Manure, piracy and bananas. A Wonkey skill tree!

[Picklesaurus]

            

 

                                                                                                                    
Curse embracer: You have accepted the curse, as an appreciation the curse reduces its burden on you; no more accursed trinkets but forever Wonkey. (You will start with no Accursed Trinkets and able to turn any you find into rope at the cost of sanity. Allies can give you banana to turn their Accursed Trinkets into rope.)  (Base skill, you can only proceed by selecting it and you can only select it by unlocking Wonkey and choosing to play as him in the character selection menu.)
 
                                                                                                              🙈 Cave ape 🙉
                                                                       
                                           
                                                                       
 
Spelunk: +25 maximum sanity. Wonkey's sanity drains 30% slower while inside caves. (Also applies to insanity aura drain)


Simian Efficiency: Wonkey takes half as long to start running on his fours. (You can select either "Simian efficiency" or a future skill called "Bipedal", selecting either skill locks the other.)
Banana Powered: Eating a banana or Banana related food increases Wonkey's run speed by 25% for 4 minutes (half an in-game day).


Byproduct: Wonkey produces a potent manure when eating banana or banana related food. (It can fix boat leaks and is a 4x more effective manure [x4 burn duration on firepit, x4 farm soil vitamins])
Manure trow: Wonkey can now trow manure, hitting an enemy with manure will briefly stun small creatures or aggro bigger ones.
Mocking Monkey: Hitting an enemy with potent manure increases Wonkey sanity by 10 and makes said enemy stinky for 1 minute, Wonkey will always move at run speed near a stinky target. (Allows you to keep the running on fours speed buff while fighting)


Fresh find: Banana or banana related food inside Wonkey's inventory takes twice as long to spoil. 
Healthy diet: +25 maximum HP. Banana or banana related foods gives Wonkey +10 health over 10 seconds.
Fruitful Demise: Enemies killed by Wonkey have a 50% chance to also drop a banana. Bosses will always drop 5 bananas as extra loot.

 

Distant cousins: Splumonkeys and their shadow version won't steal items near Wonkey nor attack him (unless Wonkey attacks them).
Suspicious banana: Bananas can be used to befriend Splumonkeys. Wonkey can make a Suspicious banana (Banana+Nightmare fuel) that turns Splumonkeys into their shadow forms and befriends them. (1 banana -> 3 Splumonkeys befriended) 
Barrel of monkeys: Wonkey can craft Splumonkey pods. Befriended Splumonkeys will give Wonkey items they pick up or store them inside their pods if Wonkey is far or didn't befriend them. (Wonkey will be able to access items inside Splumonkey pods)

                                                                                                       🐵🏴‍☠️ Pirate monkey 🏴‍☠️🐵
                                                                         

 

 

Bipedal: Wonkey can't run on all fours anymore, but he will walk at normal speed (5.5->6) and have a tail slot that can passively hold a hand slot item.

(Tail slotted items won't do actions like chop, mine or attack but it can passively hold an item. Good with lantern, umbrella and walking cane.)
(Idea inspired by an old idea from @Masked Koopa)


Monkey see: Wonkey has a much bigger field of view while on a boat and rock stacks are visible through the dark.
Monkey do: Wonkey doesns't need a think tank to craft seafaring items and said items costs less to be crafted.

 

Lucky sailor: +1 luck. Fish schools and messages in a bottle spawn much more often near Wonkey and have a much higher chance for heavy fish/better treasure.
Old enemies: Wonkey deals 50% more damage to sharks but Rockyjaws have a x2 higher chance of appearing from fish schools emerging  nearby and will actively hunt down Wonkey, they will be able to spawn even on swell waters Wonkey is sailing on.
Rocky meal: Nearby Rockyjaw drops 1 Bootleg Getaway upon death.


