Bushcrafting/Hunting Rambling

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Teri
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Bushcrafting/Hunting Rambling

Post by Teri »

Tossing all this up now but will likely add more in the future when I can eyeball some more recipe info's I intended to look at.


Bushcraft:
Assorted bushcraft ideas that use the bushcrafting skill to create. Additionally, currently the hand-woven cordage can by created from crushed fibers, but most end result things need to be tailored.
Grass skirt/kilt
Wicker basket that can be carried over shoulder with straps
Wearable small pouch of some kind (Navi suggested this before as well)
Hand-woven cordage wrap
Hand-woven cordage loincloth
Deer antler pickaxe
Lithic or stone axe (thinking chunks from mining could be used for some simple tools)
Throwing hammers (or allow current lithic hammers to be thrown, but full hammers that benefit for classes that get the throwing bonuses would be cool)




A suggestion for small lithic shards to be reworded as lithic arrowheads as it isn't obvious one is knapping arrow heads.

Trapping:
Currently, small game snares can catch all but coyotes, I think. They also catch lynx. My suggestion would be for different types of snares. The current in game description is small game snares.
Small game snare-Can catch small game animals, maybe require bait once a day? Berries, carrots, plants, or meat for small carnivores. They could also be for any birds in the future.

Medium game snare variation that requires more materials. Something that can catch lynx, coyotes (I can't remember tarruk sizes, but maybe those too)


Deadfall trap. Small, medium, or large. Could be variation with multiple stones, or chunk of stone. They can range from ones to work on mice all the way up to bears, materials and time willing. Could be very resource intensive given mostly wounding or killing animals caught in them.




Hunting/Tracking:

Generalized risk counter for hunting overs time that spawns in some predatory animal drawn to the activity or 'blood' of the hunter going forth for an extended amount of time. A hidden counter so it will be a surprise muahaha. (I am inspired by Don't Starve where there is a counter for Krampus trying to kill you for killing too many 'innocent' things/trees getting angry for cutting too many and trying to kill me. I screamed like nothing else the first time a tree started walking to murder me)
The day I was tracking a coyote and it turned out to be a Notcoyote (wolf prototype oops that bug escaped into the wilds that masqueraded as coyotes) was pretty exciting when I was not expecting something hostile to attack my horse. It would be neat to be tracking anything and have a random chance for something aggressive have eaten what we were tracking and go for us next.

It would be neat if trackers could disguise their own footprints, hide their own footprints, or fake animal footprints. It would also be neat if the skill itself pointed out exactly which footprints belong to ourselves if we happen to be go in circles and go ah, drat I stepped over the same spot *again* while not wanting to muddle tracks.
Last edited by Teri on Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Teri
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Re: Bushcrafting/Hunting Rambling

Post by Teri »

On foods:

My next ideas were related to foods, or travel foods. Currently cooked fish can't be stored, so my idea would be for fish filets to be cut from fish, then cooked similar to meat instead of the whole fish. It would give larger fish more worth as currently as small fish sells the same price as a large fish after being cooked. My suggestion would be for fish to be fileted into one-pound cuts of fish. Since fish weights vary, my suggestion would be 7-pound whatever fish becomes 5 or 6 cuts of fish. Then same cooking mechanics for meat, either frying or skewer.


And next on ideas, making our own jerky! 5 pounds of meat to make 1 pound of jerky. But how, exactly? Typically for dried meat it takes 5 pounds of meat to make one-two pounds of jerky depending on water content and type of cut/meat

Vague recipe idea to craft it:
Three large branches to make a tripod, tied together with thread or hand woven cordage, or rope
Three medium branches, creating a triangle on the tripod
Six small branches to create a 'shelf'
More large branches?
The next step would be thatching with large spruce or pine branches to cover the tripod, keep insects from landing on it, and trap heat in around the meat for drying. It would typically take many hours or a day for the finished meat. Throwing out it will take 30 minutes or something as a 'cooking' time.
This recipe would also include the same components for a campfire or campfire bundle.
Here is the link to a guide to building a smoker https://frontierbushcraft.com/2020/04/2 ... 6347656250



My next food idea I would love would be a form of pemmican. From some googling it was usually a 1:1 ratio of fat to dried meat, with less fat if intended as travel rations with dried berries mixed in. My recipe idea would be jerky combined with berries for a high nutrition, but not necessarily tasty food item. The intent is to have a higher nutrition food item that is lighter and would in theory last longer while traveling in the wilderness. As we currently don't have fat in game, 10 berries to every pound of meat or something. My recipe idea would be jerky combined with berries for a high nutrition, but not necessarily tasty food item. The intent is to have a higher nutrition food item that is lighter and would in theory last longer while traveling in the wilderness. If it takes extra time, or material or both I would find it worth the end result.


