Ecology

Ecology is the system that turns your stable from a pile of stat lines into a squad game. Your tamed creatures have a biome affinity — the right creature in the right place quietly outperforms — and a Health resource that drains in combat and recovers with rest. Together they reward scouting the environment, rotating the right specialists in, and keeping a bench of rested reserves.

One Party, Everywhere

Your expedition party is your one roster: the same creatures back you up in hunts, expeditions, delves, and dispatch missions — there is no separate companion slot.

• The party lends about a quarter of its power to your hunts, added to your attack.
• The party's guard soaks about 40% of incoming damage away from you and into its members' own health pools.

Health, the Fourth Stat

Alongside Power (attack), Guard (defense), and Swiftness (speed), creatures now have ❤️ Health, rolled at taming from per-species ranges. A high-roll Health tame of your favourite species is worth chasing.

• Health is a resource: party members absorb a share of the damage from your fights into their own health pools. Higher guard means a smaller share taken.
• When a member's health hits zero it becomes injured, and the existing injury system takes over.
• Health regenerates only while resting — a creature that is not working, not in your party, and not out on dispatch recovers about 1 health every 30 seconds. This is why deep benches and rotation matter: wounded creatures need to sit out and heal.

Biome Affinity and Thriving

Each species thrives in a small set of biomes (usually its home biome; some thrive in a second — for example cave-dwellers thrive across all delves).

• A thriving member contributes ×1.25 of its stats to that activity — expedition score, hunt support, dispatch rolls.
• There is never a penalty. Affinity is only ever a bonus you discover; the wrong biome simply means no bonus, never a loss.
• Affinity applies to expeditions and Arenas (the biome is known), cave delves (for cave-loving species), hunts (using the hunt's biome), and dispatch missions.

Field Notes

Affinities are hidden until you discover them. The first time a creature thrives in an activity, a Field Note is written:

• a toast fires and the report notes that the creature "was in its element";
• the creature's card — and its whole species, everywhere — is permanently annotated with the biome it thrives in ("🧭 Field note: thrives in the Murkwater Swamp").

Species descriptions carry soft hints ("thick coat", "eyes like lanterns") for players who like to read the signs before the note is earned. Field notes found while you are away are summarised on return.

See Also

• Creatures — species, diets, and home biomes
• Taming — how creatures and their stats are acquired
• Field Guide — where earned field notes are displayed
• Achievements — the Naturalist track (Field Notes earned)