![Image](http://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/images/colorist/threadgraphics/signbreed.gif)
Availability
Colorist Choice: Every month a colorist choice thread is posted in the Official Art Forum, and at least two pairings are taken.
Bribes: Various colorists may accept bribes for breedings in this subforum of the Official Art Forum.
Contests/events: Keep an eye peeled for other breeding contests, raffles, and events!
Clutch sizes
Each clutch at Matope starts with two babies [one if both parents are owned by one user].
There is a 50% chance of a third sack, and if that sack is rolled, a 10% chance it's twins.
This means that the minimum number of babies for a 'basic' breeding is 2 and the maximum 4.
Additional babies
Additional babies can be obtained in the following ways:
RP: If you have an RP of at least 20 total posts or 1k words per owner between the parents, an extra baby will be rewarded. This must be completed in advance, and cannot be done in solo breedings.
Blessings: Any legendary kin can bless either parent for an extra baby via RP before or shortly after getting the slot.
Token: The Extra Baby breeding token can be purchased in the forum shop. Token must be in the inventory of either user at time of claiming to receive one additional sack.
Other rules
Consent: Both owners of the parents must send the form to the colorist to show consent.
Claiming: Each parent can only keep up to two babies from any given breeding
Twins: At the colorists' discretion, any two kin in a breeding may be combined into twins.
Selling: No offspring may be sold for pebbles or traded for anything, including art or future favor.
Certing: All babies from a breeding must be certed together via the proper form in the certing thread.
Maximum: Unless otherwise noted, no breeding will have more than 6 babies.
Incest: Matope looks down on incest between siblings, first cousins, parents/children, grandparents/grandchildren, aunts or uncles/nephews or nieces, and other similarly related pairs; and as such, limits such breedings to three offspring. Additionally, colorists have a right to choose not to do these breedings if they are rolled in the CC thread, though winners will be allowed to submit a substitute pair.
Rape Plots: Rape plots are never acceptable in Matope. This includes "mushroom" breedings and other plots where consent was coerced and would have otherwise been denied. That is rape and we will not make any exceptions for it.
Edited Breedings
You must acquire an edited breeding slot in order for the offspring of your kin to have a chance at edits. If you have an unedited slot, the babies will just take after their parents in different ways. You can always choose an unedited slot for edited kin.
Be aware that when you breed edited kin, there is no guarantee that the offspring of these breedings will all be edited. In addition, edits may distort over generations: antlers may change shape and hair may be longer or shorter or differently styled, for example.
Accessories are not typically considered passable edits and will remain solely on the parents unless the colorist decides otherwise.
Missing Parents
If you have a breeding with someone who has gone missing from the shop, and they have failed to respond to any PMs or IMs for six [6] weeks, all custody of the breeding goes into your hands. This means that they forfeit the ability to take any babies from the breeding, and doling out the offspring is entirely up to you. However, you must make efforts to contact them on Discord and the forums during this time, and you must contact the Matope mule to let them know it's happening.
Same Sex Pairings
There are two types of same sex pairings available at Matope.
Mock Breedings: Mock breedings are non-canon breedings; effectively, they are considered a set of semi-customs, where the inspiration is the same-sex parents posted as part of the breeding. These breedings are certed as first generation kin, with no ancestor tracking in the kindex. They are not in character children of their parents.
New 10/6/2021: As of this month, we are no longer allowing edited mock breedings. If you'd like your mock breeding to have edits, you must use a Transformation Flower (see below) to make the offspring canon. Note that you're still welcome to RP these babies however you'd like; we're not putting restrictions on your plots. If you'd like to say they were conceived asexually, or via a dream, or were foundlings discovered wandering the swamp, you're welcome to. It just enables us in an administrative capacity to keep track of where edits originated and trace lines back to their source.
Transformation Flower Breedings: A new type of flower has cropped up around the swamp. Sprouting at the edges of the water, nestled among the mangrove roots, it has a shimmering rainbow coloration that never quite seems the same. Consuming this flower enables a Kin to transform for the time frame of one breeding, allowing them to become either the father or the mother, as needed, in a same sex pairing. After the breeding is completed, they go back to their normal state. This token is applied at time of certing. The breeding that it is used on is a full breeding that will be tracked in the OL as any other breeding would be, despite having two same sex parents. Make sure to choose which parent is the mother and which is the father.