On survival disconnects in bushcrafting:

There currently isn't a way to start a fire simply without having firestones. There is a fireboard and spindle, but the fireboard is crafted from split logs only. My recommendation would be for fireboards to be crafted from large branches, or for deadwood logs to also be utilized.
The other problematic one in my mind is thornleaf. It can only be gathered with gloves, but for someone doing a bit more survival rp ideas there are no craftable gloves using bushcrafting. I know there are shop purchasable gloves, but I feel a character going firm for survival stuff would like to be able to make their own gloves for it, or raw hamburger their hands picking it, some extra colour for the fibers. If we had rawhide crafting that would be one glove idea, or barkcloth gloves (Even though the skill thresholds for crushing bark are above thornleaf.) My other idea would be to let characters pick without gloves and take the damage while still picking the thornleaf.
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Lexx416
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Re: Bushcrafting/Hunting Rambling

Post by Lexx416 »

Teri wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 11:43 am On foods:
Gonna reiterate my own ideas I've posted on another thread, for Bushcraft Cooking!

These are all honestly just mostly copied and pasted from my Bushcraft Suggestions page (with a few edits since this was originally posted when we had recipe points), but I think that the culinary experience of being a bushcrafty person is kind of a drag - it's challenging, but mostly because you don't have a way to create travel food, rather than being challenging in terms of preparing foods (similar to how creating a tool is challenging, but still interesting).

Bushcraft Cooking Methods

The following are some methods for cooking in the wilderness, that allow for someone to travel lightly. They should produce average at best quality foods, and all involve a little more prep time than conventional cooking. This could even be a general ability (Survival Cooking, Wilderness Cooking, Bushcraft Cooking, etc.) that unlocks all of these options, perhaps with a requirement of 50 or 100 bushcraft. Or perhaps it unlocks these options at varying skill thresholds of Bushcraft, to help maintain relevancy of investing into the Bushcraft skill.

Firepits

A firepit is a small semi-permanent 'structure' built in any area that has soil or dirt soft enough to dig; as long as a PC is in a room with one, the firepit should remain active, but should be janitored away fairly quickly when a PC is no longer present. A firepit should also be BURYable. A firepit is essentially just a shallow pit in the earth (free of forest duff), a ring of (not river) stones, or a combination of the two. The method should generally be to dig a shallow pit, and to simultaneously build a fire within it. As such, this should probably take a decent amount of RT to do, and should require firewood and kindling. Upon completion, it should produce an Unlit Firepit, which can then be lit.

The biggest difference between a firepit and a small campfire should be the production of hot coals, as cooking directly over a campfire is actually not usually a great idea. So after burning for a few moments, there should be hot coals present, which essentially unlocks the following cooking methods to the PC.


Stone Cooking

This is a very simple method of cooking. This involves taking a wide, flat stone, placing it next to a fire to warm up, and placing food on it to cook. This can likely cook anything simple that a pan or skillet can make. Strips or chunks of meat, vegetables, fried eggs (though the latter two would still require a fat source, which could be obtained from hunted game). I'm not sure of the syntax required, but simply being able to forage a COOKING STONE in the appropriate area, and then placing it in or on the Firepit might suffice. A cooking stone should have a lower weight compared to a skillet, and it would be a nice touch if the stone had to cool for a few minutes after being used to cook, to pick back up.


Plank Cooking

This is a little more complicated method of cooking, which requires someone to have a slat or plank of wood carved from a log, small wooden stakes, and pieces of meat. Strips or pieces of meat are pinned to the slat/plank with the stakes (using a hammer or the back of a hatchet, or a hammer stone/foraged lithic), and the plank (with meat) is placed on the coals of a fire, allowing you to roast them. This could have a pretty high volume of meat cookable at one time. A cooking slat or plank could be used several times before it degraded into uselessness from charring. Much like the "spindle and fireboard" issue mentioned in Teri's post, it'd be nice if this could be made from deadwood (maybe with a lower durability).

Ash Cooking

This is an easy, but somewhat unwieldy, way of cooking that allows a person to cook food slowly in leaves. This is my personal favorite, as it creates little packages of leaves, which perhaps could be used to prolong the spoilage of meat a little bit as an added bonus.

Essentially, you just need large leaves, cordage, meat, and a knife. You would simply place meat (and optional spices) onto a leaf, and with cordage in your inventory, WRAP the leafe with cordage. The next step requires hot coals. You simply place the package of leaves onto coals, and it cooks. To get to the meat, you just hold the bundle, and CUT it open with a knife, which destroys the container.


