Primeval Isle

Levels 35–60

An island in its own sea where dinosaurs still roam. A naturalist's camp studies them.

What it is like

Dr. Fernwhistle, a heron naturalist in a pith helmet, keeps a field camp here. Her course teaches real dinosaur science: see Quests and storylines and The Primeval Isle, from a Naturalist's Notebook.

Where	An island about 0.9 km across, across the sea; its middle is about 2.1 km from the village. It shapes its own round shores, with a green volcano in the middle. Between the harbour and the naturalist's camp stands its one town, an explorers' outpost of research huts, tents and plant presses round a Fossil Museum (see Towns and townsfolk).
Danger	Creature levels 35–60, climbing from the harbour side (the coast facing the village) to the far side. More at night, on glacier peaks and in volcano craters.
Looks like	A green island of very old plants round a volcano, older than the flowers. Tree ferns with shaggy brown trunks and cycad palms with trunks scaled like pineapples fill the fern jungle, which opens here and there into sunny glades. In some places stands of tall monkey puzzle trees lift tiers of spiky, rope-like branches; in others ginkgo groves glow yellow and lime with fan-shaped leaves. Clumps of giant horsetails with jointed stalks crowd the damp ground by the water, with cycad palms among them. Thickets of big ferns grow under the trees. In the glades grow young cycad seedlings and mounds of spiky club moss, and you find patches of orange mud pressed with a big three-toed dinosaur footprint and, now and then, a nest of giant speckled eggs. Layered cliff stones striped rust, orange and cream, grey rocks with a big ammonite fossil on their face, amber boulders and fossil beds lie between them. Out in the island's shallow sea, tall sea stacks with ferns on top stand like towers: you can see them from far away. Fell tree ferns and cycad palms for fibre, big leaves and a log, monkey puzzles for logs, sticks and resin (press `E` for their cones), ginkgos for logs, sticks and sometimes hard seeds, and giant horsetails for reeds. Cut fern thickets and cycad seedlings for fibre and big leaves, pick club moss for fibre, and dig footprint mud with a shovel or a pickaxe for clay. Break layered stones with a pickaxe for stone and sandstone, and ammonite rocks for stone, pebbles and often a fossil.
Weather	Warm, humid and green.
Music	Tribal drums and marimba over the jungle and a far-off hooting beast.

Watch out

Velociraptors hunt in pairs in the ferns.
A Mosasaurus patrols the sea round the island.
The island's Tyrannosaurus rex is too strong for one. Bring friends.
Scarjaw the Tyrant, an old, scarred giant, rules the far side of the island.

Who lives here

What grows and lies here

Thing	Gather with	Gives
Cycad Palm	axe	Log Big Leaf Plant Fibre
Tree Fern	axe	Plant Fibre Big Leaf Log
Monkey Puzzle Tree	axe	Log Stick Resin Pine Cone
Ginkgo	axe	Log Stick Hard Seeds
Giant Horsetail	axe	Reed Plant Fibre
Prehistoric Fern Thicket	axe	Plant Fibre Big Leaf
Cycad Seedling	axe	Plant Fibre Big Leaf
Club Moss Mound	sickle or hands	Plant Fibre
Horsetails	sickle or hands	Reed Plant Fibre
Giant Egg Nest	hands (E)
Footprint Mud	pickaxe	Clay Soil
Layered Cliff Stones	pickaxe	Stone Sandstone Flint
Ammonite Rock	pickaxe	Stone Fossil Pebbles
Amber Boulder	pickaxe, tier 2+	Amber Stone Resin
Fossil Bed	pickaxe	Fossil Stone
Towering Sea Stack	hands (E), tier 3+

Tips

Fossil beds give fossils to a pickaxe or a shovel; amber boulders give amber about half the time.
Leave the giant egg nests in peace: their mothers are never far, and no tool takes them.
The sea stacks can't be broken: they stand in the shallow sea round the island as landmarks to find your way by.
Monkey puzzles, ginkgos, cycads, tree ferns and horsetails are living fossils: they grew in the age of the dinosaurs, and they still grow today.
Raptor feathers make Raptor-Feather Boots, some of the fastest boots in the game.