Bucaneer: Wonkey rows are stronger while wearing a pirate hat. Learn how to craft the Pirate Bandana.
Captain: Periodically marks a pirate stash on the map while Wonkey is wearing a pirate hat. Learn how to craft the Captain's Tricorn.
Ape's treasure: Pirate stash will give Wonkey one of each banana food (Banana, Banana Shake, Frozen Banana Daiquiri and Banana pop) as extra loot. 
(You still roll normally for the rest of the loot, including the already existent chance that guarantees from 2 to 4 bananas and the chance to get from 0 up to 3 Banana shakes) 


PLUNDER!: Learn how to craft the cutless. Finishing an enemy with the cutless gives Wonkey a chance for an extra drop.
YAAARRR!: Learn how to craft the Battle paddle. Wonkey deals extra damage with pirate weapons (Cutless, Battle paddle and Brightshade Cutlass).
ME FANCY!: Learn how to craft and use the Brightshade Cutlass, a post rift planar pirate weapon that guarantees a random extra drop when it kills an enemy. This weapon is also able to control and accelerate a boat Wonkey is in towards the direction it is pointing to. Wonkey points the Cutlass in a direction by clicking somewhere on the water with it equipped on hand.
                                                 

                                                                                                           🦜 🌕Affinities🌑🐒  


Moon Quay Polly: You are followed by a Bright-Beaked Polly Roger that you can command to either help pick up nearby items, to continuously attack your target for low planar damage or to send a single item to be dropped somewhere on the map.
(Prerequisites: learn 6 "Pirate Monkey" skills and have no Shadow Affinity to unlock it.)


Going ape!: After fighting for some seconds Wonkey turns shadowy making every third hit be a bite that deals Wonkey's equipped weapon damage + 35 planar damage and doesn't consume weapon durability.
(Prerequisites: learn 6 "Cave Ape" skills and have no Lunar Affinity to unlock it.)

                                                                                                          ♻️Discarded ideas♻️

Spoiler

Nautical miracle -> There is a small chance for a Whirlportal to appear nearby while your boat is moving. If you go over it your map will open and you can choose another ocean part of the map that you have already explored to be the Whirlportal exit. Warning: if you dont choose a place to go the Whirlportal will eject you, damaging your boat.

Moon Quay Connections -> You can trade bananas for items or items for bananas in a hidden (-dark market-) trade tab with the Wandering trader, with the Queen of Moon quay  or with the Pig king. Banana Foods are worth more. 

Contraband -> You can can get special contrabanded items from the Wandering trader and from the Queen of moon quay.

Strong currents -> Your boat moves faster on Swell, Rough and Hazardous ocean. Anchors take half as long to hit the ocean floor.

Monkey leap -> Right clicking a stinky target (a target hit by manure trow) allows Wonkey to quickly leap towards it, closing the gap between Wonkey and the enemy.

Ape's treasure -> Pirate stash will guarantee the maximum amount of banana related loot possible (4xBananas and 3xBanana shakes). 

Powder Crew -> you can craft a makeshift Monkey hut.  (1 Banana -> 3 Befriended Monkeys).
Primate -> Monkey huts store +1 monkey which is a Prime Mate. You can befriend them with bananas.

Going ape -> After fighting for some seconds you turn into Shadow Spelumonkey quickly draining hunger overtime but every  second hit while in this form will be a bite that regenerates hunger and health. You  always move at run speed in this form.

Fish bait -> Wonkey can use banana as fish food to make fish shoals appear.

Thanks for reading 🐵👍

Edited Wednesday at 06:21 AM by Picklesaurus

[Cuernito.]

sorry to say it but that is never gonna happen, wonkey is not a real character, he is more like a curse that can happens to every survivors even woodie. And a skill tree for a non real character is never gonna happen unless klei went bananas, haha you got it? i made a little sad joke at the end :P

[Dr. Safety]

I'm a playable Wonkey believer. Don't let the dream die.

Great ideas btw

[Evelo]

I like how this doesn't add new items (well except the brightshade cutlass). As well as most (not all I see a few) are just passive bonuses.

[Mike23Ua]

Unless Klei changes it so Wonkey is an Unlockable playable character, I don’t see this happening EVER. Which is sad, cause I’d love to have Wonkey as a playable character!

[xDarkSoul18x]

I want it so bad! I love Wonkey!  It should have been an unlockable similar to some of solo DS characters.

[ShadowDuelist]

Those are some really good ideas. Also, the discarded idea you mentioned, “Contraband,” has a lot of potential.

Being a better trader could prove useful and unique—not just with the Wandering Trader and the Moon Quay Queen, but also with the Rabbit King, Pig King, Pearl, Antlion, and even the Merm King if a Wurt is around. A character who can achieve certain things differently through plundering and trading sounds like it could be pretty fun.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is that Wonkey could maybe retain a minor perk from the character you originally turned into Wonkey. It’s not like we’d get a Wonkey with double strength or Abigail, but maybe a small passive ability could “stay with him,” basically allowing players to choose an extra skill for him depending on which character they started the game as.

