Important Note: This News Post contains information regarding upcoming events between January and April of 2026.

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Year In Review

While there is no typical Newsletter for December, a wrap-up for our very big year in Faunids feels like the best way to send it off before the meteor comes. 

Thank you all. It's silly to say that I'm tearing up from writing that, but I am. I'm writing this thank you after putting together this news post, and it's hitting me all at once how lucky I am to lead Faunids and how much being part of Faunids has changed my life for so many years, in recent months more than ever. I am proud of my team and my community in so many ways that I truly do not have the words for.
I'm saying this as the guy who has put together a 3,000 word news post, too, so you know I mean it. 
(Lots of love, from your ever-dramatic Muttjack)

Let's celebrate a few highlights!

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Charity Raffle

In early January, we hosted a charity raffle. The combined funds gained through raffle tickets purchased in our communities totaled nearly $1,000! The charities our community donated to were the Joplin Humane Society, Urbana’s Cunningham Township Gaza Relief, Cops for Kids, Texas Health Action, Dogs Home of Tasmania, Blue Star Service Dogs, Great Plains SPCA, Athens Area Humane Society, ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid), Cheyenne Animal Shelter, and United Way of Asheville & Buncombe County! 

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Lunar New Year

We had two auction Faunids for the Year of the Snake: 

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Fawning

This year, 123 Fawns were born, with an additional 24 Faun-to-Fawns being drawn by our artist team! 

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Lore Development: Cervidic runes 

(For all the Lore Development sections, click on the image to go to that page!) 

Our first Lore Development of the year, Cervidic Runes, went live in early March, introducing a new NPC: Leonard the Theologian. Our community has used these runes to create freeze branding, accessories, and personal runic symbols for their Faunids! This was a big shift for Faunids towards enhancing the lore within our world, moving away from pre-existing symbology toward a crafted construction of sigils that fit what Faunids find important, how they view magic in their daily lives, how they communicate with one another, what they value, and what mysteries there still are within Atalav to discover. 

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"April Mule's Day"

The most beautiful Faunid of all graced us with her presence on April 1st.
She hasn’t been seen since, but just know that she is out there, and she is real. 

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Springtide

This year’s Springtide was the first inclusion of raffle prizes as part of the event. It allowed for more tokens to be introduced into the community, and provided an extra way for users who did not want to purchase new Faunids a way to participate in the event. This addition propelled us into considering more opportunities for our community to access items for their Faunids. 

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Community Newsletters

In June, our first ever Community Newsletter was published on our new website (this one). The content included in these Newsletters was informed by a wide range of responses to a community survey. Surveys have been a source of immensely valuable information for so many elements of Faunids and how we operate. As our Community Manager, I was able to organize all of the data and present it to our team, speak up for what the community shared was important, and advocate for changes in how we run events, run proposals for new concepts, and write all of these Newsletters! 

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Summer Camp

This summer, we had our first community-led event: Summer Camp! Alongside it, we had our first-ever Site Shop, where users could participate in activities and redeem their Pebbles for prizes. We received nearly 150 art/writing submissions as part of this event. Our community tested many site features during this event, which taught us a lot for how to structure these events in the future. Users had to navigate the website to find scavenger hunt items, submit art prompts, color bugs, and go fishing. This event will return as a yearly event. It will contain new prompts and themes depending on in-world events on Atalav, and will hopefully include more new site features.

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Nostalgia Gacha Batch

In early August, a set of 20 Gacha Adopts was released under the same theme: Nostalgia. This theme allowed for a spectacular range of designs that were all, at their heart, a source of something positive for all of the guest artists who supported us with this batch. This group of Gachas also included a few adopts that were only eligible to be won by first-time owners; we wanted to see how this went so we could consider more opportunities for newer members to participate. 

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Barter SHop

In August, we also announced the first permanent on-site trading post where users could exchange Barters (which represent goods that Faunids have made) for Faunid items that allow you to further customize your characters. Barters are obtained by participating in the monthly Art Challenges and responding to the monthly Newsletters! This was a big way to reward active community members for their effort without relying on random chance to receive anything, and has quickly become a staple of our community. 

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The Faunids Handbook 

Our staff team published our official policy handbook in August as well. This handbook will be updated as necessary (with an announcement) and at minimum reviewed annually by staff to make sure our policies are up-to-date! 

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Lore Development: Cervidic (Corrupt) sigils 

Our second Lore Development of the year came as we prepared for Corruption. It features Curiosity Killed the Cat, an eerily passionate Faunid who seeks to understand the nature of Lifesource by inspecting the dark underbelly of magic as it exists in Atalav. Sigils are often associated with Corrupt Faunids, as sigils are often powerful tools to channel energy that evoke the life narratives and motives expressed by Corrupted Faunids. Her studies frequently lead Curiosity to find herself in dangerous situations, but she is a natural collaborator with other Faunids in her quest for information. She frequently travels with her partner, Satisfaction Brought Her Back, who supports her in her studies. 

