*rolls in*
Okay, sorry this is long.. prepare yourself!

So about the deer not running around.. depending on what time of day you're going into the Forest, the characters' activity levels will be different. It seems like the vast majority of players are on the East Coast of the US, so when I go in during the evenings, most of them are in bed. Some players leave their deer in-Forest while they sleep or while they're out doing errands. Others may be having private RPs going on, so if their deer seem active but don't respond to you, don't take it personally. Please don't be afraid to run around and have fun!!


Nodding is basically saying "yes" and shaking the head generally means "no". They don't always mean exactly that, though. A deer may nod just to show they're pleased or shake their head "no" to show they're displeased. The Forest has its own unique language based on actions, so it takes some time to understand. There are generally common understandings of what some actions mean (for example, using the sad emote and then a bow generally means that the player has to log out of TEF) but since some of it is still up to interpretation, sometimes there are misunderstandings.
I've found the best way to interpret actions is to not make them out to be extreme. For example, the other day one of my deer was playing with a small group, and eventually one of the deer started using angry emotes at mine, like lowering their antlers and taunting, even though they'd been playing together peacefully for about 20 minutes. Instead of saying "oh no, my deer has been attacked!" I thought "this deer is upset with mine".

If you're ever confused about what a deer has "said" to yours, you can usually locate them using the Map (it's right under the option for "Recent Posts") and there you can either ask the player directly on the character's bio, or they may have alternative ways of contacting them. That way it's a lot easier to avoid misunderstandings!


That deer may be a zombie! It depends on how their player sees them, of course. One of my deer has that pelt, but that's only because it's the closest to the fur color he has when I draw him. The skull mask, the zombie pelt, and those huge, red antlers are all from the Halloween set. Close to Halloween, the game creators have a GIANT zombie deer (we call him BZD, short for Big Zombie deer, but his picto name is Velocity, so you may see people refer to him as that) that they have in the Forest to give people the set.


You should act however you want in the Forest! There are just a few etiquette rules to follow in order to avoid annoying the players:

1. Frequent mooing in another deer's face

2. Don't cast a pelt spell on the mini grown-up deer unless they ask you to (giving them a pelt spell can erase their current pelt spell, and it's annoying to have to get the pelt they want back)

3. Being rude/attacking fawns and Nameless deer is always seen as very rude, so that should always be avoided! Fawns and Nameless players are new to the game, and we want to make sure they have a fun time.



If there are any more sort of tips others have, they're more than free to add to the list

Well Deearie also has some troubles with sitting still when there is so much to discover and learn and also all this streams to be jumped over and all those squirrels to chase around... But since he is geographically inept he usually doesn't make it to the goal he had in mind and get distracted by pretty flowers, friendly deers, mushrooms, cones or shapeshifting fountains...
I think if he ever meets Okli or Roo they would have great fun...
He doesn't quite understand why anyone would like to fight other deers but I guess he will when he grows up - for now he just happily fawns around .