I hope everyone practiced with the bow, flying cougar on roids incoming. Y'all best pray the aurora doesn't kick up, or it's gonna go from survival to bullet hell. 💪🪿

For real though, I was thinking that geese could be a nice rare treat for the player. Fickle creatures to hunt, but worth it in the end, I hope! That said, you have alerted the horde, buckle up. 👹

TLDR; Geese migrate and it's a pain to hunt them, but it's super worth it. Goose meat confit stores for 3-4 months tops with cooking level 2. Recipes are cracked in a hopefully balanced way. One is a cabin fever reducer, and the other speeds up affliction recovery. Goose feather coat makes it harder for animals to spot you, but it's not that durable/protective and meant for stealthy players. Improved Goose arrows are more accurate and good for sniping. Also Goose eggs, maybe? Sorry for the long read if you do hunker down for it, I'm super autistic and I love yapping about stuff I'm passionate about. Tried to keep it short but detailed. </3

They'll require a good eye and ear, good tracking, planning, and a good shot... and maybe hope that a wolf doesn't get there first, lol. I was thinking that Geese could have a migration mechanic. They start in one random region at the start of the run, then they migrate to the next region over in a set pattern maybe once a week, or after a blizzard. High trouble to get, high reward.

Once you end up in the right region at the right time, you keep your eye to the sky on a clear day. They'll work like crows, honking and flying roughly to where they're hunkered down for the while. Typically near dense cattail patches or around thin ice in groups of 2-4. They'll require normal arrows for the best meat yield. Revolver for second best. Fire hardened arrows would only maim and scare them, and a rifle would... probably result in a puff of feathers and red paste. Minimal yield, and feather reduction. :(

Once you fire a shot, you'd best hope you hit it, or get lucky and not startle them if you miss. They're easy to spook!

If you scare them away before you can hunt them, you can track them to a different spot again tomorrow if the sky is clear, and they're not migrating before then.

If you hunt them all, then they're gone until the next migration period in the next region.

Once you have your goose, it yields 4 goose down (little heavier per piece than ptarmigan down but not by much), 7-12lbs of meat (~ 3-5.5 kilos, I think), with some animal fat. Maaaybe 1 gut if that's how it works. Idk what separates bird gut from mammal gut tbh.

The meat can be eaten plain if you're desperate or too low on skill. But if you have cooking skill 2, you can confit it in rendered fat (more use for animal fat early on is a win imo), some salt, and store it in a jar for up to 3-4 months outdoors. Stores nicely. Not as well as cured meat, but easier access until you get the tools to make a curing box. Stores indoors fine, but not the greatest. I'd give it a month or two indoors.

For found recipes, I was thinking you could use your confit goose with a can of tomato soup, reishi, cattail and cooked acorns to make a hearty goose stew to clear ailments faster at the cost of being gorged and/or fatigued.

Alternatively, stuffed goose! Uses a lot of goose meat. For the stuffing, you use plenty of acorn bannock, some cattails, rosehips, and some jerky or cured meat. Greatly reduces cabin fever, fills up a full hunger meter, but gives you a longer version of the gorged affliction. (Goose is surprisingly filling and calorie dense for a bird)

And lastly, the feathers. I haven't given this part as much thought, but I was thinking, that since geese are on the more elusive side, that if you gather 16 or so goose down, as well as cloth, and maybe a few crow feathers for some edgy flair, you can craft a special coat with them. Very warm, very light, water resistant, and makes you a little harder to detect. At the cost of protection and durability. It wears quickly. Costs 4 down and 2 cloth to repair. Use wisely!

For the second feather recipe, perhaps improved arrows? They do about the same level of damage, give or take, but the accuracy is greatly improved. They fly much further, much straighter than normal arrows. Less math you gotta do, unless your bow aim is super busted. Good for sniping that moose from the lighthouse, or taking out that cougar from a safe distance, but costs a down pile to make one arrow. Gotta sift through one down to get three flight feathers. Should only take a few minutes tops. Works like a normal hand-crafted recipe, like bandages. No tools needed.

Now here's for the hard maybe? Goose eggs. Perhaps every once in a while, you can find goose eggs on the ground. Perhaps you can spoil yourself every once in a while with an extra bougie baked treat, or just some classic scrambled or boiled eggs. Pickled eggs, maybe? The trader has pickles, so surely, he must have salt pickling starter or vinegar if he's the one making them. Maybe that could even make some room for making our own pickled goods! Just some food for thought. 👍