Grendels: Eldritch Enchantments

Last time at the Lavender Grendel's pool party, I was flooded with eggs and the group was doing well. This time I started up the world and was surprised to see Balmora away from her vibraphone. Apparently four was a crowd and she had moved on to pushing plants. Also the grendels on the top of Aquanoria occasionally broke the laws of physics and teleported to the picnic table. They were either very interested in the teapot in the background, or they were a bit to big for the area. Either way, Balmora's wonderful vibraphone concerts had given way to plushie squeaks and kisspopping parties. Or maybe they were driven to madness by Mere constantly squeaking her star-spawn plushie. Despite slowly going mad, everyone was healthy.

Even the Oasis group was doing well. They weren't breaking any laws of physics, and the rain wasn't dampening their spirits any. With the new fruit sources, they didn't have to move around as much. So they were content to stay in their separate groups. Then suddenly Mere died. She had apparently been so entranced by the eldritch plushie that she forgot to eat. She didn't have any hunger on the hoverdoc, but the Lavender Grendels had some Gizmo genes in them. Even 10 minutes without food was potentially deadly for them. I gave her a parting tickle before turned my attention to the new baby.

Because Mere died, one of Puddle and Bay's babies hatched. Little Ocean immediately went down a level and turned on the sprinkler. She didn't know what to think of the water droplets and watched them for a while before heading to the forbidden fruit puddle. She took a bite of it and said that she was happy. Fortunately for her, this forbidden fruit just taught her vocabulary. Ocean eventually settled down for a nap and I hid the apple again. After her nap, she set off to look for her treasure. She took a wrong turn though and ended up with her parents. I made sure she had her air bubbles before going back to the Aquanornia group.

It was quieter there... almost. Firth and Spring were fond of kisspoping until they fell asleep. The world was at the egg limit though, so no new eggs would be laid until someone else died. I was hoping that would be far off into the future though. I was fond of this group of grendels, even if some did worship eldritch plushies until they starved to death.

Whoops

I'd like to blame the Starbound 1.0 update and Skyrim for the gap in posting. I've been playing Creatures a bit, if tinkering with caos and splicing norns counts as playing. I just haven't been in the mood to document anything. I did leave a certain grendel world in the middle of a generation though, and those posts will be going up every Wednesday until I run out of them. There aren't that many left, which brings me to my next point...

This blog is probably going to be random for a while. I have one thing I'd like to write about, but it still needs a lot of work. So I'm just going to write about what ever random thing I'm doing in the games at the time or some weird things I've done in the past few months. I'll save all of that for the actual posts though. For now I'll just leave a screenshot from my Skyrim game bugging out. I didn't install a texture pack properly and got this lovely image:

Everything was missing a texture!

Grendels: Flooded with babies

(I've somehow lost my screenshots for this post, so please enjoy some unused ones from the last post instead.) Last time, the grendels in Aquanornia had two children and I decided to look at some of their genomes. Fortunately for them, there weren't that many notable mutations. Unfortunately, two of the mutations they did have were major. Three of the gen 6 grendels, Bay, Cove, and Delta, had this mutation: (top file is the default Lavender Grendel genome and bottom is the mutated version)

554 Different in file 1  36   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Eaten plant (77) causes sig=0 GS neu=0 int=0, ,,,192 => -31*Hunger for carbohydrate + -37*Hunger for fat + 13*Starch + 13*Fat
554 Different in file 2  36   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Discomfort (76) causes sig=0 GS neu=0 int=0, ,,,192 => -31*Hunger for carbohydrate + -37*Hunger for fat + 13*Starch + 13*Fat

Instead of getting starch and fat from eating seeds, they got starch and fat when they felt discomfort. I'm not sure what triggers this stim, but I do know that these unlucky grendels no longer got anything from eating seeds. They do have other instincts that tell them to eat something else for starch or fat, but it's a terrible mutation to have in the gene pool. So I went into their genomes and changed the gene back to the proper stim. I don't think this will help them that much, but hopefully this will make sure the mutation doesn't pass on. Luckily, Loch and Lagoons parents were free from this mutation. Arroyo, their father, did have one interesting mutation though:

