The Biome Project (LF contributions, WIP)

So scouting and biomes are probably one of my favorite Wolvden mechanics. In Lioden I basically only ever explored the starter biome and sometimes rainforest because leveling is really hard. But, in Wolvden instead of levelling up the only thing you need is pain, buff wolves, and more pain! Hooray!
I'm making this thread to advise people on which are best to explore in and eventually settle in, because I have all unlocked except Rainforest (my wolves aren't buff enough yet.)  I've only lightly explored some, though, so this will be updated as I cycle through all of them.

Keep in mind when choosing which biome to settle in, you'll lose all biomes except your home biome when your lead wolf dies. Also, home biomes affect what herbs your forager can get, and the difficulty affects how hard hunting is.

Tundra

Pros: So many carcasses! Walrus pups (16 uses) muskox calves (8 uses) and seal pup carcasses (10 uses) are common results from encounters. In addition, amusement in the form of duck feathers and gyrfalcon feathers (6 uses) is common. Also, the canada goose encounter can give lucky feet.

Cons: Herbs are basically only universal herbs (Dandelion, Charcoal, Yarrow) and bearberry. Missing a lot of multibiome encounters, and not a lot of acorns or acorn-related encounters.

Glacier is fucking insane. It is way harder than tundra to scout, requiring a wolf with 101 wisdom to scout and taking significantly longer than tundra with the same wolves despite being the same category. The end result is mostly worth it, though.

Glacier inherits many of my favorite Tundra encounters. The ribbon seal encounter (chance at 16 uses of food), the king eider encounter (the raccoon pays 5sc for crab legs for some reason), the arctic hare encounter (guaranteeing a 4use gull carcass if you select watch)  and the gyrfalcon encounter (6 uses of amusement). Glacier also has a lot of great encounters that are only found there, though keep in mind since glacier is Fucking Insane grouse house is missing some explore encounter results. For example, attacking the glacous gull has a chance of failure. I'd submit something to the grousehouse guide, but I keep forgetting to screenshot it so rip

Offering an acorn to a little auk gives 5 mollusk shells, or 10 uses of amusement. Following the polar bear cubs gives you whale rib bones (8 uses of amusement), Scavenging carefully at the walrus herd also gives whaleribs. Lastly, the glaucous gull I mentioned earlier can give a gull carcass (or playing gives a gull feather instead.) Playing with a porpoise gives 10+hp

On the other hand, Glacier is very isolated. It's missing almost every multi-biome encounter out there. In addition, it has no native herbs period, which means the only thing you'll find universal herbs. At least you won't end up with a shitload of useless bearberry like in tundra. If you move to Glacier, when your lead dies you're stuck in a very isolated corner. The first biome you'll have to scout out is Tundra, which will be pesky herbwise for a while. Like Tundra, Glacier is a Challenging biome, so even if your hunters are high prof and synergy you'll likely only find critters. Glacier also does not have any encounters to obtain acorns.

I will add more writeups later; please share abt your biome experiences below!

Ooh, I’ll be stalking this thread 👀 I haven’t explored too much for lore reasons, but of the few I have (most to least extensively: Mountains > Grasslands > very little Desert and Coniferous Forest)

• Mountains beaver encounter is great for Lucky Foots (feet? it’s a proper noun); haven’t had nearly as much luck getting them elsewhere
  
• On the other hand, I don’t seem to have nearly as many healing encounters from the Mountains as I have in the other biomes (based solely on a Feel and not stats, so take with salt)
• After seeing people talk about it on this thread, I checked out the Desert for the hummingbird/flower encounter and it does not disappoint. 8+ HP! free!!
• I got a lot more Bones from the Mountains than Grasslands, to the point where after exploring the Grasslands & nowhere else for a few days I started running out for the first time

Might be back with more observations as I get used to the other places? Also, I feel the intro of this post on a spiritual level and appreciate your sense of humor.

WHY NOT VISIT THE DESERT! WE GOT:

HEALTHY FLOWERS +8 HP dont be shy, EAT UP!!

DEAD PECCARY, smelly but delicious, 8 USES WOW!

SNAKES for all your SNAKE KILLING QUESTS from the QUESTING SNAKE

centip uhh millipe  BUGS WITH TOO MANY GOT DANG LEGS

PUNCH A LIZARD GET A BONE _{do not attempt in real life thanks.}

SAND, it is not COURSE or IRRITATING that is a LIE

amazing writeups both of yall
love how the last one feels like a sales pitch

believe me I will try to sell all of wolvden on the DESERT, it is that good. herbs? we got herbs. u need aloe? we're practically GIVING the stuff away.

btw how could i forget the king of all DESERT encounters,

TORTOISE

yeah!!! DESERT BEST BIOME and I say that with conviction, I have explored them all except for RAINFOREST (working on it) and GLACIER (my wolves are TOO DUMB)

*sweats in always murdering the tortoise*

*tortoise kickflips off of your lead wolf and skateboards away into the desert sunset*

tragic
also abt to explore prairie bc i heard its cool 

I will argue that the lack of herbs in Tundra is not a con for all of us! I can consistantly *always* have 5x Healing Salves crafting because the ingredients are two of the three herbs available in Tundra! It's my home biome *and* where I choose to explore (for the carcasses) Healing Salves are sooo important to me for leveling my lead, more then any random other cure may be.

Yeah, the lack of herbs in Tundra are a mixed bag because on one hand healing salve cures but on the other side i need to convert a bunch of herbs to make basically everything else
i want to have a cure for everything on hand just in case a scout catches illness before rollover or smthn