Seed Patterns are an optional component you can add to your campaign. They come from an enigmatic font of ideas and continue to inspire new gear schematics. To use Seed Patterns in a campaign, examine their keywords (underneath the name) to see if they belong in your campaign. Add any base Seed Patterns (these only have the seed keyword) and shuffle these together to create a Seed Pattern deck for your current campaign.
Some Seed Patterns have a negative number. They represent wild ideas that may not find a comfortable place in a more serious campaign. Players should all agree if they want to add these patterns to the campaign.
If you do not own the Gambler's Chest expansion, draw a random Seed Pattern from your deck each time a survivor in your settlement triggers their Insight milestone. Otherwise, you will need to add the First survivor to reach 3+ understanding settlement milestone to the settlement record sheet, which triggers Designs and Dandelions. This milestone is already printed onto record sheets for the People of the Dream Keeper campaign.
Seed Patterns have a crafting limit in the upper-left corner of the card, indicating how many copies of this gear your settlement can have at any time. They have an era in the upper-right corner of the card, which use a roman numeral (I-IV) that corresponds to a monster node that determines potential restrictions on the types of resources that can be used to craft this gear.
At the bottom of the card is a recipe cost, which lists the components that must be spent (archived) to craft this gear. These can be specific resource cards, resource types (constrained by the era, as noted above), gear, vermin, etc. Beneath the cost are the crafting steps that are required to fabricate this seed pattern gear.
Gray steps are storytelling without rules.
Blue steps tell a story that includes a requirement (in bold) that must be met to craft this gear.
Purple steps describe outcomes of crafting this gear. Some outcomes are tragic consequences; others are unexpected boons.
The story event Designs and Dandelions unlocks the Drafting Table innovation, which alters the revelatory moment survivors experience when they reach 3+ understanding. When they do, resolve any story events (such as Insight), then gain the benefits of the Drafting Table by drawing a random Seed Pattern card. You can even gain a Seed Pattern card if a survivor reaches 3+ understanding while away from the settlement.
During the Develop step of the settlement phase, players can use their earned Seed Pattern cards to craft their respective gear cards. They must fulfill all requirements of the listed crafting process. First, spend and archive the cost of the Seed Pattern gear, which can be more than just resources. You may need to spend gear or endeavors to craft a Seed Pattern gear.
If a Seed Pattern cost includes resource types instead of a named resource card, these resources must come from a monster (not basic resources), and that monster must appear in the era of that seed pattern or later.
For example, an Itemsmith's Lens (Era II) costs 1 x Broken Lantern and 1 x Organ. To fulfill the Organ requirement, they must spend a monster resource with the organ subtype from a Node 2 quarry monster or later.
Players will also have to meet any bolded requirements on blue steps of the Seed Pattern card. Unlike the cost, these requirements are not spent nor archived; the settlement must simply have the necessary things, ranging from resources, to innovations, to survivors with specific quirks.
Finally, purple steps reflect any changes that occur to your settlement and its survivors. Update all survivors, gear, and items that change as you complete the crafting process. When all of this is said and done, gain the associated Seed Pattern gear and return the recipe card to the settlement's earned Seed Pattern cards.