443 Different in file 1   9   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 I am sleeping (periodic) (22) causes sig=75 GS neu=0 int=0, ,Sensed even when asleep,,224 => -5*Sleepiness + -2*Crowded + -5*Tiredness + 2*Boredom
443 Different in file 2   9   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 I am sleeping (periodic) (22) causes sig=75 GS neu=0 int=0, ,Sensed even when asleep,,224 => -5*Sleepiness + -2*Crowded + -5*Sleepiness + 2*Boredom

Instead of this stimulus reducing tiredness, it reduces sleepiness instead. This likely made sleeping less effective for him, and have even made him more tired then the other grendels. I made a mental note to watch his tiredness closer from now on before unpausing the world.

! spotted the green apple and moved it back to it's hiding spot. No like/love loops for them if I could help it. Immediately after, Spring and Firth had their first child. Loch had apparently had enough of Balmora's terrible vibraphone playing and moved into the Oasis. While watching him there, I noticed Delta and Bay were quite hungry. I found Delta near the temple looking miserable and Bay desperately trying to eat the green apple to satisfy his hunger. So I took them to a separate room and taught them that food is good. Delta got it immediately, but Bay took a good minute of "eat food" before he actually ate food. Both looked much happier after they were done with their little lesson though.

Meanwhile the Aquanornia group had two more babies. The first one belonged to Arroyo and Gulf, and the second one belonged to Mere and Firth. Arroyo stayed put while Firth and Mere had enough of the other grendels pushy lifestyle. Mere moved up a level to take a nap while Firth explored the rest of Aquanornia. He even met Lagoon and Balmora on the top level. Lagoon had been trying to make friends with Balmora this whole time, and she actually succeeded! She and Balmora had probably bonded over their common interest in pushing things. Speaking of pushing, Mere, Spring, and Gulf all got pregnant around the same time. The Oasis group also had it's first pregnancy! Cove and Bay were the proud parents. A few seconds later and Puddle and Bay were expecting twins.

After a few minutes, Mere was pregnant yet again. Arroyo, Gulf, and Spring had also joined Mere in the middle of Aquanornia. Before I could watch them any further, Creek and Delta were expecting their first baby. Lagoon was also pregnant, with Firth being the father. Then Spring got pregnant. I was flooded with eggs at this point and was quite glad I had the population limit set to 13. If the 12 of them were this prolific, I really didn't need their children adding the chaos. At this point everyone, besides the two babies and Balmora, was around an hour and half old, and had an untold number of eggs. I was quite happy with how they were doing, but I knew was going to stop reporting every baby after this post. So many babies.

Grendels: Smooth Sailing

Between the calming waves in Oasis, and jazz music I had in the background, I nearly missed Puddle living up to her name. She was investigating the only puddle in the world. Entranced by the strange green apple, she stared at it for a few seconds before eating it. Amazed that the fruit didn't disappear when she at it, she stared at the camera and said "Puddle happy!" I didn't teach the grendels their vocabulary. This strange fruit had the horrible effect of teaching her Handish. She was quite happy about this, but I was slightly dreading the "love/hate" loops if some of the other grendels found the apple. Puddle was determined to keep her new treasure though, and tried to hide behind a flower. I let her keep it and checked on the other group.

The Aquanornia group were a close group of grendels, literally. They weren't as spread out at the Oasis group and were fond of pushing each other. Perhaps they had formed a Coralroot Club and were all gathering to celebrate the over abundance of them? Or maybe they were just fascinated by them because their instincts told them plants were entertaining. Either way, they all figured out that pushing each other was very entertaining. Soon Gulf and Arroyo were proud parents of the first egg! Followed by Mere and Arroyo. Arroyo was one of the gen 6 grendels, and I was curious if he had a mutation that made him more fertile. I wanted to check on the other group first.

Back with the Oasis group, things were going slightly terrible. I had forgotten to add a source of fruit for them, and two of them were very hungry. So I lured everyone into the pool with some fruit and added a few more fruit sources to their hut area. I also noticed that Cove was now an adult. Everyone was around the same age, so this meant that everyone would be an adult soon. This was a perfect time to hatch some babies and soon Loch and Lagoon were hatched. After double checking that they had air bubbles, I looked up a bunch of monikers and got to comparing.