The 5 comments on my joke post convinced me that this could actually be a feature… I’ll try my best
Like all my posts, picture for reference and proof of concept is coming later
Flying Fish
So… During my climb of mount Ravenna, i started hearing the sound of a whale. At first i thought it could’ve been amidst the waves somewhere…
But then i got to the top…
Thats when i saw it. That’s when i saw “God”. That’s where it called to me
It was a moment of more magic than anything that happende prior in my life
I’m here to preach in its name…
Overview
- Turn the frequent sightings of flying whales into a feature.
Lore and Mechanics
Magic Bladder
As the magic pollution gets worse, one of the many mutations suffered by the creatures of the sea affected their “swim bladder”, the part fish uses to stay afloat in the sea…
Due to that mutation, the sea fish started to become buoyant in any concentration of magic rather than water, which grant them the ability to rise beyond the waves.
Of course
- this phenomena is much rarer in the war seas, but rather frequent in the dark seas due to the magic concentration
- the skies offers less predators, but is also devoid of food
So flying sea creatures are a rare event in the war seas, but increasingly more common the further you venture into the dark seas (up until dragons, their natural predator, start appearing)
Cloudberry
Unlike what the name suggests, cloudberries are not a fruit. They are a condensation of magic clouds that can happen in the underside of island clouds. Flying fish feed on those berries for nutrition and to stay afloat, as their mutated system is able to digest and convert them.
Furthermore, the player can collect cloudberries by going under an island cloud using a sky boat. The cloudberries cannot be eaten, but they can be used as low tier potion reagent (effect pending), as well as be used as bait for flying fish.
Flying fish won’t spawn close to Cirrus Island, but they can spawn close to the outer sky islands (that we usually have no reason to go to past the story quest). You can throw a cloudberry, which will float in the air and aggro any sky fish nearby. Why would you want it? To hunt, of course.
The Hunt
flying fish can reward you with the previously mentioned “Magic Bladder”, which would either be the high tier counterpart to the cloudberry, or a potion catalyst, havent decided yet.
Magic Bladder is also a pretty valuable resource, so it can be used as a means to farm galleons as well
In the dark seas sky island, finding sky fish is way more common, and some more dangerous species can also be of a flying kind, such as sea monsters. Of course, as they’re not used to eating nothing but magic, they wont outright aggro on you, but you can use cloudberries fromthe cirrus islands to attract them. But beware, once attacked, they will fight back.
Well, i think this is is. Another cool feature would be to add harpoons and the like to sky ships, but that’s besides the point
Reasons to add
- most of all, it adds to the magical atmosphere of the game
- it repurposes a rather interesting but barely used part of the game (the sky islands)
- it adds a unique hunt activity that can reward with potion/gem reagents with new effects
- adds one more purpose to tall dark sea islands as well
