Deer Before TWM Summit

[Ice Hole]

This scene of a deer before the last rope climb to the Timberwolf Mountain Summit has now left me with questions?  Too many times have I harvested this deer and never contemplate its origins.  Until now.

How did this deer get here?

How did it die?

Who or what is taking large chunks of flesh from this deer carcass.

Did this deer somehow managed to climb up here or was it carried here?

If it was carried here then who or what type of creature was this.

Now generally when an investigator asks question they generally know the answer already.  This is somewhat true and I would like the community to try and answer these questions.  The theory I have does not jive and I will be addressing that later. 

For now discuss this strange mystery of the TWM summit deer.

Sometimes this deer spawns in front of the cave entrance.  No wolves or deer spawns in this area just rabbits.

The backpack and rope clearly indicates the presence of humans in the vicinity.  How would a survivor bring this entire deer up here?

This buck was hunted and then brought here to this secluded area.  Who or what did this?

[Doc Feral]

The Sasquatch? Cryptozoology in TLD. Still better than aliens. Hopefully not Windigo (but I'm sure many starving survivors looked at all those frozen corpses with interest).

[CaveDweller]

LOL! I also wondered how it got there. But given my adventures in scaling mountains in weird ways I'd assumed hat it had found it's way up there, died from boredom, and that the crows had eaten some. I don't know if you've ever seen a murder (yes that is the correct collective noun) of crows eat from the carcass of a large mammal - but it ain't pretty.

I sat and watched about 40 go at a kangaroo carcass. Within an hour they'd stripped a large section down to bones. They worked together to get sections of hide loose then there was a definite pecking order to who got to eat the newly exposed meat. Crazy smart birds they be.

[Ice Hole]

15 hours ago, Doc Feral said:

The Sasquatch? Cryptozoology in TLD. Still better than aliens. Hopefully not Windigo (but I'm sure many starving survivors looked at all those frozen corpses with interest).

The theory I am developing is that this creature is not unusual.  Just never seen in The Long Dark.  Yet.

 

11 hours ago, CaveDweller said:

I sat and watched about 40 go at a kangaroo carcass. Within an hour they'd stripped a large section down to bones. They worked together to get sections of hide loose then there was a definite pecking order to who got to eat the newly exposed meat. Crazy smart birds they be.

Crazy smart is right.  These birds seem to remember faces.  The crows shout at them because they remember that particular face was mean to them.  They use this cawing to warn others of a potential threat.  

https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-06/how-crows-recognize-individual-humans-warn-others-and-are-basically-smarter-you

I am certain that is why we hear the cawing when old bear is near by.

Funny that the developers have the crows circling but never eating.  There is that trailer video that shows a crow pecking at some flesh.  Maybe this will be implemented in the future.  That would make us want to harvest the carrion dear sooner.  Crows are the competition.  Now because we are stealing their food the crows will start to warn others of our presence.

[TheEldritchGod]

You know, that brings up a good point. It's be nice if the amount of meat on a deer carcass slowly vanished, assuming the birds ate some.

[TheEldritchGod]

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

This scene of a deer before the last rope climb to the Timberwolf Mountain Summit has now left me with questions?  Too many times have I harvested this deer and never contemplate its origins.  Until now.

How did this deer get here?

There are a few incidences of animals inside transition areas. The Winding River/Pleasant Valley tunnel has a deer. The behind the waterfall tunnel has one. The tunnel from Will's plane on Mountain Town has one of the few rare wolf carcasses. And the Mystery Lake/ Mountain town connector has the one and only Spawned Rabbit Carcass. The only carcass that you can carry, that will never despawn, as long as it's properly handled. Trivia: It has no weight.

So, knowing from these examples, we do have a cave from the secluded shelf, which one should not be able to access without climbing the rope, EXCEPT that I found a way to get up there by mountain goating up  the rocks to the east of the shelf in a zig zag fashion. So, assuming a deer was chased up there, it could, theroretically get stuck on the shelf. I do not know if you can go back the way you came if you take the mountain goat approach.

Assuming the deer was scared, it could have go through the connecting cave up to that area, then simply collapsed from exhaustion or perhaps wounds previously inflicted.

 

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

How did it die?

I'm going to go with wounded by wolves.

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

Who or what is taking large chunks of flesh from this deer carcass.

Now that is a quandry. Currently all wolves eating deer eat ALL the deer. So, we have to assume the meat for all spawned carcasses was partially devoured by crows.

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

Did this deer somehow managed to climb up here or was it carried here?

Going with chased up the rocks to the secluded ledge, then through the cave.

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

If it was carried here then who or what type of creature was this.

A wendigo would be cool as hell, however.

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

The backpack and rope clearly indicates the presence of humans in the vicinity.  How would a survivor bring this entire deer up here?

