Breeding / mating is a way to make playable characters with different attributes that you can`t always get from a normal new character generation. Breeding of animals can also be accomplished to populate a farm.

Breeding

When two members of the opposite genders use the MATE social while not wearing anything on their waist or legs, there is a chance the female will become pregnant.

• Normally, both participants need to be of the same race.
  • Some races may mate freely with other specific races (humans and elves, for example).
  • The Druidic chant Crossbreeding can overcome most racial infertilities, assuming both races can create offspring.
• The Druidic chant Fertility can increase the likelihood of pregnancy.

If the female becomes pregnant, a pregnancy affect will appear on her score card/affects list, and then she must carry the child to term. During pregnancy, she may experience mood swings. Eventually she will give birth to a baby (mammals) or lay an egg (insects, dragons, reptiles and fish). If the baby/egg is the child of a player account, and is Christened by a cleric and given a name, then when the child grows to become a young adult (age varies by race), they will become a playable character, with a +1 to all max stats and some of the associations (factions) and languages of their parents.

Unwanted Pregnancy

It is possible that a player may find themselves in a situation where they do not desire to be pregnant. As a non-magical affect, pregnancy cannot be dispelled. However, the Gaoler class has an ability, Chirgury which can remove the unwanted fetus.

Crossbreeding

CoffeeMUD has a dynamic crossbreeding system, so new races are generated when parents of different races magically mate. Some crossbreeds produce known results, some produce new races entirely. Please do not update this wiki with stats on cross-bred races. Since they are dynamically generated, the stats may vary between servers, and can even vary on the same server if enough time has lapsed to reset the race. Humans are notorious crossbreeders, and can crossbreed with some other races without the assistance of magic (for example humans and elves can produce half-elves). Other combinations are possible with the druid crossbreeding chant.

Notes on Breeding

• If a parent combination is not already defined, a new race will be dynamically created.
  • When a new race is created, it will (primarily) average the parent races' base stats and resists.
    • If the parent races have set stats, it may choose one parent's stat, and/or modify the stat based on the other parent.
      • For example, if a parent has animal intelligence (set INTELLIGENCE=1), and another parent has +2 racial intelligence, it may choose to go with animal intelligence (set INTELLIGENCE=1) or Intelligence+2 minus 8(?) for the animal parent.
      • Due to the way the formula works with set stats, it will scale in some fashion with your class's maxstat each time you switch classes with a different maxstat value. This could result in a lower maxstat for your character even though the class maxstat was higher than before. It could also result in a higher value. In general, it is best to avoid breeding with races with a set stat.
  • When a new race is created, it will gain the "first four" abilities from its parent races.
    • I don't know what "first four" means...just that it is limited to 4, and I suspect these 4 will be selected by listing all abilities from both parent races in some fashion.
• Most cold-blooded racial categories (Dragons, Birds, Fish, Reptiles) produce eggs. Most warm-blooded racial categories produce babies.
  • Eggs/Babies won't age to childhood until they are picked up and have a sufficient age to do so.
• The mob will become a playable character provided it meets the following criteria:
  • It does not have a fixed animal intelligence.
    • Bred children with animal intelligence cannot become player characters.
  • It is Christened before the baby/egg has taken it's first steps (reaches childhood age).
    • This can be accomplished while the child is on the ground just after birth. Since the egg/baby wont age to childhood until they are picked up, this mitigates inadvertent aging of babies of certain races that have very short childhoods.
  • The account of the player parent has an available character slot for the baby/egg.