\ Haven:Mist and Shadow Gameplay/Wearing Clothing
Gameplay

Wearing Clothing


Haven's clothing system is versatile, but not necessarily immediately intuitive; it will always follow a certain set of rules, but to have your attire look the way you want it to, you need a firm grasp of how these rules interact with one another in order to present yourself as desired.

The first thing to understand is that there are four item 'sections'. The first section has two 'slots', and is limited to two items; it represents what's held in your hands. This is where any item that is NOT clothing, armour, jewelry, or (most) containers will go. The second section is where the vast majority of your worn items will go: clothing, armour, and worn containers like backpacks, over the shoulder purses, cargo pants, and so on. The third section is jewelry, and the last section is sort of more of a half-section in that you do not wear anything there, but it is where items sized large that you are carrying will be displayed. In its base form with no customised wear strings (more on this in a minute), it looks like this:

Tamara is using:

(E) an iPhone 14 Pro in a rose gold case


(E) a voluminous black silk hood
(D) a snug, black silk bodice
a narrow, black silk sash
(D) a floor-length skirt of black silk
(D) a pair of modest black heels

(D) a bone and crystal charm on a pendant
(S) a narrow silver band with a serpent

(C) a full-body black silk robe, carried

In this example, this gothy little witch Tamara is holding her iphone, wearing a lot of black silk, has on some silver jewelry, and is carrying a big robe in her arms because she must've just got out of her latest cult meeting. You're probably wondering what all those letters mean:

(A) means an item is armour, and provides protection in combat.
(C) means an item is a container and can hold other items. These can be worn.
(D) means an item is described, which means you can, for example, 'look tamara bodice' to see what's written about it.
(E) means an item is expensive, which has a threshold that varies based on item type.
(K) means an item is a key to the goblin market.
(S) means an item is marked with a society's symbol, marking the bearer as someone who is 'aware'. This can be looked at to see which symbol it is.

Items can, of course, have none of these flags, like Tamara's sash. But what if multiple things are true? In that case, one flag takes precedence over the others for display, though when actively looked at they will all be shown. In order of display priority (that is, from least important to most important) they are: expensive, container, described, armour, key, symbol.

Next you need to understand what determines what items show where when looking at someone. You might think this is related to the order of your body locations, but this is not actually the case; it is based entirely on the wear layer of your clothing. Layers can be any number between
0-5, though you should really only use 1-5; layer 0 is a catch-all layer. Clothing layers determine not just what items of clothing cover what (a layer 1 panty, for example, is covered by a layer 2 skirt), but also in what order items and clothing are *displayed* when looked at. Tamara here has a hood of layer 5, her bodice /and/ sash are layer 4, her skirt is layer 3, and her heels are layer 1. It's reasonable to wonder why her sash is not layer 3 and her skirt layer 2, but you need to remember that there are also layers of clothing that are /not/ displayed: her panties are layer 2, and were she in something other than a bodice, her bra would be layer 3.

In the case of multiple items with the same layer, they are displayed in reverse order of how they're worn. Imagine stacking rings on a peg: if Tamara puts her sash on first and then her bodice, it displays as you see in the example above. Were she to wear her bodice first and then the sash, it'd be the opposite. Items will 'remember' where on this imaginary peg they are even if the other items surrounding them are removed, and new items applied to that layer will go to the lowest spot available to them. For example, if Tamara takes her sash off and then puts it -- or any other layer 4 item -- back on, it will be ordered below her bodice. In order to change display orders for the same layer, all items on that layer should be removed and re-worn in the desired order. Think of these 'sub-slots', for a given layer as being, for example,
4.1, 4.2, 4.`3, 4.4, and 4.5 (the maximum number of items per layer being 5). Removing the items in 4 and 4.5 aren't going to change the item in 4.4 -- it will remain 4.4.

Additionally, items can have 'wear strings', which are modifiers to how they appear when you're looked at. Tamara is not using any wear strings, which is fine; you don't need to. They can, though, add a lot of versatility to your appearance and add some added flavour and style to your appearance. Using her items as an example, she could:

wear bodice 4 cinches her waist in tight
wear hood 5 , shrouding her face in shadow
to have people then see
(E) a voluminous black silk hood, shrouding her face in shadow
(D) a snug, black silk bodice cinches her waist in tight

Note how the comma automatically pairs to the item itself like it ought to. Should Tamara decide she likes this new look for her bodice, it can be made permanent by using the customize command at a tailor, either in-line as customize bodice wear cinches her waist in tight, or via the full customize interface. Items can also be prepended with a wear string in parentheses:

wear hood 5 (head)
wear bodice 4 (cinched in)
results in
(head) (E) a voluminous black silk hood
(cinched in) (D) a snug, black silk bodice

Note that in this example there's some extra padding after the hood's wear string; all prefixed wear strings function this way.

If this seems like a lot, don't worry! It is, but that's it; nothing more needs to be understood in order to control your appearance. There are, though, a few other things worth noting about worn items:

Clothing and armour cover body descriptions, but jewelry does not.

Worn items can help regulate your body temperature:
Items whose short descriptions contain the words
fur, heated, insulated, padded, quilted, thermal, or wool make you warmer, and help suppress messages about shivering in cold.
Items whose short descriptions contain the words merino or vented make you cooler, and help suppress messages about sweating in the heat.

Worn items can help provide defensive camouflage in combat:
Items whose short and long descriptions contain the words
black, dark, gray, or grey provide camouflage in caves.
Items whose short and long descriptions contain the words
gray, grey, or white provide camouflage in mountains.
Items whose short and long descriptions contain the word white provide camouflage in tundra.
Items whose short and long descriptions contain the words camouflage or green provide camouflage in forest.
Items whose short and long descriptions contain the words yellow or sandy provide camouflage in desert.
For camouflage to function, it requires three items of visible clothing with the relevant keywords.

[Last edited Jan 8, 2023]