some questions

Mathcat

"Alternate" is not the same as "shiny." Alternate creatures are effectively separate breeds and show up as such in the Encyclopedia. They can all be found as rare drops in the Creche (except for the Balsa Drake and Manus Wing Dragon, which are only available as raffle prizes). Don't trust the wiki on this. It's years out of date and a lot has changed. If you're on a computer, you can hover over an egg in the Creche to get its description. If it's an egg from the less common variety, you'll also see the name (if you already have one) or Mystery Egg.

Every so often, a site event that generates a creature will generate a shiny creature instead. These will not have a separate breed name, but will have a special star on the hold and creature pages. The offspring of two shiny creatures is always shiny (except in the case of very rare glitches). Breeding two non-shiny creatures has a very, very rare chance of giving a shiny egg. You can also give a creature a Variate potion (a Level 10 Alchemy brew) to turn it shiny.

I was lucky enough to get a shiny creature from breeding and one from alchemy. I know of a user who got one from the Creche and one really lucky user who had an achievement reward turn out shiny.

I've been talking with another user about shinies via PM, so I'll compile those messages and edit this post later.

Edit 1: Keepsake slots are purely decorative and have no function beyond that.

Edit 2: I found a message I wrote that talked about all types of appearance potions, so I've copied that here.

Appearance potions (as opposed to growth potions) are meant to be applied to non-shiny creatures to change their appearance. With the exception of the variate potion, appearance potions are cosmetic and don't get passed down to offspring. Potions interact with each other and some can stack. That's why the potion shop exists - so you can test various combinations without wasting your own potions. I have a tab of potion-altered creatures here: https://mirrorwood.com/hold/480. Click on a creature and then click on View History to see what I did to them.

With everything except the variate potion, you know exactly what you're getting when you apply it, though you have to be a little careful with certain potion combinations. I know I had one time where I didn't get what the potion shop said I would get from a particular combination, and I think that was because the order in which the potions are applied matters if you're mixing negative with inverti/intrevni.

With the variate potion, there's a whole spectrum of possible results and what you get is random (and then you're stuck with it). I suppose you could apply a second variate potion if you didn't like what the first one gave you, but given that the result is random, I wouldn't recommend that. You'd be better off trying your luck with a second creature and then breeding the two together. Variate potions are passed down to offspring, in a sense, in that breeding two shiny creatures will (with the exception of rare glitches) always give you shiny offspring.

I am not an artist (an actual artist could give you a much better explanation), but I guess you could think of the spectrum of possible results as being on a sort of a color line. Breeding two shiny creatures will give you colors "between" the two parents on the color spectrum. If you breed something on the far left of the color spectrum line with something on the far right of the color spectrum line, you'll get a wide range of possible offspring colors. If they're both on the same side of the color spectrum line or very close to the normal color, you'll get a narrow range of possible offspring colors. (It was this or a number line analogy).

The possible range of shiny colors for a given species is roughly the same as what you would get if you keep stacking inverti potions or keep stacking intrevni potions (saturation/brightness issues aside). This is a good way to not waste a variate potion on something like a white glow wyvrm, where the possible outcomes are subtle and rather disappointing. You just take a normal version of the creature, enter its code in the potion shop, stack inverti potions, take those off, stack intrevni potions, take those off, and then decide if that's a color range you'd be happy with in potential offspring. For example, if I'd done this beforehand, I probably wouldn't have used a variate potion on an arcane and an arcanus, because there's not a lot of potential colors.

For me, the fun of variate potions is breeding the resulting creatures and seeing what I get. Seemingly unexceptional results for the parents can lead to wonderful results for the offspring. My favorite pairing is still Zoply and Hajaz. They're rather plain on their own, but their offspring are numerous and varied. On the other hand, sometimes you get a result like this.

This post has been edited 2 times. Last edited on 05-21-2025 16:55:30.

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Mathcat

You can definitely put stuff in the slots, but I think you need to be on a browser that isn't Firefox. I have Firefox and can't add or change keepsakes, but I must have been able to when I was still using mobile Chrome.

Edit: Yes indeed. Functions on mobile Chrome. Does not function on Firefox.

This post has been edited 1 times. Last edited on 05-21-2025 20:57:57.

Need site currency? Playing with my hundreds of companions here can earn you a decent amount of both blue stones and reactor stones. Companions may be played with once per hour (total, not per user). If nothing shows up, check back later.

Still on AO3 here - Forest of Mirrors, Dragon Cave, MagiStream, Jelle's Marble Runs, and original fiction.

Mathcat

Believe me, I understand. I only have Chrome at all because it came pre-installed on my phone, but I switched to Firefox as soon as I could.

I also forgot another very important fact about shiny creatures. While growing, they interfere with the growth bonus being applied (to all creatures, not just them). If you ever have shiny eggs/hatchlings, I suggest using growth potions on them so that other creatures continue to grow normally.

Need site currency? Playing with my hundreds of companions here can earn you a decent amount of both blue stones and reactor stones. Companions may be played with once per hour (total, not per user). If nothing shows up, check back later.

Still on AO3 here - Forest of Mirrors, Dragon Cave, MagiStream, Jelle's Marble Runs, and original fiction.