• Solo • Garden Survival

Once an isolated and dying township, an influx of academics, adventurers and thrill seekers have made Scalvoris Town their home. From scholars' tea shops to a new satellite campus for Viden Academy, this is an exciting place to visit or make your home!

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Devin
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Posts: 1644
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:25 am
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Baron Smooglethorn
Renown: 1145
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Garden Survival

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Cylus 6, Arc 721

On the 6th of Cylus, Devin Thorn, medical genius in progress, masterful bard and priest of Delroth stood in the center of the path that led from the door of his house to the garden gate, bundled up in his warmest clothes, a Cavani’s Cloak that shimmered in all the colors of the rainbow draped across body for a bit of extra warmth and a thick book in one of his gloved hands. On the cover of said book was a picture of the author, a man with a fur hat and a thick beard that had made Devin wonder if he even knew what a barber was when he had first seen it, and the title was “Wilderness Survival for Beginners.”

The arc before, there had been a terrible volcanic eruption, and there would probably be a war soon, and he had just become a baron. Of a place that seemed to be pretty much made of wilderness at the moment. He wanted to be prepared for all kinds of disasters, he didn’t want to starve (or drown or freeze to death) when he had to hide from the bad guys, and he didn’t want to disappoint Saoire who had given him the barony either.

If he had a wilderness barony, he needed to learn to survive in the wilderness, and a garden was the closest thing to a wilderness that he had access to at the moment. It had trees (currently barren), grass (currently shriveled and hidden under a lot of snow) and rocks (there was a little rock garden), just like the real wilderness, and what more, there were even animals such as his Scalvwing, his flunny and his beloved pet goat Heidi, although they were currently in the stable or the house. It would be the perfect place to start his foray into the mysterious world of survival!

Since it was currently winter and cold and unpleasant, he had decided to familiarize himself with the basics of winter survival. So, without further ado, he leafed to the chapter on that particular topic (which was a bit more challenging when you had thick gloves on) and read aloud, his breath forming little clouds of mist in front of his face, “When you are outside in winter, you need to stay warm and dry which means finding or setting up a shelter and creating a heat source. These need to be your priorities. Frostbite and hypothermia can set in quickly if you don’t have a place where you can hunker down. Staying alive in winter also requires you to eat and drink regularly in order to maintain your energy stores”, he continued and decided to move on to the part that talked about how to set up a shelter in the wilderness in winter.

The author recommended that you just bring a tent if you could; although it was possible to just build a shelter as well using various materials that you could find in the wilderness, including snow, of course. Since Devin had a perfectly fine tent in his basement, he decided to just skip that part and set up a tent and moved on to the next passage in the chapter – the proper location for your tent. The author warned against pitching your tent at the bottom of a valley or in a ravine as cold air tended to move down such terrain features, or places where avalanches were likely to occur. He recommended taking advantage of things such as fallen trees or caves – and flattening the snow beforehand.

“Flatten the snow as much as possible by stomping it with snowshoes or skis or whatever other tools are available. If you set up your tent on raw snow, you will be dealing with annoying lumps which will make your sleep much more uncomfortable”, he read and proceeded to furrow his brow deeply as something just occurred to him. The man with the ugly beard had mentioned snowshoes. He didn’t have any snowshoes though. Did that mean that he would have to run to the store and quickly buy some now? He looked around as he wondered how he was supposed to solve that particular problem. As he did so, he spotted the shovel leaning against the wall of the house. He would just use that instead! A shovel was, obviously, a tool as well!

So, without further ado, Devin started to hit the snow right next to the path and flatten it which made his arms hurt and required a lot of strength, and once the snow looked at least halfway flat and compact rather than lumpy and such, he dropped the shovel and walked back into the house. The man with the ugly beard had mentioned eating and drinking in order to maintain your energy stores, and since he wanted to be a good survivalist, he would do just that. He would make some hot chocolate for himself and eat a sandwich. With lots of bacon!

