land, players and NPC can build farms, pastures, and ranches. But plants grow and evolve differently in the wild, producing starting stats based on the ecology's deity, but can be modified by wildlife claims. While NPC will often harvest resources from the ecology near their land claims, deities can also summon spirits who can help the local ecology, but with much less effectiveness than a typical wildlife player.

Every nature based skill and blueprint unlocked adds a new journal entry, with combined unlocks sharing a page.

Nature Legacy
The umbrella of your character's nature legacy is broken down to herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. Your legacy progression is limited to the type of creature you bond with. For example, an elk claim will be a herbivore, a wolf claim will be a carnivore, and a brown bear claim will be an omnivore. Each of the below will be limited by the ecosystem they come from.

• Nature Ecology Legacy

  • The ecology your creature (or past creatures) you have bonded with is from

  • Will show a new icon for each ecology interacted with, nesting other sets of creature bonds within their respective categories

    • Herbivore

      • Can affect the stats and traits of wood, fungus, and other plant material used in its raw state

      • Can also affect the stats of animals in their herd, and other same species in the wild

      • Can have large herds

    • Carnivore

      • Can affect the stats and traits of prey and monsters

      • Can also affect the stats of animals in their pack

      • Are less common than herbivores

      • Can have small packs

    • Omnivore

      • Can affect the of either plants or prey animals

      • Cannot form a herd or pack

      • Has less of an affect on resources, but wider range of options

    • Material Creature

      • Can affect the materials the creature is made of, such as stone, ores, and crystals

      • Cannot form a herd or pack

      • Can only affect one type of material

      • Not very common

      • Is very slow

Tools for Starting an Wildlife Claim
Players can construct tools to aid them. Each of these affect the above legacy to make creatures less reactive to fleeing or attacking, which allows a player to claim them.

• Wildlife Feeders

  • Place food/drink that the target creature prefers to eat/drink

  • Players can stay near it for a chance to get close to the target creature

• Instrument - [Rough Examples] Flutes (Herbivores) / drums (Carnivore) / Lute (Omnivores) / Dowsing Rods (material creature)

  • Affects certain creatures in a radius to get used to your presence

  • Players can use it to attract target creatures close

  • Each of these tools will have a removable fire source that is used for claiming (lanterns, torches, etc.)

• Shrine

  • Can choose a target animal from an available deity in the ecosystem the shrine is placed in

    • A deity may have all 4 of the above options, or less

    • From there, players can pray, or burn tinder/resources to send a stronger prayer to their target animal

    • The value of the prayer/offering will lessen an animal's reactivity

    • Better shrines and more nature proficiency will increase this

  • Can obtain task quests to guide a player to learn what a creature wants to eat/drink/be offered (offering bonuses if specific to that species)

  • Player can summon the target creature if none can be found, with enough tinder/resources burned

    • Appears ghostly at first, then when given the fire source, become physical

    • Will fail if there is not enough room for the creature

Note: Having any other active claim will completely block wildlife approaches.)

Confirming the Wildlife Claim
Upon the approach, the player's character will reach out their hand. The player can select "claim creature" if they meet the needed criteria. When claiming, they will remove the removable fire source from the tool used to attract the animal, and the claim has been made. The player can now ride and control the creature. (Other interaction options will appear for players as well, such as taming, faith-based mechanics, attack, and more. But attack will cause a debuff for future approaches for a time.)

If a claim fails, a player will need to repair the tool to replenish the fire source. Tools will not work until repaired.

Caring for Wildlife Claim
An animal claim is protected from other players hunting your claim, and NPC. (More about PVE/PVP in future sections.) But a player still needs to feed and heal their animal claim from monster attacks and world events. Animals will also lose sanity near overly constructed areas. Wild animals naturally avoid busy land claims and noisy vehicles. Nature based player do best when avoiding these overly civilized constructions, but can balance visits strategically.

Resource and Herd/Pack Skills
You will unlock skills that you can use that will grow nature, and affect your animal's species if available. Each of these have cooldowns, but cooldowns can be sped up, or skipped, by burning other resources. Some examples are below.

