Animals
The animals of Mythwild
About 140 animals of 28 kinds live in Mythwild at any moment, spread across the countryside, the savanna, the Alps and Bruce's estate. Each kind has its own home, its own call and its own way of reacting to you. Most run. A few will fight back if you start something, and one or two have rules of their own that are worth knowing before you walk up to them. This is a field guide to all 28.
How animals behave
Every species has one of three temperaments. Prey animals run when they are hit, and one blow is enough to fell them. Defensive animals never start a fight, but hurt one and it turns on you: it charges, stays angry for about ten seconds after your last hit, and calms down once you are about 46 metres away. After every blow it lands, it pauses for three seconds, so you always get back on your feet with a head start. The first blow any animal lands in a fight only knocks you down; after that they hurt. The dog is the one tame animal. It does not run from you and it never fights back.
Animals keep a routine. Every minute or so each one walks to the nearest water and drinks, which is exactly what brings the savanna's grazers within reach of its crocodiles. Giraffes browse the acacia trees instead. Two defensive animals of different kinds that meet face to face fight until one of them falls, and the game tells everyone in chat when it starts. Two of the same kind never fight; a herd is not a brawl.
An animal that falls is replaced back on its home patch twenty seconds or so later, so the world never empties. A car going faster than about 30 km/h hurts any animal it hits, and the monster trucks, the Battle Buggy and the Hover Tank hit far harder than a car. An angry animal that reaches your car only hurts itself on the bumper: nothing can hurt you while you drive.
Feeding, petting and riding
Feeding. Press F near any animal, wild or tame, and it hops happily with a heart over its head. Each feed adds 10 kindness, and the same animal can be fed again after five seconds. Kindness only ever goes up, and it earns titles you wear on screen.
| Kindness | Title | Kindness | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | Kind Soul | 400 | Hero |
| 50 | Caretaker | 750 | Legend |
| 90 | Guardian | 1,200 | Saint |
| 200 | Champion |
Reaching Guardian and reaching Saint are achievements of their own. Kindness and hunting are counted separately, so you can be a Saint and an Apex Predator at the same time.
Petting. Press ⇧F beside a horse, a cat or a dog. A dog sits and wags hard, a cat rubs along you and purrs, or, being a stray, allows it briefly, and a horse drops its nose into your hand and whickers. Petting earns nothing. It is just the moment.
Riding. The horse is the one animal of the 28 you can ride. Walk up to any free horse that is not angry and press E, and you travel at nearly twice your running speed. A horse jumps when you jump. Nobody can hurt a horse while someone is riding it.
The bestiary and the collection
Walk within nine metres of a kind you have not met and it is discovered. It pays 25 credits, counts towards your level, and fills its row in the bestiary (B), where every species you have not found yet shows as ???. Find all 28 for the Zoologist achievement.
Then there is the saucer. From time to time a pilotable flying saucer comes down somewhere in the world, and its tractor beam lifts creatures aboard. Five abductions of anything earn the Alien Abductor achievement and three alien powers. Taking one of every species is a tour of the whole map, the lion, the Alps and the estate included: the bestiary keeps count, a quarter earns Rustler, half earns Menagerie, and all 28 earns The Collector, after which the saucer comes to you whenever you call it with T. Abducted animals are returned to the world after 75 seconds.
The countryside, the lake and the north
The land round where you first arrive, Mount Drive, the big lake, and the race circuit's country in the north.
Rabbit
Rabbits hop on both hind legs together rather than walking, and a few more live in the meadow around Stonehenge. Wild brown, grey or cream. A rabbit is one of the shapes a shape-shifter can take.
Deer
Stags with antlers, does and yearlings, with two more in the Stonehenge meadow. Startle one and it breaks into a real gallop.
Boar
Tusked males and sows. A boar minds its own business until it is hit, then charges and hits back for 9. It is also a shape-shifter form.
Fox
Red, silver or cross foxes, living beside the ducks on the lake shore. Listen for the yip.
Bear
The bears live right beside where new players arrive, and they behave like real bears. Walk into a calm bear's clearing and it rears up on its hind legs to look at you for a few seconds: a warning, not an attack. It only fights if you hit it first. Then it charges at 14.6 metres a second, a little faster than you can sprint, but pulls up four metres short, twice, standing its ground between charges. That is your chance to leave. Stay, and its mauling does 22 damage, after which it backs off and goes home, because a defensive bear wants you gone, not dead. With 40 health, it takes two swings from the best ordinary blade. Brown, black or cinnamon.
Wolf
Grey timber wolves, arctic and black wolves, and a howl you hear before you see them. They fight back if hurt.
Goat
Goats do not graze the flat. They climb the mountain they live on, towards the peak. Saanen, Nubian and Alpine looks.
Duck
Mallard drakes, hens and white Pekins, heads nodding as they waddle along the water's edge.
Cow
The herd grazes the meadow round the far Stonehenge, behind a grove of pines: Holstein, Hereford, Highland, Jersey and Angus. Every so often a silver disc drops out of the clouds over the stones and beams one of them up. Be within 55 metres when it happens for the Close Encounter achievement.
Horse
The only animal you can ride. Three run the fields by the race circuit and eight live on the estate, four in the stable boxes and four in the paddock. Each horse has its own coat and build: bay, chestnut, dapple grey, black, palomino, appaloosa, roan and cremello. More about the estate's horses below.
Sheep
White woolly, Suffolk, Jacob and freshly shorn sheep, kept together on the north pasture by three working dogs.
Cat
Strays in eight coats, from tabby and ginger to tuxedo, Siamese and Maine Coon. You can pet a cat, and a stroked cat raises its tail.