Last edited by Devin on Fri May 07, 2021 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 840

Appearance

  • Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
  • Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.

Items

Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.

Potions

N/A
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Devin
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Posts: 1644
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:25 am
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Baron Smooglethorn
Renown: 1145
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Re: Garden Survival

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Once he was sufficiently warm again, and full, Devin retrieved his wonderfully lime green tent from the basement and walked to the spot where he had previously flattened the snow in order to proceed with the next step – which required him to leaf through the book because the chapter that he had been reading before did not tell you how to pitch a tent. There was an entire separate chapter on tents – which unfortunately didn’t contain any pictures at all.

Pictures would have been really helpful!

But no matter, he read the instructions in the book, read them again because they still weren’t clear to him, and finally grabbed the large square piece of cloth, the ground cloth according to the book, and lay it down. Having done that, he positioned the tent itself over the cloth – and abruptly froze and frowned as he checked the instructions again.

The man with the ugly beard suggested positioning the tent (or the shelter, if you had decided to construct one of those instead) so that the entrance faced away from the wind. How was he supposed to tell which direction the wind was coming from though, and did it really matter if you closed the door of your tent (or shelter) as tightly as possible?

Still frowning, he raised his head, closed his eyes and focused hard, but no matter how hard he tried and how much he turned his head, he didn’t feel any wind. Maybe, he thought, refusing to consider the possibility that he just wasn’t a very good survivalist yet, there simply was no wind. So, he positioned the tent so that the door was facing the apple tree instead. A tree would stop the wind in case there was some later on and offer some protection, wouldn’t it?

Deciding that that made sense, he continued, grabbed the poles and tried to attach them to the tent. He actually managed to do so, but when it came to staking out the tent and tightening the ropes, he ran into a problem that he hadn’t considered it before. He was supposed to hammer those stakes into the ground, but the stakes remained loose, no matter how much he hammered. Two of the stakes simply fell over, the ropes refused to be tightened, and what more, his wonderfully lime green tent was totally lopsided.

It did not collapse though, which Devin decided to consider a success.

Deep down, the young man realized that practicing wilderness survival techniques in his garden would not be enough, and that he would definitely not survive at his current level of knowledge. You had to start somewhere though, and it was best to do so in a safe environment, and what more, there was nothing wrong with turning it into a little game.

That was fun!

word count: 476

Appearance

  • Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
  • Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.

Items

Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.

Potions

N/A
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User avatar
Devin
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Posts: 1644
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:25 am
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Baron Smooglethorn
Renown: 1145
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Re: Garden Survival

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Next came the campfire, an essential part of any camp. To that end, Devin moved back to the chapter on winter survival and read, “Before anything else, make sure that there is nothing that might catch fire from stray embers near your tent. Make a fire pit by clearing an area of snow and dig a small hole in the ground that you then surround with … rocks?” Devin blurted out and looked around as that was another thing that he hadn’t brought. A moment later, he remembered the rock garden though.

He moved through the snow (fortunately, he had high boots on), to the rock garden that was located near the wall and thus not buried under a lot of snow, grabbed a few rocks and carried them to a spot a few metres away from his tent that looked a little more lopsided than before.

Having done that, he grabbed his shovel again and started to dig a hole that he surrounded with his rocks, got some hay from the stable and an old newspaper from the living room and proceeded to break off a few small branches from a bush near the fence. All three things went into the fire pit, and then he got the flintstone and the piece of steel that he had found among the camping supplies in his basement and struck the steel against the sharp edge of the stone, just like the book said.

Normally, this should have generated sparks, and the tinder should eventually have started to burn. There was no fire though. There was just an extremely tiny column of smoke that disappeared again within trills, and no matter how much he hit the flintstone with his piece of steel, it refused to come back. What was wrong with that fire?

Frowning again, he leafed through his book that he had placed into the tent in the meantime because it might just get wet in the snow. The man with the ugly beard claimed that branches from a live tree took longer to ignite or wouldn’t catch fire at all due to their high moisture content. The branches that he had used had not looked wet though!

