no proof of insurance required ​ ⚕️ HALSZ SWAN | The simulation's primary healthcare provider

[ladyteruki]

 

Dossier main art : Meep
"Bedside manners" art : linnyloaf of the Flat Ark Society
Additional "art" : me

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HALSZ SWAN DOSSIER TRANSCRIPT

    Species : Halszkaraptor metrodora
    Time : Late Cretaceous
    Diet : Piscivore
    Temperament : Very friendly

WILD
The grace of the Halszkaraptor is that of a swan and in the harshness of the simulation, who doesn’t need a little bit of elegance, for a change ?
Diving in and out of the clear waters of the ocean, the Halsz Swan does not seem to fear anything. And maybe it doesn’t need to fear much, afterall.
Creatures actually seem to seek its benevolent company.
Looking up close, you can indeed notice how useful the Halsz Swan is to the deep sea inhabitants of this biome.
If it runs into a harmed animal, no matter how scary, it won’t hesitate to heal it. A nurse on a battlefield.
In exchange, nothing will try to eat a wild Halsz Swan : everyone knows it isn’t in their best interest !
Well, come to think of it, that could be a problem, if the Halsz Swan keeps healing the creatures that attack YOU...

DOMESTICATED
The nurse of the oceans will happily become your own. Keeping you healthy will be its life mission, taken all the more seriously now that you provide it with tasty fish.
The Halsz Swan will have a few treats for you in exchange...  
Records also show that Survivor Eight-Two-Seven-One-Two found a glitch that allows the Halsz Swan to provide what is called in the simulation’s archive “Stamina heal” but without any other details. This requires further investigation. 
Although it’s clearly useful to survivors in a crisis, it also seems like the Halsz will keep taking care of survivors in their sleep ? These are probably just rumors.
 But if proven true, this ability could be a decisive factor in how survivors interact with their environment in the Genesis Simulation. Certainly more data needs to be collected.

WHY THE HALSZ SWAN ?

Because I wanted to submit a creature that is all about elegance and softness, in contrast with the harshness of the Genesis 1 simulation.
The Halszkaraptor was not an actual swan, of course, but many creatures in ARK are inspired by modern day animals, and the existing paleoart really made it easy.

The Halsz Swan is athletic but not strong ; it has no scary horns, sharp claws or pointy teeth ; it swims gently in an environment that is everything but gentle.
We already have tons of intimidating creatures that are mean killing machines, and we'll have even more in the future ! So why not go for something different ?

Lore-wise, Gen1 being the only map that takes place entirely in a simulation imagined by humans made sense to me.
If you want to train people rather than merely torture them, a caring and healing creature is a responsible choice to include in your code.
Humanity's survival, afterall, must be humane, and not just incentivized by pure cruelty.

TL;DR

The selfless Halsz Swan is entirely designed to take care of you and other creatures.
It can do it in a few different ways, but that's all it does, to avoid overlapping with existing tames.
It is mostly harmless, but makes for a great exploration and support tame.

It's a graceful flightless "bird", whose identity revolves around altruistic support and elegant agility. It's a lover, not a fighter.
Look... if really we must pick Theropods almost every time, maybe we could at least decide to pick one with a different style, ability and identity ?

Got a second wind ? Then give a chance to my other submission : the Silesaurus !

Edited October 11, 2025 by ladyteruki

[Violaciraptor]

H0NK!

Ark doesn't have a swan yet. The Halsz would be something unique and contrary. 

[ladyteruki]

10 minutes ago, Violaciraptor said:

H0NK!

Ark doesn't have a swan yet. The Halsz would be something unique and contrary. 

Thanks ! I (obviously) agree that it'd be unique. Hopefully you can vote for it once you have enough comments  

[ladyteruki]

I'm very thankful for the kind upvotes, everyone ! Now that's what the Halsz Swan is all about  

[Ermerus]

11 hours ago, ladyteruki said:

 

Dossier main art : Meep
"Bedside manners" art : linnyloaf of the Flat Ark Society
Additional "art" : me

WHY THE HALSZ SWAN ?