Stick Roasting

Another pretty simple way to cook. This is just taking carved skewers, skewering meat, and roasting it over coals.

Boiling/Stewing/Etc.

Meat, vegetables, fish, and shellfish can also be boiled! This requires decent sized clay vessel (pot or vase) filled with water (salt and seasoning optional). Then, heat up a couple of rocks, and place them (tongs are fairly easy to make from split branches, I'd use Small Branches as the recipe option personally) in the water, to boil.

Jerky

Jerky is pretty simple! Realistically, making jerky in the wilderness requires either a smokeshack and 3-4 days, or a climate that isn't very humid. The process is to set up a tripod over a firepit that's producing a lot of smoke, tying sticks or carved staves between the three poles of the tripod (one stick to each pole, and then two sticks in a Cross or X shape over the fire directly), hanging marinaded/seasoned meat, and then covering the tripod with boughs of pine. The meat must be cut at 1/8 of an inch to allow it to dehydrate properly, and to prevent flies from laying eggs in it. It also must be as lean as possible, as fat goes rancid. This method produces, in real life, jerky that can last 1-2 weeks.

A jerky marinade can be as simple as: salt, honey, and any other spices and herbs desired.

Seasoning

Just because it's being cooked out in the wilds, doesn't mean there can't be seasonings! Simply taking different savory or sweet herbs and including them in the wrapped leaves method would make it simple to season food. Similarly, being able to take foraged herbs and spices, grinding them together, and sprinkling the seasoning on cooked meat, or rubbing it onto uncooked meat should work as well.

Other Things To Cook

Provided we have access to coastal regions again, we should be able to forage for seafood! Crabs, cockles, clams, oysters,scallops, even lobsters can all be found in shallows. Similarly, small shellfish can frequently be found in shallow rivers, which make for great, easy ways to cook - plenty of small shellfish can just be thrown into a pot and boiled for soup.

Coconuts, similarly, are great sources of food in the appropriate environs! A coconut can he husked with a sharp stick (or with one's teeth) or rock, which provides a great source of tinder. Then simply crack a coconut with a stone, and the water within can be drank (and could provide minor nutrition). After this, simply use a small, sharp rock or knife to carve the actual coconut 'meat' from the shell. This can be eaten as is, but it can also be wrapped up in coconut husk, and squeezed over a bowl, to produce coconut milk. Coconut milk can be further processed by placing a hot rock in the bowl, to create coconut oil!



On survival disconnects in bushcrafting:

A good midway point between this could be letting bushcrafters, at low skill thresholds, make a set of "hand wraps" from handwoven cordage, which would allow folks to pick thornleaf (and maybe have a chance at giving some kind of small boon to climbing!), but doesn't allow for fine manipulation of objects - so no drawing with chalk, crafting, or locksmithing while you're wearing hand wraps. You could similarly have very primitive clothes made from cordage, so that bushcrafters can figure out clothing without having to run back to town.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
Agelity
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Re: Bushcrafting/Hunting Rambling

Post by Agelity »

I love the distinction between firepit/campfire, and think that having the ability to create firepits could be good for additional flavor as well as making it easier to manage cooking certain foods more than a simple campfire (which can get the job done in a pinch, but not as sufficiently).

I was also thinking that if one added another things to a campfire (up to a max capacity) they could potentially make a bonfire. I'm not sure if this ought to be left as a higher bushcrafting skill, applicable only in certain areas, etc. but I do like the idea of being able to "upgrade" a campfire to a bonfire if you're willing to put in the extra effort to construct it. Not much additional benefit beyond being brighter/warmer/bigger (hence why it may not be applicable in certain areas that campfires would otherwise be) and not quite as useful for cooking. Based on the room type/size could very well limit the amount of wood that can be added to it, like how a sizable bonfire COULD potentially have timbers or large logs, but smaller campfires might only allow split logs and the like. Not sure how to best approach all of that, but I like the idea of dynamic fire sizes.
Dennis
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Re: Bushcrafting/Hunting Rambling

Post by Dennis »

If firekindling was still a skill, this would be a great way to tier-around the firekindling skill. As it were, it would be a good idea to implement as a means of boosting morale. Such as, hanging out around a bonfire. This could encourage people to gather in the wilderness together, and create those impromptu meeting spaces at neutral grounds. People being around a bonfire could gain morale every so and so period of time, but making a bonfire might need a lot of bushcrafting experience to pull of properly. This could reward bushcrafters and really give those more wilderness-inclined individuals more tools to work with.
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