Tamer's Guide

Everything a tamer needs once the creature is actually tamed: how to give orders, what each order really does, how Strict Orders changes a pet's behaviour, friends and transfers, the two pet windows, and what happens when a pet dies, is released or is lost. For the taming attempt itself see Animal Taming, for levelling and abilities see Beast Mastery, and for the creature list see Tamables.

Before you can command a pet ↑ top

A tamed pet only obeys you if all three of these are true:

• Animal Taming at or above the creature's minimum taming requirement.
• Animal Lore at 80% of that requirement.
• The pet's loyalty at 25% or more.

Horses, pack animals and the ostards skip the skill part and only care about loyalty. A pet that will not obey growls and animates instead of acting. Release and Transfer never need the skill check, and the buttons in the [taming window skip it entirely.

You also have to be alive and within 14 tiles of the pet for speech and context-menu orders.

Giving orders ↑ top

There are three ways to order a pet:

1. Speech. "all kill", "all follow me", "all stay", or with the pet's name: "Rex kill", "Rex follow me". "all" addresses every pet in range. A named command only matches the whole name, so "Rex come" does nothing to a pet called Rexy.
2. Context menu. Single-click the pet: Command Kill / Follow / Guard / Stop / Stay, Command Drop (bonded pets only), Rename, Add Friend, Remove Friend, Transfer, Release, Use Animal Lore.
3. The [taming window. Kill, Guard, Follow and Stay buttons per pet (see below).

What each order does ↑ top

Standing orders and "all stop" ↑ top

Follow, Guard and Stay are standing orders. A pet returns to its standing order after a kill, after "all come" has arrived, and after a refused friend or transfer. What "all stop" does depends on what the pet was doing:

• attacking or coming: it goes back to its standing order
• following or guarding: the standing order is cancelled and the pet idles where it stands, wandering a few tiles between rests
• staying: it keeps staying

Combat behaviour ↑ top

• Casting pets (dragons, nightmares, unicorns, kirins, phoenixes) cast during Kill and Guard. They pay real mana and only pick spells they can afford. After "all follow me", "all stay" or "all stop" a half-finished spell is dropped rather than saved up for the next target.
• Attacked on a passive order. A pet on Follow, Come, Stay or Stop that is hit by a monster already fighting it switches to Kill on that monster, then returns to its standing order.
• A pet never attacks you or itself, whatever you say to it.
• Reach. Come, Guard and Follow are given up beyond roughly 30 tiles. Walk back into range and the pet picks the order up again.

Strict Orders ↑ top

Strict Orders is a per-pet switch in the [taming window. With it on, the pet acts only on your explicit commands.

Guard is the one exception: a strict pet on Guard still defends you and itself. So with Strict Orders on, use all guard me when the pet should fight, and all follow me when it should stay out of every fight. That combination is what makes strict mode the safe way to move a valuable pet through a dungeon.

Friends, transfers and the owner list ↑ top

Friends. "Rex friend" or the Add Friend menu entry, then target a player. A pet can have up to 5 friends. A friend may order Follow, Stay and Stop, feed the pet, and confirm a resurrection. Friends cannot order Kill, Guard, Come, Drop, Release or Transfer, and feeding by a friend never starts bonding. Young players and older players cannot friend pets to each other, and neither side may have a trade window open.

Transfer. "Rex transfer" or the Transfer menu entry, then target the receiver: a trade window opens with the pet in it. The receiver must be able to control the pet (taming and lore requirements, free follower slots); you do not need to. It fails while the pet is in combat or while either of you has another trade open. The pet arrives at full loyalty, unbonded, following its new owner.

The owner list. Every player who ever controlled a pet stays on its owner list: the tamer, every receiver of a transfer, and the buyer at an animal trainer. The list matters twice over. Each entry adds +6 skill to the creature's effective taming requirement, and a creature that has had 5 owners cannot be tamed again unless you are one of them. A pet you owned before is re-tamed with no skill check at all ("That wasn't even challenging.").

Loyalty and feeding ↑ top

Loyalty runs from 0 to 100% and is shown as a number in both pet windows. It drops every hour, roughly 4 points for an unbonded pet and 2 for a bonded one, and does not drop at all while the pet is stabled or while you ride it. Below 25% the pet stops obeying you; at 0% it goes wild. Feeding the right food restores about 10 loyalty per piece accepted, and also refills stamina, which is what makes a tired mount usable again.

Loyalty is reset to full whenever you tame, stable, claim, transfer or release a pet.