Edited February 25 by ShadowDuelist

[Velvy]

On 2/24/2026 at 11:37 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Unless Klei changes it so Wonkey is an Unlockable playable character, I don’t see this happening EVER. Which is sad, cause I’d love to have Wonkey as a playable character!

rn im hoping that they surprise us with a wonkey skill tree that makes it so becoming wonkey once unlocks him as a permanent character

[Jakepeng99]

On 2/24/2026 at 1:42 AM, Picklesaurus said:

Curse embracer: You have accepted the curse, as an appreciation the curse reduces its burden on you; no more accursed trinkets but forever Wonkey. (You will start with no Accursed Trinkets and able to turn any you find into rope at the cost of sanity. Allies can give you banana to turn their Accursed Trinkets into rope.)  (Base skill, you can only proceed by selecting it and you can only select it by choosing Wonkey in the character selection/portal.)

I had a similar idea.

Basically you can choose to embrace the curse or repell it.

embracing it made you stronger the more trinkets you had. Repelling it allowed you to spend bananas on the go to remove trinkets from you and other players.

Philisophy was to add skills convienient in the situation of being forcefully turned into monkey.

[Naifxoxo]

after unlocking wonkey , players should be able to select wonkey as a starter character, this way players who select wonkey from the menu r the ones who able to play with his skilltree if klei decides to add some , this way players who become wonkey by killing monkies its still a bad thing for them since he has nothing,

 

i would rlly like to have wonkey evolves into wilbur , theres so much potential, what if they change wonkey making him understand the monkies in ruins , and become the monkey king as well , being able to craft all pirate hats etc , both monkey spawners , pirate ones and ruin versions

[mima_]

21 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

embracing it made you stronger the more trinkets you had.

and make if u die the trinket isnt droppable just like wanda's watches. 
so other people didnt catch the curse walking near the corpses. or disappear when u take too long to revive yourself (finally can have wonkey ghost state)

[reddocc]

High effort but I will sacrifice Monkey if that gets me the skill tree of Warly

[NotGabriel]

Super cool concept! I’ve tried making a Wonkey tree before and I’m sad I never thought of just making a two sided path. Simple but effective. It is a little bit of a bummer to only have 2 possible builds essentially, but for the purposes of adapting a punishment into a decent character I think that’s acceptable. May the Wonkey dreams never die!

Edit: actually unplayable I just counted and the shadow side only had access to 14 points while Lunar side can use all 15. I’m only poking fun of course but thought I’d point it out!

Edited Tuesday at 09:14 PM by NotGabriel

[Picklesaurus]

On 4/14/2026 at 6:12 PM, NotGabriel said:

Super cool concept! 

Thank you, I had a lot of trouble making it, reading this means a lot 

On 4/14/2026 at 6:12 PM, NotGabriel said:

Super cool concept! I’ve tried making a Wonkey tree before and I’m sad I never thought of just making a two sided path. Simple but effective. It is a little bit of a bummer to only have 2 possible builds essentially, but for the purposes of adapting a punishment into a decent character I think that’s acceptable. May the Wonkey dreams never die!

Edit: actually unplayable I just counted and the shadow side only had access to 14 points while Lunar side can use all 15. I’m only poking fun of course but thought I’d point it out!

After reading your comment I noticed that I was being too harsh on build variety by requiring 8 skills in one side to unlock an affinity, I reduced it to 6, this should open build variety a lot - well, its an imaginay build variety since its an imaginary skill tree but it feels good to imagine Wonkey having a skill tree 😁.

I also looked up some skills that felt lacking, I added +25 sanity to Spelunk so it can have an effect while you are outside caves as well, I removed the sanity given by banana foods from the skill Healthy Diet and added +25 maximum hp to it instead since it seems more fitting and another skill already gives sanity by trowing manure. The last change I did was to Lucky sailor, I added +1 luck to it for flavor and because its effect was too niche, getting +1 luck from it seems fun. Also, being a lucky Pirate is a trope I should have explored more through the luck system Klei added this year, I made this post in February, but I had prepared this skill tree from August to October of last year and there was no luck system at the time 😕.

In a way you taking a look at this skill tree helped me make it better because I ended up taking another look at it as well, so thank you!

Edited yesterday at 04:24 AM by Picklesaurus