Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Helleri]

Historically bark from different species of trees have been used for a wide variety of purposes. However bark in Life is Feudal unrealistically limited as to it's usefulness. This topic is to suggest how bark can be made more useful, while adding to the depth of the content, and increasing players ability to produce quality goods. Hopefully all while using mostly per-existing assets in new ways.


The idea came to me when thinking about how some processes allow the player to increase quality of an end product with an additive. Such as adding fish or dung to herb gardens. Or improper honey to soil. Yet a lot of processes lack this ability to let a player increase end product quality when having started with less than desirable quality of source material.


In order for this to work there would have to be different types (i.e. more specific kinds) of bark. The inventory image icon could remain the same. Although it would be more useful if they were unique to the type of bark.


It would work roughly like this. If a player were to strip bark from a birch the item name for the resulting bark that shows on the icon would be birch bark (and again ideally it would look like bark from a birch in the players inventory or a container otherwise). If it came from an oak it would be named oak bark etc. These different barks could be used as additional ingredients in recipes or processed into more refined ingredients.



Here is what all of the barks could be used for and how they could be applied:


Maple, Elm, and Oak Barks ~
Cooked at a big cauldron cooking station build or higher, with a recipe requiring X amount of bark and water in order to make tannin. Tannin could be used in place of water at tubs when tanning leather. It would increase the quality of the resulting leather. These 3 barks could be tiered in their usage. Much in the same way as iron, steel, and votaskus have quality caps.
[Note: Oak gall and bark are the prevalent sources of tannin for the traditional bark tanning process. Currently we don't use any tannic acid solution for tanning leather. But that's the least nonsensical thing about tanning tubs in game as one could argue that tannin is leached from the tubs themselves.]



Juniper, Spruce, And Pine Bark ~
Crushed with a pestle and mortar, and heated in a kiln with minimum temperature, these would yield Rosin. Barks from these 3 trees could again have tiered usage as to the resulting quality of rosin. Rosin could be used as an added ingredient in tool and weapon making to increase durability.
[Note: This is a semi-hard drying, Hot application glue used in many cultures throughout history to help affix tangs in handles].


Undergrowth, Aspen. and Birch Bark ~
Cooked at a big cauldron cooking station build or higher, with a recipe requiring X amount of bark and water in order to make tar. Tar could be used as an additional ingredient in bow crafting recipes to increase the quality of arrows and bolts and to increase the durability of bows. These would would have tiered usage as to resulting quality of tar.
[Note: Birch tar has been used in fletching and bow tillering since prehistoric times in Europe right up into even the modern age for traditional primitive bow making - primitive bow not meaning nearly the same thing in real life as it does in-game. Though the other two would not be historically accurate sources of tar they are included for the purposes of giving them use that is consistent with how the rest of it works].



Hazel, Apple, and Mulberry ~
The bark could be used as an additional ingredient in food recipes. Taking the place and role of Food flavor at lower tiers of food making. They would not improve the modifier gained but would improve the quality of the food (i.e. better sustenance food not intended for skilling).
[Note: While apple wood is used in smoking meats, And hazelnut is used as a flavoring additive in some products. mulberry bark doesn't fit so well into this as it would be the fruit which is used and it's just included for consistencies sake. Reasonably birch might be added to this as traditional European cooking uses birch twig whisks. Another thing that would reasonably be included is wheat. Stirring wheat stalks in food was done to enhance flavor as well. But I'm trying to keep this within the scope of bark usage

[Hodo]

Funny you mention tannin.

Did you know every mammal has enough tannin in its own brain to tan its entire hide.

You can tan a rabbit hide with the brain that came from the rabbit. My girlfriend learned this from a couple of my friends who raise rabbits and skin them.

[Helleri]

Did you know every mammal has enough tannin in its own brain to tan its entire hide.

I've heard this said before but I've yet to see the evidence for it being true...

Something to consider about this is that braining solution is made with brain and water. So it's not just one ingredient but two and one of them is of X amount. Making it isn't an exact science. One batch might have a little more volume while another might have a little more viscosity. The exact amount they use per fixed area of flesh is also unaccountable. Over time with enough experience the tanner will intuitively learn how to make enough. But that amount which constitutes enough can change slightly and the adjustment for that can be an unconscious one.

Something else to consider is that mammals (as well as all animals possessing a brain) have very different brain to body size ratios (smarter ones tend to have very large brains compared to their body size). So the amount of brain to skin coverage is not consistent between species.

Ultimately I think this is just something tanners say. I think it's a proximal truth (meaning it's true enough, that it doesn't do you any real harm to go with it as if it were universally true). They may always end up with just enough braining solution for their project. But that could be because they have learned stretch their materials and time through experience to always end up with enough. And that they are averaging their total experience as a generalization. They really have no way of knowing that one solution they made is just as concentrated or has been used in the exact same amount as every other solution they have ever made and used.