Codex HOW TO PLAY Harvesting & Foraging

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Harvesting & Foraging

The wilds are full of things to gather by hand as you wander: plants and herbs, mushrooms, honey, oysters, and piles of fallen wood and loose stone. Standing trees and rock need a tool, and have their own page (see LUMBERING & MINING).

GATHERING

Walk up to a plant or a pile and hold E. You kneel to the work while a bar fills; let go early and it drains back. No tool is needed, and it costs neither stamina nor focus. One gathering takes everything the node has: it is gone, and grows back in half an hour. Sometimes a node gives you nothing — a Juiceroot not yet in flower, a Honeybug Mound with no honey in it — but it is spent all the same. You cannot gather in the middle of a fight, from the saddle, or with a menu open.

WHAT YOU FIND

  • Berry Bush — one to three Berries.
  • Corn Stalk — an ear or two of Corn.
  • Juiceroot — now and then a Juiceroot; a plant in flower nearly always gives one, often with Juiceroot Seeds to sow.
  • Earthbread — one to three Earthbread Mushrooms. Shaman mushrooms give one or two Shaman Mushrooms.
  • The healer's herbs — Greenleaf, Brownleaf, Bitterleaf and Bluereed give a leaf or two (Greenleaf now and then a tuft of Vegetal Fibers too); Red Fern, Sleepweed and Deathpenny give one.
  • Ropeweed — one to three Vegetal Fibers, the thread of every first tool. Swamp Weed gives a stalk or two.
  • Honeybug Mound — sometimes Honey, and very rarely a Honeybug Queen Larva.
  • Oyster — Oyster Meat, and once in a while a Pearl.
  • Deadwood Pile — Wood Scraps and Wood Sticks, sometimes Vegetal Fibers or a Larva.
  • Stone Pile — two to five Stone, and often a Sharp Stone or two for your first blades.

See PLANTS for what each plant is good for.

STRUCK, NOT PICKED

Fallen Dead Wood (old logs and stumps) and the desert Cactus must be cut down instead, with a hatchet or an axe; a knife barely scratches them. Now and then a blow knocks loose Wood Scraps, a Wood Stick or a Cactus Chunk, and when it breaks it gives the rest: scraps, a stick and sometimes a Larva from Dead Wood, one or two Cactus Chunks from a Cactus. Bare fists knock the odd scrap off Dead Wood, and pay for it in Work Injuries. Both grow back in half an hour.

SKILLS

  • Forager — every find from a node you pick is half again as large (a single leaf becomes two), though it makes no find likelier. It counts for your own Farm Plots and Mushroom Pots too.
  • Bushcrafter — the focus look (X) outlines the plants, mushrooms, Honeybug Mounds and Deadwood and Stone Piles around you.
  • Builder — each blow at Dead Wood or a Cactus knocks loose half as much again.

THEIR CROPS

On a people's own land, the Greenleaf, Corn, Juiceroot, Ropeweed, Earthbread and Honeybug Mounds belong to them, and a red mark before the name says so. Gathering them where their folk can see is theft, even when the plant gave you nothing (see CRIME). Berries, the other herbs, oysters and the piles are free to all.

Every find earns a little experience.