Food and potions

Nobody in the grove starves. But a frog with a full belly heals faster than a hungry one, and gets mana back too. Between fights, that's the difference between a short rest and a long sit.

How food works

Eating fills a full feeling, and food time stacks up to 1200 seconds. If a bite would take you past that, you'll be told You are full, and the food stays in your bag.

While you're full, your health and mana come back every 3000 milliseconds:

• Health: 2, plus a little more for every level you've gained.
• Mana: 3, plus a little more for every level.

Near a lit fire it's 2 times as fast. Stand still there a moment to rest and it's faster still, and resting by a fire heals you a little even on an empty belly. The wayfire is the obvious place for it. Standing in a safe zone makes it 1.5 times as fast.

Cold slows you down. Out in the rain or the night, away from a fire, all your healing comes back at half the pace.

Even when you're not full, your health comes back steadily once you've been out of a fight for a few seconds. Food adds its own healing on top. Mana trickles back on its own too, at a pace set by your class (see Classes and levelling).

When your food is about to run out, you'll get a nudge: You feel hungry. That's the moment to eat something.

What to eat

To eat something, right-click it in your bag, or drag it onto a hotbar key.

Mabry's cart sells bread for 3 copper and smoked fish for 5. You'll find bread for sale along the West Road and in Harrowfield too (see Trading and coin). Bread is heavy, though, so carry what you'll eat and not a bakery.

Food you can find

The world feeds you a little for free, if you know where to look. Stand next to it and press E.

• Hedge berries grow on the berry bushes by the hollow log in the grove, along the West Road's hedges and on Harrowfield's lane hedge. A bush gives 2 handfuls, then it's picked clean. It ripens again by day, a handful every 10 minutes or so. At night it's too dark to tell ripe from green.
• Wood mushrooms push up by old stumps and fallen logs in the grove, under the Gap's hedge, on the West Road's shrine sward and in Harrowfield's old orchard. A picked patch comes back after about 20 minutes. Some patches only come up after rain.
• Wild apples hang on the last tree of Harrowfield's old orchard, among the stumps: 4 at a time, more colour by day.
• Brook trout come up into the shallows at dusk and dawn: at the grove's spring pool and at Pike's bank on the river. Catch them with your bare hands. They slip away more often than not, and each place has only 3 until the next dusk or dawn.

Everyone shares the same world. When another frog strips a bush, you see it bare too, and you both wait for it to grow back. It's a handful here and there, not a larder. For a proper meal, buy bread.

A good habit: eat before a hunt, not during it. Then every quiet moment between fights is already healing you.

Meat from the hunt

Some beasts give meat: the Furrow Ewes that rise in Harrowfield at dusk, the Bramblehogs in the hedges, the Dandelion Hares in the grass, the Hushed Boars past the Gap, and the Ploughbound itself.

Raw meat fills you only a little, and the Hushed beasts' meat still has the Hush in it: eaten raw it can turn your belly, and for a minute food won't heal you. Cook it first. Stand by a lit fire (the wayfire, a campfire, or Hobb's hearth once you've relit it) and use the raw meat: you hold it over the flames for a couple of seconds, everyone near sees the smoke and hears it spit, and a roast comes back to your bag.

A night among the ewes keeps you fed without a trip to a shop, but bread is still the quicker way to a full belly: the coins from one ewe's fleece and dust buy more bread than its meat is worth. Spare roasts sell to Hobb at the mill and to Quill on the road for a copper or two.

Potions

Potions act at once. You can drink one every 1000 milliseconds at most, so you can't gulp a whole stack in a panic.

Your health and mana potions start on keys 3 and 4. New spells take the free keys (5 and 6) first, and only take over a potion's key when you have none of that potion left. You can drag a potion onto any key you like.

Wounds that linger

Some blows keep hurting after they land:

• Bleeding, from a Ditchmaw's bite after dark or a Hushed Fox's pounce, drips a little damage for a few seconds.
• Poisoned bites hard at first and fades as it goes.
• Burning, from a Wickmaw's nibble, hurts and lights you up like a torch.
• Chilled slows your walk, rooted stops you from walking at all, and stunned stops you from walking and swinging.

The spell Mend closes a bleed. A Shaman's Healing Rain closes a bleed and clears poison as well. An antidote takes care of poison too.

Stamina

Every frog has a store of stamina for hunting. It runs down only while you're actually fighting, and it fills back up only while you're logged out.

• A full store lasts 42 hours of hunting.
• The top 2 hours are rested, and give 1.5 times the experience.
• Below 14 hours, experience is cut to 0.5 times.
• At zero, creatures give no experience and no loot.
• After logging out, the first 10 minutes count for nothing. After that you get back 1 minute of stamina for every 3 minutes you're away, and more slowly in the rested band.

Stamina isn't shown on screen yet, but it is counted. If your experience seems slow after a very long session, that's why. Go and get some sleep. The grove will still be here.