Welcome to Monster Farming 101. Your syllabus in at the back. Be certain to get a copy before you leave.
To start, I would like to inform you that most people have no clue what Monster Farming is. We get a ton of applicants to the degree program every year and the dropout rate is over ninety percent.
Why is this? Simple. Many of you won't even show up to the next class after you learn what Monster Farming is and is not.
There are tons and tons of applicants who have talked to all sorts of adventurers about the slow grind of monster farming for experience. Every year we get a large number of applicants that want to get an edge up on this process and apply to the Monster Farming program.
I am sorry to tell you that the adventurers are wrong. They are NOT doing Monster Farming. The process of killing and harvesting monsters is Monster Hunting. The process of planting monster flora, properly raising it, and harvesting monsters to sell through the Dungeon Market is Monster Farming.
A great farmer has not a single monster die.
Now, if you came here for Monster Hunting, you are not alone in being wrong about things. In fact, most true Monster Farming students that actually know what a Monster Farm is have a few wrong ideas. For example, most of them think that goblins grow on trees. In truth, it is a shrub and it does not grow goblins.
The Hobgoblin Bush is a shrub that grows up to ten meters in height and produces lush, light green, muscular, hobgoblins. This is if, and only if, they are allowed to develop for a full three to five years per fruit. Most are harvested every year for Goblins, the early development stage of the hob, or every two years for a spindly hob. That is where goblins come from.
In this class you will learn about the Hobgoblin Bush, the soil it takes, how much mana is needed to improve growth, how to produce seeds inside the fruit, and more. This one plant accounts for nearly a quarter of the Monster Farming industry. It is the largest crop in acreage but not harvest. Slimes are the largest harvest but slime pools are a specialty and the Hobgoblin Bush is a generality. This makes this one plant a great foundation for any type of Monster Farmer.
The one plant we will not, and can not, prepare you for in this entire degree program is the troll plant. The program does go into trolls but there is no plant. In truth, trolls are a byproduct of mulching. The proper mulching of imperfect fruits, like two headed hobs or nine legged spiders, can result in the production of trolls. Again, that is an advanced soil management class you gain access to in the third year of the program.
This year you will start where everyone starts: the Hobgoblin Bush. Learn to love it, no matter the smell. Root health, stem care, pollination, fruit development, and more will all be included. By the end of this class you will know what is needed but not how to do it all.
That's right, an introductory class can never cover everything. Soil adjuncts take proper care to produce. Another class will go into how to properly add copper into the soil so that the hobs and gobs harvested will drop coins. Exactly which adjunct is needed we will cover here. How to make it is in the Alchemy for Farmers track. That is one of many topics this introductory class will simply never be able to cover.
There will be classes on weapon planting in your future if you go the Equipped Monster route. Look at the typical dagger. A Dagger Seed needs proper soil, watering, and drainage to grow into a fully formed dagger. However, it is a fickle crop and just the slightest inconsistency in the watering or drainage and you get the Brittle Dagger and Rusty Dagger.
Think daggers are a tough crop? Don't get me started on long swords.
Oh, but the flint versions are much more forgiving. Flint weapons are far easier and I have a flint hatchet tree that is two months past ripe. What is the result? Short handled flint axes. If I let them go another week or two the handle will be normal length.
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As you can see, flint growth is more forgiving. In fact, an overgrown flint hatchet tree is a wonderful thing because it means you do not need to also buy flint axe trees. The flint axes are more aerodynamic because of the oversized heads on the overgrown hatchets. Still, it is an easy crop and works well as a complementary growth to the Hobgoblin Bush.
Many people also try to mix hobs with growing Spiders or Wolves. Be careful! We will go over the specifics later but I will tell you now that some Wolf and Spider fruits are the type to consume hobs and gobs.
A better choice is the Riding Lizard but very few go that way. They are a perfectly complementary fruit but exceptionally hard to grow due to the complex soil adjustments and fertilizers. If you have access to Dragon sap and Dwarf Lizard Herbaceous plants you can cheat this and get very good results. An oversized Dwarf Gecko Fern with fertilizer including tincture of Dragon sap, or Dragon's Blood Extract for the unwashed, makes for an assortment of colorful specimens that love caves, eat pixies, and are very friendly to hobs and gobs.
OH! Pixies! We will have a short section on pixie pesticides! New data shows they can be detrimental to the loot drops on hobs and gobs. Killing off your pixie infestations must be done very carefully. Use of natural methods, like the vines that feed off of pixies or the aforementioned lizards, are highly recommended. Your other option is to live with the infestation but pixies like to take over local growth management so it can be a struggle to keep yourself clear of weeds such as oak trees and hibiscus.
Now, after you have this class, what can you take? Well, there is Dungeon Languages 102 which needs DL 101 and this, but I don't recommend it because the store can deal with the dungeon other than special requests. Canisabis Plants 102 will be good for any sort of canis growing. They cover from the toy dogs to the basic wolf but not the really high dogs, worgs, or those smokin Hell Hounds. Canisabis Plants 201 follows with giant versions of these and 203 and 300 deal with special hybrids and other ways to get more bark and bite out of the canis fruits. That is just one example of how this class opens up the foundations of many others.
If you choose to grow larger fruits, the Pork Tree family is another chain to consider. Swine Fruit, Giant Swine Fruit, Wild Grown Swine Fruit or Boar Fruit, Ork Fruit, and Green Ogres are all able to be made by the master of the Pork Trees. However, these are all less forgiving than the Hobgoblin Bush. That is why you must start with this class' lesser feats before moving on to those topics.
Oh, and remember that Swine Flu is a complication in raising all of those plants to their full potential! That mold has devastated more than one unwary Monster Farmer!
Ah, I see that about sixty percent of the class has already left. Now that we have gotten rid of the people who were too stupid to read the course description in the catalog, it is time to get to the good parts.
Monster Farming is hard but rewarding work. Monster Farmers make the world stronger. As your harvests are consumed by the masses they become Experience and Loot. These two products cause the adventuring world to go around. As such, the farmer is well paid for their endeavors.
Dungeons pay the Dungeon Store in Purified Mana or Dungeon Points. Typically Dungeon Points are only used for wild growths. Purified Mana is the main concern for the farmer.
Mana makes your farm produce faster, heartier results; the purer the mana source the better the results. It is also instrumental in growing seeds which are also known as Monster Cores or Mana Stones. You can imagine this it beneficial in many ways.
A seed in a monster makes it sell for more. This makes for more mana to make more or better fruits. That is the primary use of mana. However, the real profit is in the secondary use.
Some plants grow Dungeon Cores. A weak, undernourished Dungeon Core is another form of Monster Core or Mana Stone. You can grow and harvest these to sell to adventurers and mages for money! That's right, a Monster Farmer can get cash from certain crops.
So why don't we all just grow cores and become rich? Not enough mana. A core plant takes a very large volume of mana to grow. This means you need to balance your mana income so that you can use bits of excess to expand until you have enough regular overage to properly maintain a single core plant. That first core plant then becomes the heart of your retirement plan. One sale of a medium core, which takes over a decade to grow, will set you up for life. So you can be rich! You just need to take your time to get there.
Another path to financial stability is the more direct use of the mana you get. This is pure, liquid mana. With care and a good alchemist it becomes a mana potion. This means the drops of excess mana you do not need can each be used in a potion to make some added income. That will allow you to keep on going through those harder, early years where you will not be making much money and only able to eat because you are on a farm.
Monster Farming is a hard path. This class will help set you on that path. Hmm. I think just about everyone who wants to sneak out has. So, now to the syllabus, and then I will go over what to expect at our next meeting.