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Corruption

We tried out many quality of life changes with this year's Corruption. We had a new set of Quad and Anthro bases, new structures for submitting forms,  new items, new traits, and a new donation shop! We love Roach. When all was said and done we had nearly 50 Corrupts this year! This is a massive difference compared to previous years. Our community was more engaged than ever and truly made this Corruption Season feel special. 

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Site Overhauls & New Coders

Our two coders, Banriion and bluiestarss, have put countless hours into the development of our website. They have fixed tons of errors that previously would routinely break the site or prevent users from completing basic site functions, they have ported over tons of pages from Atalav, and so much more. Banriion has formatted so many pages to go above and beyond what I thought was possible with interactive images, new hub pages, more accessible formatting, and new site themes. They worked on the internal coding for our Winter Wonderwheel to make that possible, and are constantly stressing me out with their incredibly creative and ambitious concepts for new magical features that are beyond my comprehension. They frequently tell me, "Jack, don't be scared, but" and then I get scared, but it always turns out great. Thank you two so much for pushing the bounds of everything I thought our site could do. 

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Age-Up/Re-Reference Fees

This year, we were able to bring the cost of User-submitted references down as soon as we hit the annual cost of our website hosting fees. The Faunids Fund has been able to pay site fees, provide compensation for supplemental guest artists and large projects for official artists, website coding, and a wide range of event prizes! 

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Traits and Tokens 

We had our first large trait overhaul in October. 12 trait visuals were updated with new images, and ranges were more clearly defined for many more. We added lore flavortext to many Mutations and made adjustments to the "Antler Modification" token, changing it instead to an "Accent Adjustor". This allows for much more freedom for owners to alter several aspects of a Faun's design! 

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Lore Development: Clothing

Our third Lore Development featured materials and styles of clothes Faunids of all kinds may wear in our universe! 

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The Winter Gala

Our first annual Winter Gala is in full swing! You can read more about the event by clicking that banner above. The Winter Wonderwheel closes tomorrow. I know, I know, "Jack, we want to spin the wheel some more, please let us spin the wheel, I love gambling" I hear you. There will be more wheels to come! 

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Lore Development: Constellations

Our final Lore Development of the year revolved around the 12 main constellations Faunids use to navigate the night sky. Hopefully, it won't be our last update, but... that meteor sure is coming.

It's getting closer every day. 

Oh, look, a FUN FACT: Did you know there were 288 Faunids uploaded to the website this year? What the hell...

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Art Challenge Compilation

This year, across 11 different monthly Art Challenges, we received a total of 198 visual and written works of art from within our own community. 

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upcoming 2026 developments 

We have a lot planned for Faunids in the years to come (again, let's hope we survive the meteor). We have met many times to discuss our timeline and what works best for our team and the community as a whole. We think you will really enjoy what we have in store, and have been working for months to achieve our goals with as little disruption to our usual schedule as possible. So far, we've stayed right on track, and we want to share our overall timeline for the first few months of the year to give our community time to prepare. 

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New Artist Team Member 

Please give a warm welcome to our newest Official Artist In-Training, Loutta! 

This isn't Loutta's first rodeo. In past years, Loutta has made Fawns, Springtides, Gacha adopts, Auction Faunids, and supplemental art galore. They made this year's Winter Gala banner, and have been working behind the scenes on several upcoming Faunids developments. 

Loutta will not be an artist option when submitting Fawning pairs this coming year, but will be supporting us in a multitude of ways, such as lineart edits, critique, and another set of eyes throughout the design process. Loutta's position will involve creating environmental art for the world and towns across Atalav, concept design for creatures, Summer Camp event prep, and more secret upcoming lore developments. Loutta's work allows the rest of our team to focus on Fawning season without burning out, and ensures that we can continue to add enriching details to the world of Atalav for our community and Faunids as a species. I am so over-the-moon grateful that Loutta wants to join us; I couldn't ask for a better team. 

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january: hues of Lifesource Mini-event

Starting this year, the Lunar New Year Auction Faunids will be restructured as a mini-event that leans into the celebrations held by Faunids on Atalav. The Hues of Lifesource is a celebration of life where Faunids focus on a species they share the earth with and celebrate their existence as part of a greater ecosystem.
2026 will be the year of the horse, so it's only fitting that we introduce a species on Atalav that evolved over time from the horses we know today: Bolters.
There will be two very special Auction Faunids to fit this year's theme, one designed by Necrologia and pebb, the other by MUTT and GoryTeeth. 

The same way we introduced Cervidic Runes as an opportunity to enrich the world beyond human symbols, we want to offer our community more ways to play in the universe we've created. This new mini-event allows us to build at minimum one release or significant highlight on Atalav's other creatures into our yearly framework. This way we can plan regular additions to our bestiary and fully flesh them out to give them love! 

Stay tuned for more information around mid-January. 