• Resource Mechanics

  • Grow Resource

    • Skip the wait period for a resource to grow to the next phase

  • Evolve Resource

    • Evolve a resource to the next phase if fully grown and not recovering

  • Multiply Resource

    • The resource will sprout more copies in open tiles

    • Will not evolve unless "evolve" spell is used, but will eventually grow to maturity

  • Add Resource Trait

    • Add a trait to a resource that can be used for crafting and the resource's defense

  • Heal Resource

    • Resource will regain HP faster than normal

  • Remove Rot

    • Removes the rot trait from a resource

• Herd/Pack Mechanics

  • Recruit Animal

    • Recruit an animal to start or grow your herd/pack

    • Must be the same type as your claim

  • Evolve Animal

    • Evolve a herd/pack member to the next phase if fully grown and not recovering, fleeing, or in combat

    • Cannot evolve to same level as claim (will always be one evolution below, or less than claim)

    • Can also select wild animal of the same species as your claim

  • Multiply Animal

    • Your claim will generate a duplicate, if no herd/pack members

    • If herd/pack members exist, players can randomize or select specific members to create a new member from

    • Players can breed for patterns (covered in Hide Crafts.)

  • Add Resource Trait

    • Add or affect a trait on a herd/pack member, or wild animal of the same species as your claim

  • Heal Herd/Pack

    • Heal the pack

    • Can be group for less of an affect, or specific selection for more of an affect

  • Remove Disease

    • Removes the disease trait from a herd/pack member or wild animal of the same species as your claim

• Trade Herd/Pack for Cart Pulling

  • If players don't want to focus on herd/pack management, players can construct a cart to be pulled

  • Players will need to ensure the animal claim is not stressed by the construction by creating more nature based crafts and balancing the load

• Wildlife Combat Skills

  • Players will also unlock skills based on their progression with their wildlife claim

Harvest and Growth Cycle
Creatures serve the ecological deity that created them, the bond players create enable a the ability to support an ecosystem. Nature is about harvest as much as growth. While your wildlife claim is protected from players and NPC, your herd/pack, is not. Allowing your herd/pack to be consumed by monsters, NPC, and other players will increase your claim's deity favor. Which will increase their abilities. Opposing species can hunt each other's herds/packs. Players can place tribute spells to encourage harvest of specific resources and certain herd/pack members that they are ready to gain favor from. (Covered in the next section.)

Creature Claim Evolution
A creature has the option to grow larger with more nature favor, which needs to be maintained with tinder. If tinder is not maintained, it can de-evolve. When a creature grows smaller that had large structures, can break off and be destroyed. The larger your constructions, the more monster threats it will attract. This is the same with land, vehicle, or self claims. Large creature structures allow players to unlock wildlife culture skills and controls that further affect the environment in a radius affect, as long as they have the needed resources.

Lessen Wildlife Claim's Influence
You may want to fly more under the radar, or prefer speed over size and strength. You can halt, lessen, or grow a wildlife claim's growth by toggling their target size. By default, it will be set to growth.

Breaking your Wildlife Claim and Reclaiming
You can disengage from your wildlife claim from anywhere, by accessing the option in your core menu. Whether removing the claim, or trust/bond reaches 0, your creature will buck you and any construction/carts/equipment off, and will run away and return to a wild state. Players can try to reclaim them, after a long cooldown, or a player can try to re-claim something else. If a creature dies and the corpse starts rotting, the animal claim is also lost. They did not resurrect them in time. Players can use consumables like herbs, potions, charms, and quests at shrines and altars, to recover their creature before this point.

Herd/Packs of Multiple Players
Players can combine, trade, and gift herds/packs of the same species to another wildlife claim player, or bartering non-wildlife claim player in special cultured zones using rituals. Players can also create groups and parties combining a herd/pack together. Each member still owns their own herds or packs. Wildlife claims can still form guilds with wildlife claims of other species, but players should consider their herd/pack reactivity radiuses and strategize distance, or proximity when getting closer to incompatible species.

Logging Out at Your Claim
All players logged off turn into a firefly and can log off anywhere. When logged off your wildlife claim will persist in game with protections. If you log off near or while mounted on your wildlife claim, your firefly will travel with them. Combined herds/packs will follow the leader of the group when offline, but won't give them control of the herd/pack. A leader can disband a following herd/pack and the wildlife claim that controls it will pathfind on their own. Players will need to strategize group sizes so monster attraction increases or decreases as desired. Only the owner of the lost herd/pack member will gain the nature favor upon getting harvested.