Pairing Basics

What is pairing?

In short, pairing is a mechanic that will allow you to create a new character from two existing characters! This also includes a chance of inheriting traits from the 'parent' characters. Whether or not you decide to include this in your plots or not is up to you. Arma Caeli cannot be used for crossbreed pairings, due to them not being compatible with any other species. Similarly, Undead Faun cannot breed and are excluded.

Getting devotion items

For creating a pairing, you will need devotion items! Here's all of them and how to obtain them:

• Love Letter (crafting ingredient): Events, or by completing the "In Love" prompt.
• Mystical Letter (crafting ingredient): Via events.
• Eternal Devotion (Same Species Pairings): Crafted using 4 love letters, or via events.
• Otherworldy Devotion (Different Species Pairings): Crafted using 3 love letters + 1 mystical letter. Recipe must be unlocked through a prompt once.

Optionally you may want to purchase a boost item that increases the chance of traits of a certain rarity to be passed down! Boost items of the same rarity do not stack, so make sure to only attach at most one boost item per rarity. If you lost a boost item that way, please send in a claim and we can refund you either the boost item or the coins for it.

• Blue Bouquet (boost uncommon inherit chance from 40% to 70% ): Purchase at Enchanted Terrace.
• Pink Bouquet (boost rare inherit chance from 10% to 30%): Purchase at Enchanted Terrace.
• Purple Bouquet (boost mythical inherit chance from 3% to 10%): Purchase at Enchanted Terrace.

Affection

Affection is a currency that can be held by characters. You can earn it by completing the In Love prompt, or during valentine prompts! Then, you can add it to your character of choice by going to their profile -> bank. Beware, however, that once you add affection to a character, you cannot remove it!

• For each affection a character has, the chances of a trait being inherited rise by 1%. This goes for all traits between both parents! For example, character 1 has 5 affection and character two has 2 affection. This raises the chance for any trait to be passed on by 7%! That means uncommon traits inherit at 47%, rare traits at 17% and so on.
• Once the MYO for a pairing is created, the affection of each character is reset to 0! Be careful not to overcap your chances, as your character loses affection after each pairing.
• Affection is added on top of boost items, so if you take the previous example while using boost items, it goes like so: uncommon traits inherit at 77%, rare traits at 37% and so on.

Species/Subtype inheritance

For simplicity, only each characters species and main subtype (the first listed) will be looked at. A secondary subtype will have no impact on pairings.

• If parents are of different main species:
  • the child species is one of the two parent species
  • the child gets the subtype of the parent whose species it inherited
• If parents are of the same main species,
  • the child species is the parents species
  • the child inherits both parents subtypes (unless it is a Beastling, then it randomly gets one from a parent as their subtypes are too diverse)

Trait inheritance

In general, traits are inherited by category. Without affection or boost item, it can happen that 0 traits are passed on to the child. But even with a 100% inherit chance, certain categories are capped! So always make sure to check if the traits you wish to inherit can both be inherited by checking their category on the trait page. 

• Elemental Traits can inherit 0-2 traits. At 100% chance, you will get at most 2 elemental traits passed down, even if the parents have more.
• All other trait categories will inherit 1 trait max. This means you can pass down at most 1 trait within the following categories: Misc, Glow, Form, Tail, Ear, Limb, Neck, Wing and head! 

Creating a pairing

1. Find two characters you want to pair! It can be your own or other people's characters. (Other owners will have to approve the pairing, so make sure you ask permission first! They will be notified on site to approve it.)
2. Obtain the correct devotion item. Eternal Devotion will allow you to create same species pairings. Otherworldly Devotion allows for pairing different species.
3. Optional: Obtain a boost item (various Bouquets) if you would like to increase the chance of traits of a certain rarity to be passed down.
4. Go to your pairing page and enter your two chosen characters + the items you want to use for the pairing. The character code can be found on your character page/masterlist or in the characters url and looks something like this: CYL-EQS-0025
5. Click on submit and hope things go well.
6. Check the OPEN tab for pairings that are ready to be turned into a MYO slot (Sometimes, you may have to wait for approval). Check the APPROVAL tab to approve pairings with your characters for others!
7. Click 'create MYO' if a pairing is ready (approved by both parties).
8. The MYO will be found on your MYO slot page!

POTENTIAL BUG: Make sure to only create a pairing when both characters have been loaded (you can see their image) or you may get an error of "undefined array key".

Submitting your design

This works the same as with all MYO slots! Your pairing slot should have the species/subtype and potentially inherited traits from the 'parent' characters. When designing, you must follow these predefined values, but do not need to add on trait items for the traits already on the slot. The design must not resemble the "parents" whatsoever unless you choose to.

If it is a hybrid (two subtypes) it should have influences of both subtypes somewhere in the design, with the actual subtype being the dominant one and the hybrid trait subtype slightly less so.