Hogwarts Legacy - How To Capture Beasts For Your Vivarium

The Hogwarts Legacy Vivarium is a key location in the Room of Requirement. In it, you'll have a means of finding various fauna, saving them from poachers and bringing them to a sanctuary in the castle. Our Hogwarts Legacy Vivarium and Beasts guide helps you with all the mechanics related to taming magical creatures.

How to unlock the Vivarium in Hogwarts Legacy

The Vivarium and Beast capture mechanics in Hogwarts Legacy become available halfway through the campaign. Once you've finished a main quest called Percival Rackham's Trial, a few more will appear:

• The Helm of Urtkot - This takes you to a tomb where you need to solve Moth/Butterfly Door Puzzles.
• The Caretaker's Lunar Lament - This grants you the Alohomora spell so you can unlock doors and chests. Likewise, it leads to a sidequest where you have to collect Demiguise Moons to upgrade Alohomora.
• Beast Class - This is the first time you'll attend this class. Here, you'll learn about petting and feeding magical creatures.

Once you've done the above, you should receive a main quest called The Elf, the Nab-Sack, and the Loom. This is the part where you're taught how to capture Beasts in Hogwarts Legacy.

The Elf, the Nab-Sack, and the Loom

Deek the house elf will show you the ropes, providing you with a spell called the Nab-Sack. Here's the gist:

• Think of the Nab-Sack as akin to the Proton Pack from Ghostbusters. You approach a creature and fire a beam that pulls them into the Nab-Sack. And, no, it doesn't work on ghosts in Hogwarts Castle (that would be wrong on so many levels).
• To make things easier, you'll want to activate stealth with Disillusionment. This prevents animals from detecting your approach.
• When you're close enough to an animal, you can use another spell to temporarily immobilize them.
  • Levioso lifts a target and suspend them in mid-air for a few seconds.
  • Arresto Momentum will stop and slow them down.
  • Glacius, however, tends to be one of the best options. This will freeze your target and cause them to fall, with an animation that lasts for several seconds.
• Once you cast your Nab-Sack spell, a button prompt will appear, so make sure to press that. Multiple pips represent how many times you need to successfully press the button.
• Animals will scurry away and flee, so you'll have to chase them, cast an immobilizing spell, and use the Nab-Sack once more. If you take too long, the pips will be depleted and you'll have to start anew.
• There are cases when animals get too scared and they'd run off or fly away. Simply fast travel back and forth to make them respawn.

Beast Dens

The Elf, the Nab-Sack, and the Loom quest only has you dealing with tame pets like the Puffskein, Jobberknoll, and Mooncalf. However, there are more Beasts that you can capture in Hogwarts Legacy. If you check the map, you'll see animal paw icons representing the Beast Dens of different species. These include rarer creatures like the Unicorn and Hippogriff.

The Vivarium

Upon completing your initial objectives, return to the Room of Requirement. This is when you'll unlock the Vivarium in Hogwarts Legacy, a sanctuary for all the Beasts that you've captured.

You can release your captured animals here, but there are some caveats:

• Each Vivarium holds up to 12 Beasts.
• You're limited to four different species.
• That means you can have 11 Puffskeins and 1 Hippogriff. Alternatively, if you have 1 Puffskein, 1 Jobberknoll, 1 Mooncalf, and 1 Hippogriff, you won't be able to add another creature of a different species.

Petting and Feeding

Now that you have a Vivarium in Hogwarts Legacy, you'll be able to pet and feed animals (similar to what you did during the Beast Class quest). Use your brush and give them treats. This will cause them to leave droppings materials that can be used for gear upgrades and traits/perks.

Here are some additional details:

• The materials themselves can be purchased from the Brood and Peck shop in the northeast corner of Hogsmeade. This can save you some time in case you haven't encountered some creatures yet.
• It's also possible to buy the Beast Feeder and Beast Toybox blueprints from the Tomes and Scrolls shop in the southern portion of Hogsmeade. You can build these structures in the Vivarium by casting the Evanesco spell.
• A bit later in the game, you'll receive a quest that allows you to breed animals so they can have offspring.
• Also, further progression in the Hogwarts Legacy Beast capture and taming arc unlocks additional Vivarium biomes.