Farming & Forestry
Canon
Two gathering branches of the island ladder, shaped like the mining branch: a few islands each, spanning the world tiers, internally progressing through crop tiers and tree tiers instead of ore bands. Farming runs from a starter Farmer's Island to volcanic farming at the endgame; Forestry from the beginner Forest to the mist-shrouded Mistwood and beyond (names and slicing illustrative until the content pass). The island portal (Farming or Woodcutting level) is the only hard check; inside, a crop or tree needs its skill tier to plant, harvest, or fell — the same soft-gate the ore bands use.
Danger is a gradient, not a rule. Early gathering islands are peaceful like the mines; the advanced ones — volcanic farms, Mistwood — are hostile, keeping V1's high-risk endgame gathering identity. Danger differentiates the branches: mining stays the calm focus loop, endgame farming and forestry trade risk for reward — and their creatures pay MobCoins by the standard per-tier rolls, income the peaceful mining branch deliberately lacks.
Home farming is encouraged. Planting on your personal island is a first-class early/mid loop — V1's explicit wish that players want to expand their island farm. The mining precedent applies: seeds and saplings above your skill tier cannot be planted at home. The adventure pull is biome-locked region crops, not a home-yield penalty: common crops grow anywhere, but volcanic crops (Emberroot, Flame Melons, Magma Berries…) grow only in volcanic soil, Mistwood trees only in the mist — exclusive goods, in their regions, forever.
Eternal Seeds and Eternal Saplings are the long-horizon gathering goal: rare, tradeable items that, once planted, regrow permanently with superior yields. They are earned in play — profession milestones, rare drops, merchant stock, crate loot (the Farmer's Dream crate ruling, 2026-07-16) — and they trade like the profession-economy flagship goods they are: a master farmer selling Eternal Wheat is the farming economy working. Magnitudes and unlock routes are owner-tuned data.
Region merchants on these islands follow the markets canon (island-gated, both halves of the Coin faucet/sink). Quest-flag unlocks — including V1's Farmer's Island resource turn-ins — are the reserved second gate, wired in the quests session.
Decisions
D-FARMING-FORESTRY-01 — two branches, few islands, tier-layered inside (ratified 2026-07-16)
Farming and Forestry each get a small set of islands across the world tiers, internally progressing through skill-tier-gated crop/tree content — the mining-branch shape (D-MINING-CAVES-01) applied to its gathering siblings. One pattern for all gathering branches keeps the world legible.
Rejected: one island per branch (the world-tier ladder does nothing for the skill); an island per crop/tree tier (portal hops replace the farm/forest feel).
D-FARMING-FORESTRY-02 — peaceful early, hostile at the advanced islands (ratified 2026-07-16)
Owner ruling. The danger gradient keeps V1's high-risk volcanic/Mistwood identity and separates gathering textures: mining calm, endgame farming/forestry risky. Hostile gathering islands earn MobCoins by the standard creature rolls — a deliberate income difference from the peaceful mining branch (D-MINING-CAVES-02).
Rejected: peaceful everywhere like mining (uniform, but erases V1's endgame gathering identity and all gathering MobCoin income); a pure per-island data flag with no design stance (no canon story about what danger means).
D-FARMING-FORESTRY-03 — home planting is tier-capped; region crops are biome-locked (ratified 2026-07-16)
Home farms are encouraged and expandable; the skill tier caps what can be planted (the ore-generator precedent). Adventure farming islands stay essential because their crops are exclusive to their biome, never because home yields are taxed — the pull is "different", not "more".
Rejected: floor-rated home yields (punishes the home farmer V1 explicitly wants encouraged); both levers at once (double penalty); no home farming (contradicts the skyblock substrate outright).
D-FARMING-FORESTRY-04 — Eternal Seeds/Saplings: permanent-regrowth, earned, tradeable (ratified 2026-07-16)
Rare items that upgrade a crop or tree into a permanently regrowing, higher-yield version. Earned only in play — profession milestones, rare drops, merchant stock, crate loot — and fully tradeable: the bazaar carries them as fungible goods and they anchor the gathering professions' economy. Consistent with the 2026-07-16 crate boundary ruling (crates are earned by playing).
Rejected: bound-to-earner Eternals (protects grind prestige but removes the flagship gathering trade good); deferring the item to the crates session (crates only need the drop table; the item belongs to its system).
D-FARMING-FORESTRY-05 — the V1 corpus fate table (ratified 2026-07-16)
| V1 idea | Fate |
|---|---|
| Farming/forestry quests, Farmer's Island turn-in unlocks | Deferred → quests session (turn-ins are quest-flag gates; launch gate is skill level per D-WORLD-SYSTEM-04) |
| Mistwood reputation/permission unlocks | Dead — reputation does not exist; the island gate is Woodcutting level |
| Tool progression (area harvest, endgame sickles, enchanted axes) | Deferred → crafting/enchanting canon (tools are gear) |
| Farming minions | Parked — htpets overlap; same intent check as mining minions |
| Greenhouse, fertilizer, crop mutations, weather effects | Parked — future farming expansions; no owning system yet |
| World trees, forestry bosses, druid progression, corrupted forests | Parked — future forestry expansions; bosses belong to the combat session's vocabulary |
| Lava fishing | Deferred → fishing session |
| Seasonal/biome-exclusive seed variants | Biome-exclusive: adopted (D-FARMING-FORESTRY-03); seasonal → events-world session |
| Cooperative farming events | Deferred → events-world session |
Rejected: designing parked items now against undesigned systems.
Tuning
data/farming-forestry.json— island slices per branch, crop/tree tier tables, biome-lock flags, danger flags per island, Eternal Seed/Sapling unlock routes and yield magnitudes. Owner-edited; V1 names are illustrative seeds.
Implementation
No owning mod for gathering content yet. Crop/tree tier requirements ride the hfskills tier-unlock vocabulary (rebuild pending); hostile-island kills feed the standard MobCoin and combat-XP paths; Eternal Seeds/Saplings are plain tradeable items — planted state is world/block state, never a player component. Home planting lands with the island/substrate work, like ore generators.
Open questions
- Crop/tree tier tables and island slicing — owner content pass.
- Eternal Seed/Sapling magnitudes and which unlock route dominates — owner tuning; the crate drop table lands in the crates session.
- Whether Mistwood's "magical materials" (enchanted bark, glowing sap) are enchanting inputs — dungeons & enchanting session.
- Volcanic hidden content (secret caves, hidden bosses) — content pass + combat session.
- Whether hostile gathering islands need safe farming pockets (plant in peace, travel at risk) — owner call at content pass.