Herbology 101: A flower-breeding puzzle my players found way too complicated.

The puzzle itself can be refluffed into other things (maybe you're breeding animals, or whatever), but the basic concept is simple: You have to combine things across two different axises in a way that yields the desired final product. For my players, they needed particular flowers that they could use in a ritual, and they only had the ones that grew locally as components. So in order to succeed, they had to breed the missing components.

1) Flowers have traits, which can be dominant or recessive.

Each flower had four different traits: Favored CLIMATE, required LIGHT, preferred SOIL, and preferred FLUID type. The defaults for each flower were MODERATE climate, MODERATE light, WATER, and DIRT (henceforth referred to as 1 in terms of dominance, or most dominant.) However, no flower had a 1 in everything. Every flower began with a heightened, or recessive, trait in each category, either TROPICAL climate, BRIGHT light, MINERAL water, or MUD. These traits each had a score of 2 in terms of dominance. There was a third category of even rarer traits: ARID climate, DIM light, CONSECRATED water, and CLAY soil. These traits had a score of 3 in terms of dominance, and players were only given one of each flower to use in breeding.

Rarer traits were considered more recessive, while more common traits are more dominant. However, traits could also be "strong" or "weak" depending on their parents genes, which added another layer to the puzzle. For instance, you could have a strong 2 in terms of dominance, or a weak 1, and they would interact differently than a weak 2 or a strong 1.

2) Rules of breeding

If we take those two identities together, we have a number of interactions for our puzzle. Let's take a look at our starting flowers, as an example:

Flower	Climate	Light	Fluid	Soil
Rizierian Lily	2	1	1	1
Dayglow	1	2	1	1
Mountainbloom	1	1	2	1
Pepperweed	1	1	1	2

Each of these flowers have one trait that varies from the standard, most-dominant baseline. The other traits are all standard. A key distinction to make here: Any trait that varies from 1 begins as a "strong" trait, while any starting traits that are a 1 are considered "weak," so our true chart looks more like this:

Flower	Climate	Light	Fluid	Soil
Rizierian Lily	2s	1w	1w	1w
Dayglow	1w	2s	1w	1w
Mountainbloom	1w	1w	2s	1w
Pepperweed	1w	1w	1w	2s

A stronger dominant trait bred with a weaker recessive trait leads to a stronger version of the dominant trait.

Or, to use an equation, "Strong 1 + Weak 2 = Strong 1." Here we take a strong dominant trait and a weak recessive trait, and the strong trait completely cancels out the weak trait.

Two strong traits lead to a weaker version of the more dominant trait

Or, "Strong 1 + Strong 2 = Weak 1." Here, the dominant trait is still winning out, but its genetic code has been hampered by a stronger variant of the recessive trait. The next two rules govern how to keep recessive traits alive in the lineage.

Recessive traits are only carried on when bred with weaker dominant traits.

Weaker recessive traits can be made stronger with weaker dominant traits.

Or, "Weak 1 + Strong 2 = Weak 2" and "Weak 1 + Weak 2 = Strong 2," respectively. If your dominant traits are weak, it becomes possible to carry on a recessive trait, but you will only get a strong recessive trait by merging two weaker traits together.

Finally, what happens if you combine two of the same traits?

Two of the same trait always yield a strong version of that trait.

Or, "Strong 1 + Weak 1 = Strong 1 + Strong 1 = Weak 1 + Weak 1 = Strong 1."

Putting this all together, we get the following results:

Trait 1	Trait 2	Result
Strong 1	Weak 2	Strong 1
Strong 1	Strong 2	Weak 1
Weak 1	Strong 2	Weak 2
Weak 1	Weak 2	Strong 2
Strong 1	Strong 1	Strong 1
Strong 1	Weak 1	Strong 1
Weak 1	Weak 1	Strong 1

Let's put it into practice. Let's say you want to make Swampgrass, which requires mud and mineral water to thrive. So how do we do that? Easy. You can see that Mountainbloom and Pepperweed have the desired traits (mineral water for mountainbloom, mud for pepperweed). If you combine them, you get:

1w1w2s1w + 1w1w1w2s = 1s1s2w2w

Since we're only combining for one generation, we don't care about strength or weakness, just traits. So when does strength and weakness matter? Let's say instead of Swampgrass, we want to make Soaked Oreglow. It's just like Swampgrass, except it also needs bright light to survive. Tricky. We can begin like before, by combing two flowers. This time, let's start with our Rizierian Lily and our Mountainbloom.

1w2s1w1w + 1w1w2s1w = 1s2w2w1s

Not bad. But now we have a problem. That strong trait under soil type: Dirt (1) makes it very difficult to turn into mud, as combining it with our Pepperweed gives us this:

1s2w2w1s + 1w1w1w2s = 1s2s2s1w

That didn't work. So what do we do? Simple! Combine it with another Pepperweed. The first Pepperweed softened the affinity to dirt, and since it also reinforced the other weaker, recessive traits, we can now combine it without losing any genetic material.

1s2s2s1w + 1w1w1w2s = 1s2s2s2w.

We have made our Soaked Oreglow in only three steps. Okay, time for a hard one. Let's add in those rare flowers we talked about earlier.

Flower	Climate	Light	Fluid	Soil
Thorny Tulip	3s	1w	1w	1w
Cavern Orchid	1w	3s	1w	1w
Star Lilac	1w	1w	3s	1w
Golaster	1w	1w	1w	3s

These traits are even more recessive than the previous traits! Worse yet, we're trying to make a Sacred Dryshade, which requires ARID climate, DIM light, CONSECRATED water, and CLAY soil (All 3s!)

Seems impossible, right? Well, no, but it is tricky. Luckily for us, dominant and recessive traits aren't more or less dominant or recessive, no matter how far apart they are on the spectrum. You can combine a 3 and a 1, and if strength and weakness work according to our rules, get the 3 as desired, instead of a 2. Start like before, combining two of your desired final traits.

1w3s1w1w + 1w1w3s1w =1s3w3w1s

Next, begin breeding the previous traits, except a step lower.

1w2s1w1w + 1w1w2s1w = 1s2w2w1s

Now, combine those two flowers together, to give you a flower full of strong traits.

1s3w3w1s + 1s2w2w1s = 1s3s3s1s

Next, weaken one of the undesired dominant traits.

1s3s3s1s + 2s1w1w1w = 1w3w3w1s

Then add back in one of the other desired final traits.

3s1w1w1w + 1w3w3w1s = 3w3s3s1s

Finally, weaken the other undesired trait and combine.

1w1w1w2s + 3w3s3s1s = 3s3w3w1w

3s3w3w1w + 1w1w1w3s = 3w3s3s3w

Or, altogether:

1w3s1w1w + 1w1w3s1w =1s3w3w1s

1w2s1w1w + 1w1w2s1w = 1s2w2w1s

1s3w3w1s + 1s2w2w1s = 1s3s3s1s

1s3s3s1s + 2s1w1w1w = 1w3w3w1s

3s1w1w1w + 1w3w3w1s = 3w3s3s1s

1w1w1w2s + 3w3s3s1s = 3s3w3w1w

3s3w3w1w + 1w1w1w3s = 3w3s3s3w

I hope you found this puzzle interesting.