Because I wanted to submit a creature that is all about elegance and softness, in contrast with the harshness of the Genesis 1 simulation.
The Halszkaraptor was not an actual swan, of course, but many creatures in ARK are inspired by modern day animals, and the existing paleoart really made it easy.

The Halsz Swan is athletic but not strong ; it has no scary horns, sharp claws or pointy teeth ; it swims gently in an environment that is everything but gentle.
We already have tons of intimidating creatures that are mean killing machines, and we'll have even more in the future ! So why not go for something different ?

Lore-wise, Gen1 being the only map that takes place entirely in a simulation imagined by humans made sense to me.
If you want to train people rather than merely torture them, a caring and healing creature is a responsible choice to include in your code.
Humanity's survival, afterall, must be humane, and not just incentivized by pure cruelty.

TL;DR

The selfless Halsz Swan is entirely designed to take care of you and other creatures.
It can do it in a few different ways, but that's all it does, to avoid overlapping with existing tames.
It is mostly harmless, but makes for a great exploration and support tame.

It's a graceful flightless "bird", whose identity revolves around altruistic support and elegant agility. It's a lover, not a fighter.
Look... if really we must pick Theropods almost every time, maybe we could at least decide to pick one with a different style, ability and identity ?

Got a second wind ? Then give a chance to my other submission : the Silesaurus !

cool

[ladyteruki]

Thanks Ermerus, I'm thankful that you always give my submissions a chance

[Abaddon23]

you make every time so beautiful submissions ❤️

[ladyteruki]

11 minutes ago, Abaddon23 said:

you make every time so beautiful submissions ❤️

Aw thank you so much !

[ARKExtreme]

UHHHH, I LOVE HALZKARAPTORSSSS!!!!

Voting.

 

[ShaydeofArcana]

A great submission well done!

[ladyteruki]

Thanks for the additional upvotes, guys ! 

20 hours ago, ARKExtreme said:

UHHHH, I LOVE HALZKARAPTORSSSS!!!!

Voting.

Thanks ! I personally knew very little about it before starting work on this submission, but I like this species too !

16 hours ago, ShaydeofArcana said:

A great submission well done!

Very kind of you to say !

[Xenorachnoide]

this submission is so wholesome, it provide a balanced archetype with a very cool design of creature.

The breeding part is maybe too-much and for balancing the stamina regeneration it could be a cooldown on the creature restored (like 5 or 10 min) to prevent many halsz swan to regenerate infiny stamina to the same tame (the creature, then, will be able to spam this ability on other creature at the cost of even more food) and you can skip by this mean the necessity to not be able to cryo your halsz.

[ladyteruki]

On 10/17/2025 at 2:21 AM, Xenorachnoide said:

this submission is so wholesome, it provide a balanced archetype with a very cool design of creature

Thank you ! Wholesome is pretty much what I was trying to go for. I think there's room for a support creature that really inhabits the part in the game.

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The breeding part is maybe too-much

That's fair. To be honest, I really wanted to work the idea of swans mating for life into the mechanics, and I recognize that it leads to side-effects. Maybe there's a middle ground to be found somewhere

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for balancing the stamina regeneration it could be a cooldown on the creature restored (like 5 or 10 min) to prevent many halsz swan to regenerate infiny stamina to the same tame (the creature, then, will be able to spam this ability on other creature at the cost of even more food) and you can skip by this mean the necessity to not be able to cryo your halsz.

Yeah that absolutely could work. And you're right that I've been working under the assumption that IF a tribe has several tamed Halsz Swans in the same fight/situation, only one would be used for stamina heal while the other could be used for health heal, and vice-versa. But it's absolutely true that once there's several Halsz Swans doing the stamina heal at the same time, there's a stacking effect that could become very OP. Putting the cooldown on the targeted creature counters that. That's very astute, thank you for picking up on this.

Edited October 18, 2025 by ladyteruki

[ladyteruki]

As the voting period comes to an end (and I'm in a different timezone !), I want to thank everyone who has dropped by this submission to read it, and even more those who have commented and/or upvoted it. Thank you ! Regardless of what creature wins this vote, see you all in the simulation !