The savanna
A wide plain on the left-hand side of the map with a waterhole in the middle, where the herds are spread out so you come across them one at a time. Three of its animals are among the toughest in the game, and every one of them that is dangerous gives you a fair warning.
Elephant
Two elephants, an adult drawn at twice normal size and exactly one baby. An elephant has more health than anything else on four legs, so it takes several blows from even the best blades, and its strike does 38, the hardest of any animal. Its charge is slow, though, so you can always walk away. At the water it sometimes fills its trunk and sprays itself. No crocodile will strike while an elephant is near.
Giraffe
The tallest animal in the world, on long legs and a longer neck, and the only one that walks to the acacia trees to browse the canopy instead of going to the water. Some are calves.
Rhino
Long-horned and short-horned rhinos, very hard to bring down. About a third of the savanna's rhinos, giraffes and hippos are calves, half to four-fifths of adult height, with an adult's health.
Zebra
Built like a horse, striped like nothing else. Unlike a horse, a zebra cannot be ridden or petted.
Hippo
Hippos live in the water. Every half a minute or so one goes for a swim and sinks until only the top of its head shows: eyes, ears and nostrils, the way a real hippo does. The crocodiles leave them alone.
Crocodile
The crocodile does not wander over to pick a fight. It holds about fifteen metres of water around itself and lunges at any player or animal that comes into it, with a 17-damage bite. Once angry it holds a grudge for over half a minute and follows much further than other animals. It ignores hippos, other crocodiles and anyone driving, and it backs off completely when an elephant comes near, which makes standing beside an elephant the safest place at the waterhole.
Lion
There is exactly one lion, and he is not always there. He spends a few minutes out on the plain, ranging up to about 130 metres from his den in the rocks, then goes back inside for a few minutes and the savanna is simply lionless. Vultures circle over the den. He never starts a fight, but he will not be stood over: come within about fourteen metres and he turns to watch you, roars a warning after a couple of seconds, and charges at five. Backing off slowly winds the clock down. When he comes, he crouches for a moment, then leaps at where you were standing, and he cannot steer in the air, so moving is the dodge. His bite does 26. Fell him and you are told where his den is, and inside it waits the Lion-Man form.
The Alps
The mountain range on the right-hand side of the map, with its animals spread by height: marmots in the low meadows, the snow leopard on the middle slopes and the ibex on the highest crags. Nothing lives on the peak itself. To reach the very top you need the Wanderer's climbing gear.
Snow Leopard
The only animal in the world that goes hunting. A snow leopard notices prey 55 metres away, stalks it and runs it down, gives up after about fourteen seconds of failing, and rests before it tries again. Prey that spots a hunting leopard bolts. It never hunts the yak, and it never comes after a player who leaves it alone, but it fights back if attacked. You will often come across a hunt whether or not you are part of it.
Yak
A great deal of horned cattle, wild or domestic, and the one animal in the Alps the snow leopard leaves alone.
Marmot
The commonest thing in the Alps, and the snow leopard's most frequent target.
Ibex
The cliff specialist. Billies and nannies keep to the steepest ground, and a few live near the top.
Chamois
Bucks and does ringed round the whole range, so the Alps feel lived in wherever you climb.
Alpine Hare
Hops like a rabbit, in a white winter coat or a brown summer one.
Red Stag
Stags and hinds, bigger than the lowland deer.
Bruce's estate
The family estate has a yard full of animals that belong to somebody: eight horses, a flock of chickens, two dogs, and goats on the mountains ringing it. Animals here come back to exactly where they live, so a stable horse always returns to its stall.
Chicken
The smallest animal in the world. The flock potters about together within a few metres of the coop: white Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds, black Australorps, speckled Sussex and a rooster.
Dog
The 28th species and the only tame one. Two dogs keep the estate company and three work the sheep on the north pasture, in ten breeds from Border Collie and Golden Retriever to Corgi, Dalmatian and Great Dane. Pet one and it sits and wags. A dog shows how it feels with its tail, ears and body, and no leopard hunts one.
The estate's horses
The stable horses graze their own yard by day and walk back into their boxes at night. The paddock horses stay inside the rail unless somebody opens the gate, and then they run out for a minute or so before drifting back. Reneé, the estate's horsewoman, sets five challenges around them: feeding all eight in a day, filling the haynets, catching a loose horse, riding out with her, and clearing both jumps.
Animals that are not in the bestiary
The unicorn steps out of the deep forest now and then, and every third visit it walks onto Bruce's estate instead and stands at the paddock rail while every horse stares at it. Ride it with E, pet it and it prances in a shower of sparkles, and feed it once for a thousand kindness and the gift of flight.
Named animals. Reneé's own mare Bluey only listens to Reneé. Old Gunnar the lumberjack's husky Birch spends her days at the Great Tree, sometimes too busy chasing a squirrel to notice you, and a black Newfoundland called Moss comes to play with her. The Wanderer keeps a collie in the Alps, and Kaléa has a Golden Retriever puppy at the family home. Nova jogs round the world with her dog Biscuit. And at night a black mare roams the open country, bolting from anyone who comes near.
Birds. A flock circles and nests in the 160-metre redwood, butterflies settle on the wildflowers, and vultures mark the lion's den.
The great beasts. The Yeti on Mount Drive, Bigfoot in the deep forest and the Shark in the big lake are bosses rather than animals, and only the best weapons hurt them. They have their own section on the weapons and bosses page, and the world page shows where every region is.
Go and meet them
There are bears a few steps from where you start. It is free, and there is nothing to install.
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