Animal Bonding
Bonding makes a tamed pet yours for good. A bonded pet doesn't disappear when it dies: it becomes a ghost that follows you until you bring it back to life. Any pet you've tamed can bond with you, including every one of the Mounts.
How to bond
- Tame the pet (see Animal Taming).
- Feed it its favorite food. Drop the food on the pet. This starts the bonding.
- Wait 7 days.
- Feed it again. When you see "Your pet has bonded with you!", it's done. Clicking on it now shows (bonded) instead of (tame).
Each pet's favorite food is listed on its Bestiary page. The pet won't take food it doesn't like.
Who can bond
- Only the owner can bond with a pet. Feeding by the pet's friends doesn't count.
- Any tamed pet can bond. Summoned creatures can't.
- Skill requirement: your Animal Taming skill (without bonuses) must be at least the pet's taming requirement. For example, you need 95.1 Animal Taming to bond with a Nightmare.
- Pets that need 29.1 Animal Taming or less, like the Horse or Giant Beetle, have no requirement.
- Ridgebacks and savage ridgebacks can bond with any owner, whatever their skill.
- There's no Animal Lore requirement to bond.
When a bonded pet dies
- It becomes a ghost instead of leaving a corpse, and it follows you.
- A ghost pet can't be hurt and doesn't fight. It doesn't heal on its own.
- Don't leave it behind. If its ghost is away from you (more than 12 tiles away, out of sight, or in another land) for a full day, it's gone for good.
- A ghost pet can't be stabled.
Bringing it back
The only way to bring a bonded pet back to life is with bandages (the Resurrection spell doesn't work on pets).
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Veterinary | 80 or higher |
| Animal Lore | 80 or higher |
| Chance to succeed | (Veterinary − 68) ÷ 50, minus 2% each time your fingers slip |
That's about 24% at 80 Veterinary, 64% at 100, and certain at 118 or higher.
- If you're the owner, the pet comes back right away when you succeed.
- If someone else is the healer, the owner (or one of the pet's friends) must be within 3 tiles, and gets a window asking whether to bring the pet back.
- The pet comes back with 10 hit points, full stamina and no mana.
- Skill loss: every skill the pet has drops by 0.1 if its owner resurrects it, or 0.2 if someone else does.
- Pets can't be resurrected in Khaldun.
Caring for a bonded pet
- Keep feeding it. Bonded or not, a pet whose loyalty runs out will leave you. Feeding it raises its loyalty.
- Stabling: any animal trainer stables living pets for 30 gold per pet for a week. See Mounts for how many pets you can stable.
See also
- Mounts: every mount, with taming, riding and care.
- Bestiary: taming requirements and favorite foods for every creature.
- Animal Taming, Animal Lore and Veterinary.