AB DRUIDRY HEARTWOOD
Syntax: HEARTWOOD SEEK
With reverence for their living essence, you may ask the trees to offer a part of their living heart for you. This gift will only be given sparingly.

A single lumber commodity may be obtained from mature trees once a lusternian month, with the item spawning randomly throughout the day.

Chopping/mulching trees will still give multiple lumbers, of course.


AB HUNTING DEADWOOD
Syntax: COLLECT DEADWOOD
Under the forest eaves your discerning eyes can discover caches of fallen branches providing small quantities of lumber.

As rare as foraging, sometimes a hunter can turn up a lumber commodity in forest/jungle.

Foraging is really, really common. I've never had a problem with it since Achaea and I swear it's highly undervalued.

First one looks good though.

Yeah, but it would give both city people and commune people a chance to get wood.

Hopefully we'll have neutral forest/jungle areas in time so the city people can chop without being enemied, but until then they have no way to get wood.

I just want a way we can get wood without having druids running around killing trees. I mean, I get the 'give a life for the forest' concept of mulching, but doing it for wood is a step away from farming.

Can you imagine if there was a skill to force fae to give up their essence, making some precious commodity? How many Moondancers would be favourable to setting up a system for periodically killing a few?

Haha it would be funny if the moondancers turned into vampires and they needed fae blood to sustain them.

Hmm, what's wrong with farming?

Well, would Moondancers have a problem farming fae?

Edit: You could allow them to wander in the Ethereal Serenwilde until they reach a certain age, at which point their spirits have grown to their maximum potential and by killing them (very calmly, they are happy to suicide if told to) you can extract quite a bit of magical commodities to sell.

For one thing, they're sentient beings. We don't exactly "tend" them and kill them so that others can grow either. They have different requirements so the comparison doesn't translate properly.

For another, in a way, yes. Although it would be horrible for us to think of it that way IC, we bring them to us and draw off their power for our magics. You could call that farming from an OOC perspective.

Lastly, doesn't farming imply a pretty deep connection with the land, knowing how it works, how to use your magic to fertilise and grow it, and so on? Don't we already do this for herbs already? I'm pretty sure I could name a couple Hartstone herbalists given a short while.

The trees are sentient too. They speak to us. They moonharts will tell us if they are or are not ready to be mulched.

Alright, I'll concede that. Even so, though, mulching for trees is needed, mulching for Fae is not - what's okay for one isn't necessarily good for the other, so trying to determine if one thing is okay based on whether it'd be okay for the other isn't a good way of going about it.

Meh I don't really care about mulching trees. Some of the Hartstone are hypocrites The same ones that cry about the poor trees are the same ones that were out there killing untold amount of wild animals to get the familiar they want.

I am not saying either way is right or wrong but atleast choose a way and stick with it.

I would say a lot of Druids think of the forest and trees and sentient beings (I know Elryn does). And yeah, I know it isn't a perfect comparison.

That's analogous to what these skills would provide druids. They benefit you at no cost to themselves. You don't actually steal away their magic.

Ah, herbs. If every herbalist was considered synonymous with a druid... well, we'd have a severe identity crisis. Farming is a tool of civilization using the natural world for its own ends. I want Druids to revere forests, not turn them into artificial gardens.

With these skills, at least we have a choice that isn't asking everyone to abandon their skillsets.

that disturbs me OOC, the plants are just as alive as the animals.

...

Whether they're ALIVE or not has absolutely nothing to do with it.

And Elryn, why does it have to be synonymous? The point is that it's -acceptable- for herbs. So farming isn't a bad thing, because druids don't mind that. They also don't mind Estelbar (notably the only farming village discounting Acknor, and it's the most rural one, closest to the Communes in nature even) farming. Farming still seems far more like a Commune's job than a city's. The cities are too disconnected from the land to understand how it works, compared to the Communes, more in tune with nature and able to do such a thing. It's an odd concept to cast negative connotations over from my perspective.

What I find stupid is you can count each room in the Serenwilde as probably having hundreds of trees, only one of those trees though is capable of being cut down. Yet because it is an actual object, RP suddenly becomes so treehugging hippyish that you can't possibly cut down the tree! Think of the forest!. Well ummm.. I am thinking of the forest, and I am thinking the forest provides a basic nessecesity of life.

So please give this whole "save the Trees!" a rest, because the trees are perfectly fine. Unless you plan to also boycott artisans, trackers, bookbinders, jewelers, anyone with a pipe, the whole Serenwilde Commune itself which is built out of... trees.... I could go on and on and on

Oh and as for finding Deadfall and using it for lumber. The only thing Deadfall is good for is building a campfire. Wood comes from green trees, not deadfall.

You may have a case for Trackers being able to find deadfall for their traps, as you can justify spikes being made from deadfall, same with darts.

Why not just chop down those saplings and mature trees that are planted all over Serenwilde. Chop em, replant em, chop em. Rinse and repeat.

It's not like it would hurt the forest; no one's going to make a serious attempt at tainting/flooding it.

Because of "OMG save the trees!" probably...?

Saplings don't give wood when chopped and it takes two years to grow a mature tree.

Well most of the Seren is full of mature trees. Chop them all, then replant and wait. If both forests did that the wood problem would be greatly lessened, and it would also earn them a lot of revenue.