Features for Arctic Climates (Boreal Forests/Tundra Wild Foods, Useful Lichen, Useful Seagrass Meadows, Early Game Kayak, Icefishing & Arctic Food Prep)

[WanderingStoryteller]

I’m suggesting the below because I think adding things like these could be interesting for the base game, especially for adding extreme cold alternatives to poultices, burnable fuels, rope & basket material, and temperate crops. And please do not just say “the arctic is supposed to be tougher” when there are viable survival gameplay options that could still maintain a tough survival gameloop. People have been surviving in severe cold for countless generations and their methods are fascinating. Also keep in mind that in the Homo Sapiens gamemode, you don’t have ruins and vessels to give you those needed materials like grass, cattails, poultices, seeds, etc. It would be much cooler to search for lichen to make a fire, make igloos, and prepare traditional foods of the many arctic peoples.

Possible Lichens & Plants for Boreal Forest & Tundra climates:

 

Lichens:

 

Iceland “moss” (cetraria islandica) - important source of food for humans in northern Europe. Cooked as bread, porridge, pudding, or soup. Fed to livestock: reindeer, cattle, pigs, and ponies. Eaten by moose, caribou, arctic hares, and musk oxen.

 

Old Man’s Beard Lichen – Possible alternative for poultice making. When dried, is used as a fire starter. Also used to obtain orange and brown dyes.

 

Poisonous lichens – wolf lichen (letharia vulpine), powdered sunshine (vulpicide pinastri)

Lichens can also be used as a burnable fuel where grass is sparse. Perhaps an alternative for grass in fire pits?

 

 

Plants and Crops:

 

Seagrass (Ivigak) – Durable and water-resistant. Coiled into rope by some arctic peoples and this rope can then be made into woven baskets, hats, and floor mats. Colorful geometric shapes would sometimes be added by the weavers. Suggested for an extreme cold variant for ropes and baskets. Harvested from seagrass meadows which also act as habitat for fish (salmon, herring), crabs, shrimps, etc.

Imagine you, the player, finding a seagrass meadow. You collect the seagrass and go spearfishing and then go dry your collected goods on your rack for rope and food.

 

 

Lady Fern – Dies off in the winter while in spring, the harvestable edible fiddleheads appear. Suggested that they would be replantable like other ferns so players can make “vegetable” gardens of them. Tolerant down to temps between -40°C to -34°C.

Idea: Maybe during winters with extreme cold, only a base of roots is hidden underneath the snow from which edible fiddleheads will sprout from during spring. At other times of the year, the fern is leafy with no edible fiddleheads.

 

Rice Lily (Fritillaria camschatensis) – medium-sized flowering herb of sandy woodlands. Their bulbs are an important food source for locals and can be eaten raw, boiled in meals, or roasted over fire or dried and ground into a flour for bread. Suggested that they could be used like a crop or a permaculture for cold climates. Dormant bulbs are hardy to -20°C. Plant is hardy above -15°C.

 

Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) – low-growing plant of bogs and tundra. Bears white fruit similar to salmonberry. Harvestable in summer. Used by locals to make jam, jelly, and alcohol. Some traditional liqueurs include lakkalikööri (Finnish) and chicoutai (Innu-aimun). Suggested that they could be used as a very short, small berry bush. Tolerant to -40°C.

 

Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) – small, short evergreen berry-bearing shrub native to boreal forests and Arctic tundra. Used in jams, pies, alcohol, stews, (and, in real life, also served with meat or blood sausages). Tolerant to temps of -45°C.

 

Kayaks:

Base idea: the raft requires mainly wood while the kayak would require mainly pelts, useful for where wood is sparse.

 

 

Traditional kayaks were made from a frame of worked driftwood lashed together with seal ligaments/whale baleen and covered in scraped seal/caribou hide and used to hunt in and navigate even dangerous conditions on the sea.

The kayaks suggested for is an early game alternative for the wood-heavy raft for the far north/south where wood is sparse. The idea is that players would scavenge for driftwood near water, prepare the driftwood with a knife or axe into strips, and combine those strips with pelts, a knife, and game meat (to simulate the materials for lashings). Only a single player could use the kayak at a time with room for one basket within the kayak. A bit more wood or driftwood would be needed for the crude oar or paddle.

To balance between the raft and kayak to make them closer in needed materials, the number of pelts should be less than 12 which is the number of logs needed for the raft as pelts inherently require more materials and time to obtain. My suggestion is maybe 4 pelts of medium, 2 of large, or one huge.

So, an example recipe is two game meat, a knife, 4 medium pelts, and driftwood strips.

 

Additional Food Preparations for Very Cold Environments & Icefishing:

•  

  Red meats can be allowed to freeze solid than cut into bite-sized pieces. Must remain frozen to remain edible. Rate of spoilage is slowed while frozen.
  • This is a traditional way to eat these meats for people of the far north in North America
  • Perhaps this can be simulated by the player having a basket or vessel exposed to extreme cold that meat is stored within and allowed to freeze and remain frozen.
  • (In real life, the meat must be thoroughly frozen to kill parasites, and eating frozen, raw poultry is a big no-no.)
• If fishing is expanded as the devs suggested it would be in the future, then:
  • Have tool rack or similar construction dry char, salmon, cod, halibut, herring. Does not work if exposed to rain/snow.
    • Tool racks are already used to dry bowstaves
  • Icefishing
    • While using a fishing rod in a water source block, that block does not freeze
    • Fishhooks can be made from carved bone or knapped. Knapped is not as durable as bone.
    • Tip-ups for icefishing holes
      • Suggested recipe: sticks or bones, fishhook, and some type of material for both lashing and the line such as rope, game meat (to simulate those made from ligaments/intestines), or imported linen thread. Could be loaded with a live or frozen bait and reset after each catch.

 

Additional Tool Rack Uses (or Add a Drying Rack):

• When used outside in sub-freezing climate:
  • Drying fish for preserved food
• When used outside generally
  • Drying seagrass for rope, basket-weaving, mats, hats
  • Maybe drying lichen for burnable material and rice lily bulbs

 

Igloos:

 

With knife or long-bladed weapons in hand, use it on snow or ice blocks (hold right-click) to cut into useable brick blocks which can be picked up/mined/shoveled. Can be stacked to create blocky igloo-like structures.

If the temperature stays above freezing, the blocks can become damage or melt away.

(Also make snow forts and have snowball fights wherever it’s cold enough!)

 

Function for Snow Goggles:

• While wearing them, the levels of the tone-values of the screen are adjusted so darks stay the same but brights are dimmer. Would work in both vast expanses of blinding sand or blinding snow.
• Shout-out to ifoz for suggesting something similar. I also support their idea to add them to Survival Goods traders’ pools. Maybe also make them craftable using a knife and a bone or a small portion of wood.

Edited August 26, 2025 by WanderingStoryteller