I know it's a bit late in deveolpment for this

[tHe_silent_H]

But wouldn't it be wonderful if there was one extra critter in the pack to fill out a missing niche. As we know the orehull/kelpole loop is very narrow, so why not widen it with a new critter, the opposite of an electric eel, an eel made of rubber(Or Reel as I shall call it)

Orehull changes: instead of polluted mud it makes polluted water directly

the Reel would eat reedfibre and thimble reeds, to produce the polluted mud instead, thus the loop becomes kelpole->orehull->thimble reed(already present in the kelp forest)->Reel->kelpole

 

The reel would also serve as a water lumb, but not in the same way, at night it looks for a plant to sleep around(happiness penalty if none). when it wakes in the morning, if the plant needed harvesting it will harvest it. bonus if it also applies a tending bonus for the duration of sleep

 

lastly to make it completely unique from other critters, the more it eats the longer it gets which affects its drops on death, Reel scraps, can composted or processed in the vulcanizer for rubber. for example(numbers are filler and not for balance), a wild one might be 2 segments and make 100kg of rubber, where as a tame would reach 10, but a baby or starved excess Reel might only drop 25

 

Pro's to doing this:

• new critter(everyone loves critters) 
• fills a niche(no water havesters or tenders)
• makes the loop less basic, but opens it up(reed fibre from dreckos,)
• alternate source of rubber

Con's:

•  Late in development for a new critter
• requires new art assets and coding
• there's quite a few new critters in the pack already, so won't stand out
• future morph options might be limited(maybe cuddle pip type variant???)

[Tenedas]

I like the idea of a rubber eel!

Would fit the theme nicely. Probably should give latex? Or something to not have access to rubber that easly