Char Hund

These creatures are the severely mutated offspring of hounds that had somehow survived the human apocalypse. However, as most working hounds had died off during the wars and ensuing conflicts, and other hounds that were pampered pets died off due to starvation many years prior, these creatures did not have much of a genetic pool to work with during their evolution into the creatures of today. They tend to be seen traveling in packs and generally appear quite non intelligent, or even frenzied.

Lifespan: 8-12 years, however many are slain by stronger creatures, die of diseases or encounter stupid accidents long before that time. / Diet: omnivorous / Rarity: common

Creature concept by Aamu of Sverige.

Anatomy
These creatures look like stocky, yet runty wolves. They all have short, coarse fur that to touch it almost feels as if it has been singed by a fire. Their ears can be upright or flopped over, but they tend to be triangular shaped and round at the tip. More often than not, however, they have detrimental structural abnormalities brought upon by their mutated state such as a very short tail, kinked tail, or no tail at all, as well very short snouts or long misshapen ones (overbite or underbite), and even legs that appear deformed (too large, too small, crooked) that affect their gait. They come in grey, black, and brown colors but some may carry spotted markings. Stripes are very uncommon. Their eyes tend to be a uniform dark black or brown color and often either appear to be dull or quite crazed.

Dimensions
They grow to be around 15 - 25 inches tall at the most, and weigh between 50 - 120 lbs. Males tend to be larger than females as a general rule, however, from one pack to another pack a female may be larger than another pack's male.

Diet
These canines are omnivores but tend to mostly eat small prey like rabbits, small rats or other packs' pups if they can find them. They can therefore be very dangerous for young unprotected wolf pups as well but are usually not so desperate as to enter wolf pack lands as a full-sized wolf can best one quite easily. Char Hunds can also eat roots and plants, like Gouroms do, if they're very hungry and they have no problem scavenging from other creature's kills.

Behavior
Char Hunds tend to live in packs of 5 - 10 individuals where one individual is leader and the others follow them much like minions. This individual may be a male or a female, as within these packs, strength is prized over all. Whomever is the strongest will lead, the strongest generally known as the hound whom has recently killed the former leader.

As they tend to prize and breed for strength over intelligence, they tend to be otherwise quite dull and crazy when compared to the average Sverige wolf, making these creatures sometimes quite dangerous for loner wolves to encounter when they are moving in packs. A Char Hund will attack anything that they perceive as being "in the way of their goal" no matter how dangerous it might be for them.

There are very few Char Hund "loners" as those that are deemed weaklings are often simply slain. An outcast of a pack would find it very difficult to survive on one's own unless another creature were to take pity on it somehow.

Breeding
If a female is fertile, she can and will breed with multiple males. Females are often fertile numerous months out of the year, and can breed in any season, though pups born in the winter often die out due to lack of nutrition. Char Hund litters can be as small as 2 pups but as large as 8. However, only the strongest pups will survive as the males will try kill those that they see to be weakling or runts unless the mother fights for them. Most mothers with large litters simply accept the fact that at least half their litter will be slain, as fighting off multiple males intent on killing their pups is difficult.

Language
Even though the Char Hund is closely related to a wolf, their language has become mostly incomprehendible for wolves. The basics are still there, such as the height of carrying a tail or growling and snarling, but otherwise they seem too dull to make much use out of anything else. Aggressive moves are mostly understood, but a friendly approach is out of the question between most wolves and Char Hunds.

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