"The animal shies away." means the wrong food. Dead pets cannot be fed. The full loyalty table and the bonding steps are on Beast Mastery.

The two pet windows ↑ top

Animal Lore ↑ top

Use the Animal Lore skill on a creature, pick Use Animal Lore from a pet's context menu, or press the diamond next to a pet in the [taming window. Your own pets always open; anything else rolls your skill, and below 50 Lore you can only lore tamed creatures (below 100, only tamed or tamable ones). Dead pets cannot be lored.

• Your own pet: name, AI type, loyalty in percent, food type, control slots, current level with its XP bar, a Stats and Skills box (Str/Dex/Int with caps, hits, stamina, mana, Wrestling, Magery, Eval Int, Resisting Spells, Meditation, damage, armour, speed) and an Abilities box with its primary, secondary and proc ability.
• A wild tamable: an ability preview, its type and hue, and a table of the creature's current values, what they become once tamed, and the cap it can be trained to. Below that sit its control slots, the minimum taming skill, the difficulty rating, and a Tame Creature button that starts the attempt for you.
• Anything else: a short overview with hits, armour, damage and skills, marked "Not Tamable".

[taming (Taming Control) ↑ top

Type [taming in chat (see Player Commands). The window lists one card per follower you control, with a loyalty bar that turns red as loyalty sinks, and:

• Open Lore Gump diamond next to the name.
• Kill, Guard, Follow, Stay buttons. Kill opens a target cursor, the rest act at once. You must be alive and near the pet; Kill and Guard are greyed out for a dead pet.
• Fight Range: C / M / L (Close 1 tile, Medium 5 tiles, Long 10 tiles), the distance the pet tries to keep from its target. Only ranged and casting pets can use it, and the option must first be unlocked by a Skill Mastery perk.
• The Strict toggle.
• An arrow at the top that collapses the window to a compact list.

Settings made here are saved with the pet.

When a pet dies ↑ top

An unbonded pet dies, leaves a corpse and is gone from your control. It goes into pet recovery for 14 days.

A bonded pet becomes a ghost pet that follows you. While dead it cannot be damaged, fed, stabled, lored, or ordered to Kill, Guard, Drop or Transfer, and it does not regenerate. Leave it alone for one full day (more than 12 tiles away or out of sight) and it counts as abandoned and goes into pet recovery too.

Resurrecting a bonded pet: bandage the ghost with Veterinary and Animal Lore at 80 or more. The chance rises with Veterinary, and so does your reach: 1 tile below Grand Master, 2 tiles at 100 Veterinary, 3 tiles at 120. If you are the owner the pet rises immediately; a friend or an outside healer needs the owner (or a pet friend) within 3 tiles to confirm. The Resurrection spell works as well. Every resurrection costs the pet 0.1 points in every skill, or 0.2 when a friend confirmed instead of the owner. The pet returns with 10 hit points, full stamina and no mana.

Releasing a pet ↑ top

"Rex release" or the Release menu entry opens a confirmation showing the pet's name, type, level and loyalty. On confirm it forgets its name, loses its bonding, is set to full loyalty so it does not turn on you, and goes wild where it stands. A bonded pet drops its pack for you first.

The wild creature keeps roaming for 3 days, and anyone can tame it during that time (you without a skill check). After that it is moved to pet recovery. Letting loyalty fall to 0% releases a pet exactly the same way.

Pet recovery ↑ top

A pet that died, was cut down by guards, went wild after a release, was abandoned as a ghost, or was left untamed in a house is not deleted. It is held in the pet recovery system for 14 days with its level, abilities and name intact. There is no player command for it: page a GM inside those 14 days and name the pet, and staff can hand it back to its last owner. After 14 days it is gone for good.

Stabling ↑ top

Say "stable" to an animal trainer and target the pet, or "claim" for your stabled list. Stabling costs 30 gold once per pet with no time limit, and loyalty neither decays while stabled nor survives as anything but full when you claim. The trainer refuses dead pets, summons, pets in combat, and a pack animal that still carries goods. Slot counts, the house stable module and the claiming rules are on Pet Stabling.

Quick reference ↑ top

See Also ↑ top

• Animal Taming: the taming attempt, requirements and control
• Beast Mastery: levels, XP, abilities and bonding
• Tamables: every tamable creature and its requirement
• Pet Stabling: costs, stable slots and claiming
• Animal Lore · Veterinary: the two support skills
• Animal Lore Mastery: pet XP, Call for Blood and the fight-range perk
• Player Commands: [taming and the rest