Snail Mourning
Snail Mourning
Snail Mourning happens when a bonded snail loses its companion.
The system keeps the snail visible and cared for instead of hiding the whole habitat behind grief text. Mourning should feel like a state the snail is living through, not a broken page.
How Mourning Begins
Mourning can begin when:
- A bonded pet dies.
- A stale active bond is discovered pointing at a dead pet.
- The system repairs an old dead-bond record into proper mourning history.
What Mourning Can Affect
While mourning, a snail may experience:
- Lower happiness or mood.
- Lower energy.
- Reduced willingness to breed.
- Former companion context in habitat, registry, tank, or story pages.
Comfort Actions
The habitat may offer comfort actions. These actions are meant to support the snail through mourning and may help mood or recovery.
Mourning should make happiness harder, not impossible. Comfort helps, but grief is not meant to vanish because someone clicked once and offered a tiny lettuce of emotional resolution.
Breeding Guard
Snails in active mourning cannot breed. Breeding should wait until mourning has resolved.
Visibility
A mourning snail should still show normal navigation, selector, tank view, status, care actions, stories, trail links, breeding links where blocked with explanation, and former companion context.
Stories
Mourning should write story entries when supported:
- When mourning begins.
- When comfort or key mourning actions happen.
- When mourning ends.