Actually, the question is how did the ropes get up there. However, as you has shown, it is possible to get up the mountain without using the ropes. So someone went up the mountain, most likely the guy who left the note at the cabin.

 

Sept 5th
Arrived at the base of Timberwolf Mountain. Looks like there are some nice cracks, just like Clive said. Going to set up a top rope and do some bouldering until the others show up. Hopefully soon.

Sept 6th
Wondering if my friends got lost as they still haven't arrived. Woke up in the night to a deafening noise, and fire on the mountain. Went to check it out but the weather got nasty and I couldn't find my way.

Sept 7th
Clear day. I went out again. Found some metal cargo crates. They look like they might have come from a plane. There's still smoke coming from the summit. I'm heading out to see if I can make it to the peak and learn more about what's going on.

 

Now from reading this, the climber more then likely went up the mountain and died on the way. He had some time before to establish many of the ropes, but a number of them could have been left there from previous climbers. I imagine that he left the backpack in that area next to the deer because he was expecting to be able to come back down and for whatever reason needed to lighten his load.

 

This then raises the question, was the deer already there? Maybe. I suspect the climber would not have stopped to harvest a deer carcass, either way.  But it is possible that the deer came afterwords. Now, up on the summit, we have 4 bodies. 3 that clearly come from the plane. I suspect the fourth one found in the cave on the summit was from the climber who wrote the journal entry. Reason? I have done TWM many a time and when a storm comes in, you can't easily make it out. So, if he left his supplies down in that cave, then got caught in a storm, well, a lesson learned in poor planning.

 

23 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

This buck was hunted and then brought here to this secluded area.  Who or what did this?

I think the simple answer is the correct one. But damn some wendigo would be cool.

[CaveDweller]

4 hours ago, TheEldritchGod said:

It's be nice if the amount of meat on a deer carcass slowly vanished, assuming the birds ate some.

Agreed, this would seem to be a simple yet meaningful change to the game.

4 hours ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

Funny that the developers have the crows circling but never eating.

Perhaps it would blow the games minimum specs way out of proportion? I can barely run the game as it is  To take good screenshots I have to pause, change display settings, unpause, screen shot, pause, change display settings, unpause and keep playing. It would be great if the 'high res screen shot' hot key automatically took the picture at ultra settings for you.

3 hours ago, TheEldritchGod said:

I have done TWM many a time and when a storm comes in, you can't easily make it out.

I'd really love to see micro-climates making more of an appearance. Perhaps the possibility of a blizzard increases by 10% for every new platform/level/area you go up towards the peak. That and perhaps for a set time after a blizzard the ropes are covered in ice and either require breaking-free or have a certain chance of causing 'slipping' (same animation as when you run out of energy).

 

[Ice Hole]

Here is my theory.

The deer was dragged up here to this secluded area.  The cave at Seclude Shelf has a narrow opening and crawling to access the other side that leads to the area with the deer.  So a deer with a full rack of antlers would not fit through the small opening in the cave and must be instead brought to this area from another direction. My thoughts are this deer was dragged up here by a cougar from the Deer Clearing area. 

Cougars primarily hunt deer.  Cougars seem to cache their kills and consume them over a few days.  They also live and hunt in rugged areas.  So when we see a deer carcass with stomach removed this indicates you have entered a cougar's territory.  There are many areas in the game that have deer carcass in rugged areas but no wolves.  Skimming through this document seems to support the idea that a cougar will soon be stalking us in the Long Dark.

http://www.esf.edu/efb/faculty/documents/laundreandhernandez2003huntinghabitatpumas.pdf

The developers have mentioned in the roadmap that cougars would be a thing.  So maybe the next next update. 

 

[Dan_]

Two words: Killer. bunny.

[Ice Hole]

 

4 hours ago, Dan_ said:

Two words: Killer. bunny.

You silly sod!

What's he do nibble your bum.

 

Killer Rawbutt

 

[Dan_]

4 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

 

You silly sod!

What's he do nibble your bum.

 

Killer Rawbutt

 

 Nope man, I never mess with the bunnies. Too dangerous for my liking. 

In regards to the deer, the hypothesis that it just fled up mountain goat style to the secluded shelf is valid, since the bunnies live there it isn't unfathomable that deer could also climb up there for a walk.

My theory is that it was just taking a stroll on the boulder above the cave and it got scared by the huge plane, coming in to crash. The noise level of low flying aircraft is absolutely deafening, the deer would feel threatened.

It just fell off the top of the cave and sustained critical injuries, maybe a head first dive or a snapped neck. Even some leg injuries might prevent the deer from returning, depending on the severity. The crows then proceded to peck the dead body away in the  spot.