Many of us must have wondered why there is often such a delay between when a new creature has been discovered and when this creature can breed in the keep. As there are several creatures that are more than willing to join together for more offspring the moment they grow up. Even when they have only been newly discovered. While on the other side of the coin there are several creatures that have never been willing to breed or only been willing to breed with other creatures to create hybrids.
There is no easy way to research this for all species at the same time, so the first step is to separate creatures on breeding interest and speed of breeding in controllable circumstances. Each creature can be put in a type, which is determined on how long it takes the creature to get comfortable to breed and if it is capable of producing hybrids.
Type one:
After their first discovery it toke time to get them comfortable to breed in controlled circumstances. They also do not have the ability, as known at the time of writing this paper, to breed hybrids.
These creatures needed a special environment or food source to feel really comfortable.
An example to this are the tropical tarsiers. While each hatchling can start climbing the walls the moment they break their eggs open, they do have to learn a lot from their mothers to grow into the well-adjusted social critters they can be. Wild ones had a hard time getting used to the keep and the grounds around it, making them to unwilling to support the magi’s attempts to raise the babies.
But the magi are anything but quitters. In time they managed to find the critters preferred food and temperature range. Keeping the food in the general area and raising the babies in heated rooms. Eventually they managed to grow several babies up will enough that they where willing to reproduce. Having their adults learn about how to move around in the keep with the range of temperatures and teach their babies this.
Type two:
These where willing to breed upon first discovery and breed with just their subspecies.
These are usually creatures with a strong instinct. While they enjoy having adults around to teach them, they are fine on their own. A downside to this is that they don’t like to hang around the keep to much. Even closely bonded to a magi, they will only visit. The only way to spend a lot of time with them is to travel with them.
An example here are the white elks. Theses are split into two subspecies, the bell and the chain. Though there is still a discussion going if they are subspecies or the same species we list separately because of their different looks. While breeding a pair of bell white elk always leads to bell white elk, and breeding a pair of chain white elk will always lead to a chain white elk, breeding a bell with a chain has a 50/50 chance of either and the young are just as virile as their parents.
Type three:
These were willing to breed upon first discovery and tend to only breed with their subspecies, but muddy the waters a bit with a range of colors. Making it harder to find out which color patter is what.
For example, the foxfire skulks. It is known that generally the males are completely golden while females are completely silver. However, both the males as females can be golden with a red back or silver with a black back. While it is easy to assume that the latter two colors are incomplete dominance in gene’s, it still leads to the question of there the red and black came from. And which ever color combination mates with the other, there is a decent chance of a gilded foxfire skulk to be born. Which is a gold and silver combination, meaning the possible red or black disappears again.
Type four:
With these the creatures were more than comfortable with their own strength to begin breeding after they where discovered, it still toke a long time to find the situation in which they would produce hybrids.
The pearl wyrms are a great example of this type. Willing to breed from day one and with the magi gathering so many of them in close enough range, the chances of golden pearl wyrms increased. Especially with magi finding out only pairings of copper and black pearl wyrms had a chance of producing golden pearl wyrm eggs.
Still, it wasn’t until years of keeping the pearl wyrms and leviathans in close range to each other did the hatred the two species had for each other to dissipate enough for a few hybrids between the two to appear. It is safe to assume that these crossings do not appear in the wild unless there is so much food that neither needs to compete with the other for food.
Type five:
These creatures need a special item to come into being. It is not fully known how this works. Sometimes the items are created by the magi, while other times it is a gift from the creatures. For some it requires the end of one life while in other cases it requires the birth of a new life.
Example one:
Elder phoenix. In breeding’s with a phoenix you have a chance of finding an ashen feather. These used to be discarded as trash, but with the rediscovery of Ashen temple we learned that when a phoenix dies in the temples next with an ashen feather, they are reborn as an elder phoenix instead of their normal self. There is still a question whether the elder phoenix was an ancient phoenix type that was lost to the ages, or if it was created by magi during the war long ago as a powerful beast of war.
Example two:
Rabbitsunes. In times when there was not enough prey to go around, some kitsunes resulted to eating berries and plants till they transformed into the rabbitsunes. Sometimes after an egg is born to the rabbitsunes that are bonded with a magi, will offer their magi a gift resembling a carrot shaped cookie. It is not edible to us. Many drunken magi have tried, please stop taking bets.
Instead placing this cookie with an kitsune egg gives this egg the blessing of the rabbitsunes, turning the kitsune egg into a rabbitsune egg.
Example three:
Magi concocting experiments. It is hard to get it right, and many will question if it is right and wanting to know how many eggs were sacrificed to get it just right. But then you see the plush kraken and a stampede starts to get them.
Type six:
These creatures have been known to breed in the wild, but are unable or unwilling to do so in or around the keep.
For some the reason is clear.
To breed eggs you need to be a living being, so the question still remains where the decessus come from each year.
In some cases the magi are to blame. Like with the elephant snails. There is a good reason for it though, as in we want to keep the area around the keep green.
Then there are creatures like the ornate sylph, a creature from an area we have not been to yet. While the few that visited the keep have shown us how the males court a female, they have refused to breed in and around the keep. It could be they need a diet from their native lands or the presence of a material or magic to allow for the forming of an egg. Until we crack the mystery, these creatures will not breed. Maybe drunken bets and the items dropped ‘by accident’ in potion kettles, I’m looking at you winged cats, might lead to discoveries. It would not be the first or last time a drunken magi trips over something so brilliantly stupid that leads to a breakthrough. Sometimes we need to think less. Just not when involving Arkai, poison or anything explosive.
Type seven:
Fake animals. These will never breed, but a skilled artificer can craft more.
Some of these creatures are close to immortal, like the glass phoenix that will keep moving as long as the fire in it’s chest burns.
While others are fragile little things that will stop moving the moment they run out of energy like the kamitori.
Final
For many creatures it takes time and research to find out why they don’t want to breed.
For more creatures unwilling to breed it is important to find out what makes them suited to their natural habitat and if there is something special in that area.
I hope this paper gives you insight in the types of creatures there are based solely on breeding willingness of the first found group and that it gives you an idea of the questions you can ask of any new creature you find to make it happy and healthy enough to breed.
But do not fret. While many creatures only take months to get their mysteries cracked, there are those that can take a year and even then, we may not know everything.
Never give up hope, but make sure to take vacations when desperation starts to strike. Go for a walk, talk to friends, have a drink, and look at new perspectives. Cause sometimes all you need to do is bring an ibex out of the mountains to visit a koi in a lake to discover something new and beautiful.