For a moment, he wondered if he should just cheat and use a candle or something like that to start his campfire, but he wouldn’t be able to cheat in a real survival situation either. It was just then that he remembered something though. The purpose of a fire was to keep you warm (and occasionally cook something, he supposed). He had something that was just as warm as a campfire: The Fever Stone that he had gotten in Viden a few arcs earlier.

He would just make sure to always have that with him, at least when it was cold outside!

word count: 471

Appearance

  • Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
  • Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.

Items

Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.

Potions

N/A
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User avatar
Devin
Approved Character
Posts: 1644
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:25 am
Race: Mortal Born
Profession: Baron Smooglethorn
Renown: 1145
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Wealth Tier: Tier 10

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Re: Garden Survival

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Devin had successfully solved his heat problem, but as he took another look at his survival book, he realized that he had a new problem now. The man with the ugly beard talked about how important water was and that dehydration was a threat that a lot of people didn’t consider when it came to trying to survive outside in winter. He suggested melting snow provided that there was no open water nearby. So, Devin decided to melt snow – except that he didn’t have a fire which made the whole thing a lot harder!

Fortunately, the man with the ugly beard that he might actually have appreciated because of all his useful advice if he were a little less ugly had a solution for that as well. He suggested packing snow into a piece of cloth or a bag so that it became warm, putting a container underneath it and collecting the drips which was slower, but better than nothing.

So, without further ado, Devin got a piece of cloth and a cloth bag, wrapped the cloth around a big lump of snow, put that into the bag and hung the bag on the branches of his apple tree before he put a large metal bucket underneath. Except that there were barely any water drops. He had a solution for that though. Feeling very clever, he got a packet of orange sand from Faldrass that was always warm from his house and dumped that into the bag as well which actually caused the snow to melt, very, very slowly.

It was just then that another problem occurred to him though. In order to make the water safe to drink, he needed to boil it. Since he didn’t have a fire, he couldn’t boil it though. That, he decided, was something that he might have to solve another trial …

… his train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a loud sound coming from his side. He made a little jump, his eyes wide, because that was so unexpected and turned his head.

The tent that had become a little more lopsided with every passing bit had collapsed after all.

Oh no!

Sighing, he picked it up and carried it into the house where he would dry it before he put it away again. His bad mood over the collapsed tent did not last long though. Within bits, he was already smiling again. All in all, his little survival training session had gone well, and he had learned a few interesting things.

He would go and write a list of everything that he needed to take with him when he ventured into the wilderness now to make sure that he didn't forget - such as a shovel, his Fever Stone, a cloth bag and some orange sand because he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to manage without those!

Before he did that, he would make some more hot chocolate and take a warm bath though.

He deserved it!

word count: 501

Appearance

  • Due to an encounter with a magical tree Devin has bright violet eyes.
  • Devin has fancy black claw-like nails. The Grafter Rakvald made them from the spines that grow on the dubaebo's back and attached them to Devin's hands.

Items

Devin owns a Ring of Reversal. He's always wearing it, unless stated otherwise.

Potions

N/A
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Avalon
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Re: Garden Survival

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Review Rewards

Name: Devin

Points awarded: 10xp

Knowledge:
Field Craft: Pitching a tent in the snow
Field Craft: The entrance of your shelter should be protected
Field Craft: Making a fire pit in winter
Field Craft: Starting a fire in winter (is hard)
Field Craft: Wrapping cloth around snow in order to melt it
Strength: Flattening snow requires a lot of strength

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriate to level

Notes:
I thought Devin's reasons for wanting to learn some field craft were very on point with Devin's emerging understanding of leadership and responsibility. Of course, things don't always go as their supposed to and you wrote the character's successes and failures realistically, as well as his mindset and thinking process.

When you described the man on the book, I first thought of Oram, but Oram's beard is lovely so you couldn't have been talking about him!

A well-written piece - I enjoyed it!

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this review, feel free to PM. Enjoy your rewards!

Avalon

word count: 179
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