In Hogwarts Legacy, the world is brimming with wildlife. Once you explore the Highlands, you’ll see beasts roaming around their dens.
If you encounter them early in the game, you can do nothing but appreciate their beauty.
Eventually, you’ll learn the spell to catch them when you reach a certain point in the main story. This feature brings new avenues for exploration and side quests.
This guide will show you how to unlock the nab-sack, a spell that captures beasts for you.
Main Quest
The main quest will come through the Beast Class quest and the story mission The Elf, the Nab-Sack, and the Loom.
When you progress through the story, you’ll encounter some quests from Deek.
Every Deek quest involves your Room of Requirement. You’ll get upgrades, space, and more features.
One of these quests is the Elf, the Nab-Sack, and the Loom.
Deek will teach you how to use the Nab-Sack and the new Loom. He will take you around the Highlands and visit random Beast Dens.
Capturing Beasts
Capturing beasts is as easy as allocating your Nab-Sack spell to a spell slot and using it.
Once you find your target, use the Nab-Sack spell when you are in range. You’ll have to tap the button showing up when you cast the spell.
Each beast type will have a different number of buttons to press when capturing. For example, the Unicorn takes six prompts before you can capture one, while a Puffskein only needs one.
The beast will not run if you are using the Nab-Sack. They only run when you go near them. Some beasts stay in their place when you are using your Nab-Sack spell.
Each beast type will have a different behavior. Giant Purple Toads hop around when you get near. Puffskeins will roll away from you.
Unicorns gallop away from you, which makes them difficult to catch.
The trick is to use Arresto Momentum on a beast to ensure they don’t move.
Storing Beasts
There are two main things you can do with your beasts. You can sell them or keep them in the Vivarium. If you choose to keep them in the Vivarium, you’ll get materials regularly for maintaining them properly.
Other than getting materials, you can build a breeding pen and start breeding your beasts.
We’ll talk more about this later in the guide.
As you capture more beasts, they’ll be stored in your beast inventory. Your beast inventory holds up to 35 beasts at a time.
The 35 beast slots might be a lot, but when you are farming gold by selling these beasts, you’ll fill it up fast.
Vivarium
The Vivarium is the magical place in your Room of Requirement where you can store your beasts. Almost every quest, main or side, from Deek will upgrade something in your Room of Requirement.
After finishing the quest that unlocks the Nab-Sack, you’ll get your first Vivarium. The next quest is The Plight of the House-Elf, which unlocks the beach Vivarium.
The last quest is Foal of the Dead, which unlocks the 3rd and final swamp Vivarium.
Each Vivarium holds 12 beasts inside. You can only have four unique beasts in a single Vivarium.
There are exactly 12 beast types, excluding the Phoenix. You can put each type of beast in your three Vivariums.
It is up to you where you want to place each beast.
Farming materials
Each beast type gives you a specific material used for upgrading your gear. They don’t unlock any special appearances or cosmetics, but you can alter the trait bonuses you have in the loom.
Go to one of your beasts inside the Vivarium. You’ll notice two icons on the top of your screen. Each icon requires an action, which is feeding and caring for them.
Feed them and use your brush. Once they are satisfied, you can now collect the material from the beast.
They’ll have cooldowns for when you can collect more materials for them. Keep visiting your Room of Requirement every time you do an activity.
Breeding beasts
Breeding is also part of Deek’s side quest. You’ll need to buy the recipe for the Breeding Pen from the Tomes and Scrolls store in Hogsmeade.
Once you have conjured your Breeding Pen inside a Vivarium, interact with it and place two beasts inside.
You’ll see a timer on top of the Breeding Pen to know when your beasts will finish.
You can use the Breeding Pen as a consistent way to make money, as you can leave beasts breeding when you leave.
Once you come back, take the beasts from your Vivarium by pressing R1 or RB and choosing the beasts you want to take out.
Sell the beasts and start breeding more.
All Beast Types
Each beast type produces a different type of material in the Vivarium. These items are used for upgrading your gear and adding traits to your gear.
Here are all the beasts and the materials they produce in the game:
- Puffskein – produces Puffskein Furs
- Fwooper – produces Fwooper Feathers
- Giant Purple Toad – produces Toad Warts
- Mooncalf – produces Mooncalf Furs
- Kneazle – produces Kneazle Furs
- Diricawl – produces Diricawl Feathers
- Jobberknoll – produces Jobberknoll Feathers
- Niffler – produces Niffler Furs
- Unicorn – produces Unicorn Hairs
- Thestral – produces Thestral Hairs
- Graphorn – produces Graphorn Horns
- Hippogriff – produces Hippogriff Feathers
- Phoenix – Deek’s and Niamh Fitzgerald’s side quest (rare beast)
Each material is used for upgrading your gear. However, some talent builds use only a few specific spells.
You can stack traits for a specific spell you want to use. This means that you’ll need a lot of that specific beast material to upgrade your gear traits on each slot fully.
This is where the one-shot builds are made.
Finding Beast Dens
Open the map and look around the Highlands area or the World Map. Zoom in closer until you see the ‘paw’ icons on the map.
Hover on each one to see what beast spawns in the den. There are spawns for each beast type except for the Phoenix, where you’ll still need to finish Deek’s side quest called Phoenix Rising to access.
What to Do Next?
The tricky situation is most of these are side quests. You can eventually finish the story without fully upgrading your Vivarium or getting the Phoenix side quest.
I would suggest completing every side quest, especially those involving spell unlocks and the Viviarium.
It feels right to complete the side story before finishing the main story.
