Chapter 3.1 Wildlife Resources
Ecological Deities (Added 5/21/26 v1.0)
Ecological Deities are entities that take ownership of a large grid tile of the world. They slowly take turns as if playing a game on the world grids. They take turn defending, attacking, and claiming adjacent world grids. Creatures and resources they summon, give favor (point value) to their deity when they perform actions successfully, which gives them strength to summon more, or evolve them, and take actions in the world. Creatures and resources that are harvested by players, NPC, monsters, and other creatures adds to their favor as an interaction. However, if creatures go hungry, gain diseases, or a resource needs to be cured of rot, deities need to spend their favor to fulfill these requests. Nature based players can strengthen their aligned ecological deity by assisting with these actions instead, providing favor to their own claim, or to the deity, or a half mix to both. The deity also doesn't need to use their strength as well, and can focus expanding their wildlife influence on the world.
Resource Clusters (Fixed 5/21/26 v1.0)
Resource Clusters are tied to their ecological deity. These form resource clusters which are plants (trees, shrubs, etc) or minerals (ore, crystals, etc.) When left alone, resources grow and regrow to full strength when harvested. Leaving a stump/base allows the resource to reform faster. In the world of Spirit Relics, all living plants and minerals function like living veins that grow and shrink, based on the world around them. The locations they grow, (other than from intervention from players, monsters and NPC,) are determined by default by their deities and which world tiles they own. However, they can also grow past a claimed grid space, either through animals traveling, or by expanding into adjacent spaces. Players can also plant seeds if the context is right. (Correct soil type, care, etc.)
Ways to Gather Resources (Fixed 5/21/26 v1.0)
Harvest resources using tools like scythes, axes, and pickaxes
Loot from monster or animal bodies and guts that they have eaten, or if placed on their bodies
Gather from the ground as debris
Open and pick from a resource Inventory (fruit off of a tree, berries on a shrub, crops on a crop stem)
Cultivate by planting seeds, ore seeds, or physically moving and replanting stumps/bases
Resource Behaviors (Fixed 5/21/26 v1.0)
A single resource cluster is a group of plants in close enough proximity to each other. Clusters can be big or small. Edges of the cluster will expand overtime based on the ecology deity's strength, which is determined by how much they are favored. Other factors can speed or slow down a resource's spreading rate. There will be empty paths that resources cannot spread to, for default roads and paths. At times, rot can occur in areas of overgrowth that would need to be combated by nature claim players. Fully rotted resources can be destroyed by vehicles, and large creatures and monsters just by touching it, allowing additional vehicle paths due to their vein-like spread path. (Note that resources will never grow into a "boxed in" shape, even if influenced by players, in these instances, the resource will wilt and not grow. Multiple attempts will have a character say to themselves, "They're too close to grow." This is to avoid areas where players get stuck.)
Resource Spread Influencing Factors
Faster
The tile the resource is on, matches their natural ecology
Strong deity favor may allow some resources to overtake/replace others nearby
Animal(s)/Creature(s) using the cluster and can spread resources
World events that favor spread
Natural increased based on deity favor
Nature based players using nature claim skills
Slower
The grid tile the resource is on, is not claimed by a deity
A monster nest or claim is in affect
Animal(s)/Creature(s) is negatively affecting the spread
World event doesn't favor spread
Decreased based on deity disfavor
Other claims are in affect (land claims)
No natural spread or growth will occur if:
Natural road/path is determined to be there
Cluster is at maximum size for evolution level
During a deity's resource replenishment cycle, blocked growth will be determined first. The calculated final total determines how much spread is in affect, and if there isn't room, a deity will summon resource meteor(s) to crash land somewhere else, to create more cluster growth.
Resource Needs (Added 5/21/26 v1.0)
A deity can give quests to nature based players to plant, move, or spread natural resources. In the case where there are no nature claim players, a deity will summon nature imps to perform actions for them. However, they are not as fast or reliable as players are.
Meteor Landing Zone Visuals (Updated 5/21/26 v1.0)
Meteors can be summoned by a deity or monster to reshape the land. It looks like a giant magic circle, known as an Impact Marker. The inner circle gets bigger, the closer the meteor gets. Once the inner circle meets the outer circle, impact will occur. These meteors vary in size, and will not occur at active land claims, and strong enough influence parked vehicle claims.
When in an Closely Impending Impact (Fixed 5/21/26 v1.0)
If a player is on the impact marker, they will experience a persistent, increasing earthquake. The screen will slowly turn more red. Your character can be severely injured or killed from a meteor impact, but these often take a few days to fall. (Players can still resurrect if a resurrection point was made.) If a player logs off and turns into a firefly when a resource appears on them, they will be moved to the closest radius. In the case that a player can withstand an impact, they will turn into a firefly and be placed in a valid location outside of the impact.
Land Updates (Added 5/21/26 v1.0)
While an impact is updating the land, the land will have an unbreachable wildfire wall in the affected location. Once the land has updated, the wildfire will lift.
Other Resource Abilities (Updated 5/21/26 v1.0)
Evolve
If the right criteria is met, a resource will change, such as a tree sapling to a full tree
Leaving the stump will allow the resource to grow fully to its current evolved state
Players with wildlife claims can hasten the evolution speed of resources
Evolved resources may destroy resources that take up space too close to it
Create Creature Shard
Generates a creature shard to add more wildlife to the world
If there is enough wildlife shards have a chance to generate and not shatter
Lands with Resource Wipeouts (Fixed 5/21/26 v1.0)
In the case where resources get completely decimated by creatures, NPC, world events, monsters, and/or players, other deities will likely attempt to take over the zone. However, if the deity has enough favor, it will continue to send meteors to replenish the land. Overtime, a deity can lose strength. If nothing else can successfully move in and take root, the grid tile will be marked as desolated, and a default desolation deity will take over. Large expanses of desolation can cause deeply unsafe areas, and cause existing non-desolation deities to be more aggressive with ecological takeovers. Desolation deities by default are weaker than ecological deities.
As plant life evolves, so will the creatures.
Created by Jimmy Slaughter