Courtesy of the dracnari, the new skill of Beastmastery has entered the
Basin of Life. THIS SKILL WILL EVENTUALLY REPLACE RIDING. Until we are
ready to retire the skill of Riding permanently, your skill level in
beastmastery will use the skill level in Riding and vice versa (i.e.,
learning in one will be the same as learning in the other). Beastmastery
involves raising special beasts and training them in special abilities.
Teaching them requires the use of reagents which is a new skill in
alchemy. You must keep your beasts fed while they are out of their
stables with special feed created with a new skill in Cooking. See HELP
BEASTMASTERY for more information.

Some of you who frequent the forums may have noticed that we have always
rejected any ideas for Riding and ducked any conversations with Riding.
That's because we have always had the idea for Beastmastery but just
never the time to implement it. However, while we were in the process of
updating so many skillsets brought up with the special envoy report
process, we decided to sneak Beastmastery in and ready it for release
during the anniversary, and this is the result!

Thus, I hope you will enjoy yet another unique skillset brought to you
by the fine designers and coders of Lusternia! Everyone who participated
in the scavenger hunt and got a "ball of flesh" will note that it is now
a colt in a stasis field, which is your first beast! Right now, horses
are the only beasts we have released which we are using to test
Beastmastery (sold in Stewartsville). Ultimately, we will release more
beasts and retire the Riding skillset.

NOTE ON PETS: We will no longer sell pets as you currently know them. In
the future, they will be beasts with special powers. However, if you
currently have a pet, it is your choice to have it converted to the new
beast system (recommended) or leave it as it is. Please ISSUE yourself
if you want an existing pet converted to a beast to be used with
beastmastery.

Pets take awhile to get used to and take some time to train so please
don't jump to any assumptions that they are overpowered or unbalanced
(we really don't believe they are). However, we will be monitoring
Beastmastery closely and will be looking for input on the forums.

As a word of advice, after your beasts reach adulthood (one year after
their "birth"), their physical appearance will PERMANENTLY change based
on their diet, so be careful! Feeding a horse a diet of meat, fish and
eggs will look much different from one fed on a diet of oats, vegetables
and fruit!


Penned by My hand on the 4th of Tzarin, in the year 218 CE.