Breeding for 'type'

[Verdana]

Hi there.

So I've recently been considering breeding aims, and I've noticed a lot of variation between wyrm species. It might be interesting to start breeding for 'type'. Instead of creating a whole new breed, it might be nice to try creating a specific line of an existing breed, that conforms particularly well to breed standards. This, in turn, could tie very well into future photography conformation shows for the game.

The question then becomes, I know you've done a video for ideal leaf crawler conformation and shape, but is there a source of information for other wyrms as well? Is this something we, as the wyrm community, can help compile?

[Arazia]

While I will not answer this definitively and will leave that up to HMS, I believe 'confirmation' has been discussed before in the past.

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My understanding is, in general, Wyrms are magical creatures, as opposed to pets. We want to avoid things such as linebreeding, inbreeding, etc. in order to secure certain traits. Also, due to having multiple sculptors, styles can vary dramatically, so defining a specific things falls into a bit of a gray area.

The thing is, an alpha of a breed, will always be the best traits/appearance for that breed. Which means that if there were to be competitions, there really wouldn't be much competition, if that makes sense. Alphas, or offspring of alphas, would likely always win.

Now, you could, perhaps, make rules that you cannot have any alphas in the Wyrm's lineage, but that starts to get exclusionary.

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Now, that said... it is entirely possible to look for individuals who have certain alpha-like traits in order to breed closer to an alpha individual. I do this myself with Growlers. I look for growlers with more fierce demeanors and highly-visible markings as breeding stock, since that is an alpha trait. We do take into account parentage, so you could basically breed ideal individuals and get something that is close to, if not is, an alpha by breeding for the right things.

[Verdana]

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks Zia!

I guess my next question is: What are the Alpha traits of each different wyrm type? Are they recorded or are we still discovering this?

[HopefulMonster]

The handlers are discovering it, I'm actually going to be going over my notes w staff this Thur and HOPEfully getting some writing done this weekend. My plan is to give little snippets from the full book and have them available in the wiki online, for free. The full finished book will obviously have more in depth info and art, but the wiki will at least given the basics of the different Types and Breeds.