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January-February: Lore Developments

During this time, you can expect some major Lore Developments that we hope will really knock your socks off. I can't say anything more than that just yet.

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February: springtide

First, we will not have custom Chimebirds/Lapines as an option to order during Springtide this year.
We will be testing a new extension for the Summer Camp event that will hopefully make the reason for this make a lot of sense (and also worth the wait!). 

Second, part of the Springtide event will feature a wheel similar to the Winter Wonderwheel.
This will give everyone who participates one last chance to save up Barters before Fawning. 

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April: April Mule's Day

I thought the joke I made last April Fool's day was so funny that I not only included it as a highlight from this year's recap, I also decided to make it the name of our new April mini-event. Expect some gags and jokes and good fun for a few days in April. 

Also, if you noticed that I skipped March, please leave a comment on this news post where you roleplay as someone pointing out that I skipped March and you're trying to correct me like it was a serious mistake. Seriously. That's how you get 5 Barters for this newsletter. 

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march: Fawning Event

I made it huge so everyone can find it. Sorry, I start to get a little delirious by the end of these news posts and it makes me silly.

It's very important to our team that all of you know what you need to know about Fawning as soon as we can tell you. We know how much prepwork goes into Fawning from all sides, so while this is not all the news related to Fawning you'll hear in upcoming months, this post includes some of the most important ones to share with you right now. I've been compiling so much feedback on Fawning, proposing ideas to the artist team internally, discussing suggestions from said lovely team, and we have been weighing things we want to do this year and things that may be best to implement or consider/poll about the year after.

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timeline 

Corruption was a huge success. That specific buffer time at the beginning where staff could support users through the process and make sure everything was running as it should was key to that. Artists were able to discuss pre-approval with commissioners, users could trade and purchase items, and once the first wave of forms went in we had time to breathe and organize them and help each other (Jack and Pebb had both never been Official Artists before Corruption, which will be true of Fawning as well). 

March 1st (Sunday): The Event Hub goes live on Faunids.com (everything at this point will be accessible on one website, you will not need to jump between Atalav and Faunids). Everyone will have time to read through every element of Fawning, discuss public helpers (which we will compile leading up to March 1st), ask questions, gather/purchase items, and talk to artists/moderators. Artists who require pre-approval will make lists of approved pairs during this time, and will be able to get help from the artist team if they're unsure about the pair. 

March 14th (Saturday): Forms open on Faunids.com. Like Corruption, they are addressed in the order they are received. 

March 28th (Saturday): First group of Fawns are released. 

April 4th (Saturday): Second group of Fawns are released. 

April 10th (Friday): Forms close. This means that our community, like with Corruption, gets to see at least two batches of Fawns from our artists before forms close. 

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Bases

Out of the three choices for which Quad base to use for this year's Fawning season, 62% (34) of respondants in the Discord voted for 2023.
2021 and 2024 received 25% and 13% of the vote, respectively. 

So, this coming year, our main Fawning base will be year 2023! This means we have tons of premade lineart at the ready, and the freedom to focus more on personalizing from what we have and designing each Fawn. This will be a huge time-saver for us, and the familiarity of the poses that we have all worked on before plus knowing how designs tend to look on this base means we know what to expect when translating traits and the clarity of each design. 

All previous years' bases are available as always for Faun-to-Fawns! 

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Event Updates

This is not a list of all the fun secrets we have in store for Fawning, moreso the most relevant and important details. We will share more information when we are ready to share it. Until then, please take this bullet point breakdown and be gentle with me. If you notice that a point on this list is worded more like a sphinx's riddle than a fact, that's code for 'a very detailed description will come at some point that is not right now'.

• A shop will exist that allows you to exchange Barters for Fawning-related items. 
• All Fawns will have a base price of $60 that does not increase per the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fawn. 
• There will be specific guidelines for what might cause a complexity fee to be requested by an artist to create a Fawn. This is universal across the artist team and is $15-$25. 
• All Fawns will have a 1/10 chance to be born with a Companion. There will not be an item to increase these odds during this Fawning season.
• There is a new item that will function as a Mutation Denial. 
• Another new item, Herne's Gamble, is a strange and mischievous item with a mind of its own. Odd things tend to happen around this item, including a strange interaction with Lifesource that may cause a bit of variation in Fawns; these will be known as Wild Traits. 
• Merfaun x Minodae may result in a Minodae-specific hybrid with advantageous adaptations to the climates Minodae inhabit. 
• When Herne's Grace is used by a Fawning pair, they may hope for a glimmer of color or an absence of another. 
• Re-rolled designs will not be kept by the artist; as in, they will not be used to make adopts or designs in the future. These designs are only to be used on-site as parts of visual guides if there is a relevance for them as examples for how certain things work like traits, items, etc.
• One-per-week is still the minimum requirement for releases. In addition to this, 'surprise' releases may occur during the week. 
• Prices for items may be adjusted but these adjustments will not be increases. For example, Handy Dandy and Wild Child will both be the same price. 

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