What kind of starter house do you think a Seraph would canonically build?

[ifoz]

I've been wondering about this lately seeing the new trader huts, what kind of first house do you think the average Seraph would make?
I've been trying to come up with a few ideas, and these three are my best shots so far at trying to make a starter house that looks quick enough to set up, but not so primitive it looks straight out of the neolithic. 
(Maybe the third one does a little, but come on, it's got wattle gates that are hinged with string. String! That's advanced!)
There's also the option of hiding out in ruins, which I think a Seraph would reasonably have to do to avoid Rust creatures the first few nights, until they got their first proper house together.

[LadyWYT]

17 minutes ago, ifoz said:

what kind of first house do you think the average Seraph would make?

According to the "Ghosts" short story...they set up pitiful little camps in the woods. 

In all seriousness though, I think it depends on the personality, aptitude, and cultural background of the seraph, as well as what kind of climate and materials they have to work with. Probably the easiest general shelter to set up, realistically, is some sort of basic lean-to that's just big enough to sleep in. For a more permanent structure, a log cabin makes a lot of sense if there's plenty of forest around, while a sod house makes more sense where trees are scarce. For a dry climate, building with adobe/wattle-and-daub is going to be an attractive choice.

For me, I usually opt for a design similar to the one in the middle, though I make it a full A-frame in most cases, sometimes as a longhouse with 2-3 rooms. I also sometimes skip the thatch roofing and jump straight to the sod roofing instead. Is it very realistic? Eh...perhaps not, but then again there's quite a lot of progression in the game that happens faster than it realistically would.

25 minutes ago, ifoz said:

There's also the option of hiding out in ruins, which I think a Seraph would reasonably have to do to avoid Rust creatures the first few nights, until they got their first proper house together.

The way I've been handling that from an out-of-game roleplaying standpoint, is using bonfires to keep monsters away, camping out of sight and not making noise when there's rift activity about, and since there's two characters in the story--having one keep watch while the other sleeps. Staying the night at a trader's outpost is likely also an option, provided neither the seraph nor the trader is an absolute jerk. It doesn't really work long term, given that traders seem to prefer solitude, and the seraphs obviously have a mission to complete, but in a world that harsh leaving someone to fend for themselves in the dark is pretty much a death sentence.

[ifoz]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Probably the easiest general shelter to set up, realistically, is some sort of basic lean-to that's just big enough to sleep in.

I'd love if there was some way to make basic shelters like this in the game, right now I guess you can put some thatch blocks above some rough-hewn fences, but that just looks like a weird canopy. 

 

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Staying the night at a trader's outpost is likely also an option, provided neither the seraph nor the trader is an absolute jerk. It doesn't really work long term, given that traders seem to prefer solitude, and the seraphs obviously have a mission to complete, but in a world that harsh leaving someone to fend for themselves in the dark is pretty much a death sentence.

Sadly trader couch surfing has been nerfed, since most traders now have an aged short bed - the unusable clutter type. This also means they sleep on a mouldy mattress. 
Some do still have normal or hay beds, but I don't know if the game actually allows you to use them anymore. I'd have to check, but I do know chests are now off-limits.

[Facethief]

3 hours ago, ifoz said:

Sadly trader couch surfing has been nerfed, since most traders now have an aged short bed - the unusable clutter type. This also means they sleep on a mouldy mattress. 
Some do still have normal or hay beds, but I don't know if the game actually allows you to use them anymore. I'd have to check, but I do know chests are now off-limits.

It totally still lets you sleep on traders’ beds.

[Maelstrom]

Considering most of the seraph's previous life was spent underground; my seraph goes for a hole dug in the first clay deposit it finds.  There's plenty to do that first night, forming the first clay items and knapping a stack of each tool head.  

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, ifoz said:

Some do still have normal or hay beds, but I don't know if the game actually allows you to use them anymore.

 

3 hours ago, Facethief said:

It totally still lets you sleep on traders’ beds.

Can confirm this is the case. I borrowed a trader's bed the first night in my world.

 

6 hours ago, ifoz said:

I'd love if there was some way to make basic shelters like this in the game, right now I guess you can put some thatch blocks above some rough-hewn fences, but that just looks like a weird canopy. 

It does, but packed dirt blocks kinda work too. The key I think is to just keep the lean-to tiny--just big enough to cover a bed and a campfire.

[marmarmar34]

My first thought would be taking cover in caves, seeing how they came from a time when that was the safest place away from the rot. Although, the various rust entities would clearly take issue with that. Following a hasty retreat from the caves, they'd likely just set up camp near flowing water in a relatively dry region. 

[InternetDragon]

the classic walled-off cave hole would be best. Put a wall of packed/rammed earth 10 blocks in, make a hay bed and a firepit. Block off entrance with only a 1x1 hole for air / timekeeping.

[Valsalan]

On 2/9/2026 at 8:39 PM, ifoz said:

There's also the option of hiding out in ruins, which I think a Seraph would reasonably have to do to avoid Rust creatures the first few nights, until they got their first proper house together.

To be fair, if you can find a ruin at the surface, they make for good starter bases. Once you clean the mold off of everything and clear up the clutter. As you can see here: