this is spindly taproot. it is a type of sting. you can find it in the forest. you need the foraging skill. increasing your exploration skill will make them a lot easier to find.
Get Foraging. Train Exploration to around 10. Walk around and find Spindly Taproots and Stinging Nettle (unless you need it for a fishing pole, then Nettle won't work).
Collect spindly taproot or stinging nettles (sort of white-green spiky looking plant)
To pre-empt getting really fucking tired of foraging for string when you need a palisade or raft or whatever with a bunch of ropes, try and gather a bunch wild windsdown weed (poofy white looking plant, you shouldn't have a problem getting them with ~15 exploration) and dry it out on some drying racks. Eventually you'll get some hemp seeds. Start growing them and increasing the size of the field every generation until you have like an 8x8 field or so and getting rope/cloth will be no problem anymore
Also, you can craft string from dried hide at 2 string per tile of hide, but this needs you to be able to skin/kill things. You can also make strings from rabbit furs.
fartbarter wrote:Also, you can craft string from dried hide at 2 string per tile of hide, but this needs you to be able to skin/kill things. You can also make strings from rabbit furs.
Could you explain how to do this? Such as, what skills I would need? I've got a few rabbit hides on hand, some fresh, some tanning, and it'd be REALLY useful to get my hands on an easier source of string than wandering around looking for taproot. (I haven't got quite enough LP to reach ~15 exploration)
Honestly with Exploration 3 and Perception 10, you'll have no problem finding enough spindly taproots and stinging nettles to make your fishing rod and dream catchers. That said, you can actually buy no exploration and still find enough spindly taproot if you're willing to walk around a little bit. It'll take you awhile to make things like rope but you do not need rope for quite awhile. If you think you need it to tame animals right away, trust me on this and don't bother taming animals until you understand the game a bit more thoroughly.