The starter world and the Gifts from Neap box

The starter world (starter-island.oar) is OpenSimulator's own default island with one object at its middle: a wrapped box, Gifts from Neap, holding copies of things from the Paracosm island that a new world can start from. This chapter is how it is made, how its animals come alive anywhere, and how to add to it.

What is in the box

kind	items	how it lives where it is put down
sea	`animal: bottlenose dolphin`	its brain (`tools/gift_brains.py`) casts rays out from where it was rezzed to the first stretch of water 3 m deep, loops through it, and swims the loop with the island pod's own motion (breaths, leaps, whistles, bow-riding). Several make a pod: the first leads, the rest ask on channel -7740/-7750 and take their places
air	`animal: African fish eagle`, `animal: barn owl`	one bird brain: it perches where it was put, and when awake (the eagle by day, the owl after dark) goes out over the ground round it on the owl's banked curving runs and comes home. `fly` on channel -7760 sends it out now
land	`animal: zebra`, `zebra foal`, `giraffe`, `giraffe, young`, `elephant`, `elephant calf`, `lion`, `lioness`, `lion cub`	each carries a `roam` notecard; WorldBridge's Roam reads it when the animal enters the scene and walks it round where it stands (see "Roam notecards" below)
small	`animal: field vole`	its own island brain already takes home as where it is rezzed
plants	trees (the great oak, oak, beech, birch, acacia, palm), fern, wildflowers, tussock grass, moss, reeds, water lily, marigolds, herbs, a window box, a bean wigwam, a boulder, driftwood, a shell	static
home	the cottage's furnishings (table, bench, bed, dresser, candlesticks that burn, a kettle that steams, a lantern, jars, a bowl, plate, mug, jug, loaf, apple, flour crock, sack, broom, almanac, barometer, a standing mirror, a peg rail with a cloak and hat, a fireside chair and stool, a rag rug, a water butt, a lamppost)	static, some with their small scripts (flames, steam)
places	`building: the cottage (empty)`, `boat: rowing boat`, `dock: lantern post`, `landmark: the beacon`, `landmark: standing stone`	static, the beacon's fire and torches scripted
to wear	`wear: safari outfit (for a female shape)`, `wear: safari outfit (for a male shape)`, `wear: safari torch`	the outfit is one rigged mesh made on the viewer's own avatar body (tools/build_safari.py); the torch is worn on the right hand and holds the arm out ahead (tools/build_torch.py; click it, or say `torch` on channel 7)

A notecard, READ ME, says the same for whoever opens the box.

Taking things out

In a viewer: right-click the box, Open, copy what you want to your inventory; or drag an item out.
A world spirit, through WorldBridge: contents {uuid} lists the box; rez_item {box, item, x, y} puts a copy anywhere in the region, its scripts running, set down on the ground there (the bottom of its root prim on the terrain; give z to place its root exactly, lift to raise it). The item stays in the box. MCP: world_contents, world_rez_item.

How the box is built

tools/build_gift_box.py assemble out.oar backup.oar, against a FRESH server (point WORLDBRIDGE_URL and PARACOSM_BIN at it, never the live one):

load oar --merge backup.oar brings the island's objects in beside the default island (merge keeps its terrain).
The box itself is made: a small mesh (midnight paper with gold stars, a satin ribbon, a bow) at the island's middle.
Each gift in the manifest (FOLIAGE, COTTAGE, PLACES, CREATURES, WEAR in the script) is found by its anchor object's name and the part names round it, and bundle copies those parts into the box as one linkset. The anchor becomes the linkset's root, which is what rez_item sets down on the ground.
The dolphin, eagle and owl are made fresh with their gift brains (make_animal), bundled, and removed.
The roaming animals are island roamers whose roam notecard is swapped for the gift version first (below).
READ ME goes in; everything else is cleared away; save oar out.oar.

Things that are WORN on the live island are attachments, not objects in the region, so a backup does not carry them: run their builders against the fresh server first (tools/build_torch.py, tools/build_safari.py deploy), where no one is present to be given them, and they lie in the region ready to bundle.

python tools/build_gift_box.py plan shows what each gift resolves to on a region, without changing anything.

To add a gift: add a line to the manifest (item name, anchor name, part-name patterns, radius) and assemble again. An animal needs a brain that does not know where it is: either a script that takes its home from where it was rezzed (as the vole's does), a gift brain in gift_brains.py, or a roam notecard.

Roam notecards

Roam used to know its animals only by uuid, in bin/worldbridge-roam.json: a copy rezzed from a box, or the island loaded on another server, stood still. Now a creature can carry its roam inside it:

a notecard named roam in its root prim, holding the roam op's JSON (without uuid): WorldBridge registers the creature by itself when it enters the scene (a rez, rez_item, an OAR load, the startup scan). Animation values may be the NAME of an animation the creature holds, as well as an asset uuid; cx/cy default to where it stands and radius to 16.
roam_notecard {uuid} writes that text from a live, tuned roamer: the gift version leaves out what belongs to its home world (cx, cy, the waterhole water, its herd leader; the kinds it fears and hunts are kinds, so they travel), and full: true keeps all of it for an island saved whole (an OAR keeps its objects' uuids).
tools/roam_notecards.py gives every roamer on a region its animations (named: walk, graze, drink, lie down ...) and its full notecard, and saves each gift version under assets/gift/roam/.

That is why paracosm-island.oar walks again wherever it is loaded, and why a zebra out of the box starts to graze where it was set down.

Tested

2026-09-27, the starter world loaded into a fresh region: the box at the island's middle with 70 gifts and the READ ME; out of it, two dolphins went to sea round the default island and swam as a pod over 7 to 9 m of water; the eagle soared 27 m up and the owl quartered 2.8 m over the grass; a zebra, a foal, a lioness and an elephant registered with Roam at the spot each was set down and walked 11 to 19 m within two minutes. The island OAR loaded on a fresh server: 14 of 14 roamers registered from their notecards with the island's own ranges.