Common Sense Corner

[DerVVulfman]

In the Elder Scrolls games, you deal with the mythos of the 9 divines and the Daedra Lords. They have a mythos all their own, and an immersive environment that explains it. Handled correctly, there would be no confusion. Granted, there are plenty of standby animals and plants for the player to recognize (deer, rats, bears...) and plants to harvest. But I do gripe that you can find St. John's Wort as a plant when you do not have a St. John in the game world's history. That's just stupid and lazy.

A game I'm working on has animal variants... and byproducts to match. Let's say you have a boar-like animal called the Harche. Looks like a pig with tusks, but has venom sacks and claws instead of hooves. Dang, I just came up with a mean description. From it, you can get something like Harche steaks or Harche Jerky. You can keep a bit of recognition in your game so players can know something to expect, but throw in a curve ball to surprise them.