User:HungryPaperweight/HP's sketchbook

Welcome to my sketchbook. Most people call this kind of thing a sandbox, but I wanted to come up with an at least slightly original name. Anyways, I probably won't use this much anymore, but you never know. Feel free to look, and if you spot any mistakes (like typos or incorrect info), feel free to fix them (just let me know what you're doing).

=Bestiaries= This is just a place for me to work on bestiaries. For those two or three of you out there who actually care: I look for the monsters myself the old-fashioned way (one random encounter at a time), then I check GameFAQs to see if I missed any. Some people might check GameFAQs first, but several times I've found monsters in areas GameFAQs say they don't appear, and if I check an FAQ first I might stop looking early once I've found all those monsters, meaning I might miss some.

Colosso

 * Main article: Colosso

(East?) Alhafra

 * Main article: Alhafra

=Shop= And this is an area for me to experiment with shop templates.

=Templates= I'm not too good at creating new templates, but I can usually copy-and-paste (and modify) what I need. Here's a few ideas I have for new templates, and I'm mostly putting them here to make sure they work.

Orihalcon
=A little help, please!= I had this idea a while back for a new article. It started as just some random idea, but before long I realized that it could actually turn out to be one of my best ideas yet.

Here's the plan: Animals. An article that goes into detail about real-life animals as they appear in the Golden Sun series. I've already made some progress on it, but events in the real world have ground my progress down to a halt. Plus, my inability to access the internet whenever I want doesn't help any.

This is where I need help. I'm going to post all the progress I've made so far below, and then you guys can pick up where I left off. I wouldn't be suprised if Erik takes it upon himself to finish the job, but everyone is free to add ideas. In fact, I encourage people (even you, Erik) to edit what I've done, that way we can compare ideas (you can use the talk page too, of course, especially since some of my notes may only make sense to me). Oh yeah, the "animals vs. monsters" section could do with a makeover, and I have been considering removing the "mythical animals" section.

Well, here we go:

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Animals in the Golden Sun games aren't much different from animals in real life. A wide variety of animal species familiar in the real world can be found throughout Weyard. These animals range from domestic pets such as cats and dogs to more wild and free animals such as dolphins and turtles. It is reasonable to assume that there are many more species in Weyard that have been taken directly from real life but simply haven’t been mentioned in-game yet.

Although there are many different types of animals, a far less substantial number of animals are encountered throughout the games when compared to the number of humans. It even appears that the number of animals in Weyard is decreasing. Evidence of this is given throughout Golden Sun: The Lost Age: ocean fish are becoming more and more scarce, forcing seafaring people like the Champans to look for other ways to survive; wildlife, particularly those hunted for their meat, appear to be vanishing from the area around Kibombo, and no doubt in other areas as well. These mysterious disappearances may be due largely (though not entirely) to the release of Psynergy Stones after the eruption of Mt. Aleph; it is confirmed by Laurel early in Golden Sun that the Psynergy Stones have turned many animals into monsters.

As far as the games are concerned in a technical area, animals are NPCs (non-player characters) about as much as the many humans populating Weyard. Players, however, will notice two general differences animals have from other NPCs: that their field sprites are much different and that they typically spout an onomotopoeiac word or phrase when you "talk" to them, such as "woof" for dogs or "meow" for cats. This is not surprising since animals cannot speak (or at least not in any language we humans can understand). Their very humanlike thoughts, however, can be clearly understood by an Adept casting the Mind Read Psynergy on them just as if Mind Read is used on normal humans. Animals often possess valuable information and/or insight that only creatures not bound to human society and ethics can properly observe; they can either give players advice or assistance with the games' quest or side quests, point out areas that may be of interest to the player, or supply information about the Golden Sun world in general (which is of little help in gameplay terms, but may be quite valuable to players who want to learn more about Weyard).

List of animal species
The following is a list of all animal species that either appear in or are mentioned throughout the Golden Sun series. This list does not include monsters that closely resemble animals.

Animals in italic text do not appear as NPCs.


 * Birds
 * Cat
 * Chicken
 * Cow
 * Crab
 * Dog
 * Dolphin
 * Fish
 * Penguin
 * Sheep
 * Silkworm
 * Turtle 	(remember Nereid)
 * Whale	(Neptune)

In Golden Sun

 * Vale
 * Vault
 * Xian
 * Tolbi (Spring)

In The Lost Age

 * Mikasalla
 * Gondowan Cliffs
 * Kibombo Mountains
 * E Tundaria Islet
 * SE Angara Islet (bird)
 * N Osenia Islet (cow)
 * West Indra Islet
 * Sea of Time Islet
 * Lemuria
 * Lemuria (Spring)

Animals with names

 * Pengus and Pengulina
 * Lonely George

Trading sequence animals

 * E Tundaria Islet
 * SE Angara Islet (bird)
 * N Osenia Islet (cow)
 * West Indra Islet
 * Sea of Time Islet

Animals and monsters
Despite Laurel's previously mentioned discovery, animals and monsters should not be grouped together, although there are some instances when the two overlap. In a general sense, monsters always appear in battle, and only a few have overworld sprites (most notably bosses). Animals, in contrast, only appear in overworld areas such as towns and dungeons (aside from a few that are only mentioned and never actually appear) and players can interact with them just like they would any other NPC.

There are some situations where the distinction between animals and monsters is blurred. A unique example are the green Apes of Mogall Forest, who have sprites but are never actually battled.

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Many monsters closely resemble animals in appearance and often in name as well. Although it may be pure coincidence, these monsters are most likely either slightly mutated animals or simply animals who have been either very scared or driven mad by the raining Psynergy Stones. It is difficult to say whether these monsters can still be considered animals or if they are only monsters now. Some of these monsters, however, clearly cannot be considered animals any longer, such as the Punch Ant, Rat Soldier, and Lizard Fighter. The following is a list of monsters that might still be considered animals:


 * Ape
 * Calamar
 * Conch Shell	?
 * Devil Frog	?
 * Devil Scorpion	?
 * Dino
 * Dirge
 * Doodle Bug	?
 * Emu
 * Fighter Bee	?
 * Giant Bat
 * Kraken
 * Mole		?
 * Momonga	??
 * Rat
 * Ravager
 * Roc	??
 * Salamander	??
 * Seabird
 * Spider
 * Urchin Beast	?
 * Wild Gorilla
 * Wild Wolf
 * Winged Lizard	?

Animals from mythology
Although they do not exist in the real world, a number of mythological animals also appear in the Golden Sun games, usually as monsters:


 * Chimera---The Chimera monsters are another interesting example: although they do not directly resemble real animals, they are made up of body parts of various animals,. Their most notable features are their heads: goat, lion, and eagle. They also have the tail of a scorpion, their front legs are the talons of a bird, and their rear legs (return...and wings)
 * Dragons
 * Gargoyle	?
 * (Gryphon)
 * Harpy 	?
 * (Hydra)	?
 * (Kobold)	?
 * (Macetail)	?
 * Manticore
 * (Minotaurus)
 * Phoenix
 * (Siren)	?
 * (Troll)	?
 * (Wolfkin)	?
 * (Wyvern)	?

See also: Werewolf

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