"Realistic" Animals Only - Character Creation Guide - WIP

[AtlasHyperion]

I've seen the rule "realistic characters only" thrown around a lot in roleplays, mostly in semi-lit to literate. However, when people include "realistic only" in their rules, they often forget to research what exactly counts as realistic, or, more often, assume that what people generally define as realistic in animal roleplays is the same as what those animals look like in nature.

Hate to break it to you, but a lot of things we think we know about coloring and eye color and behavior of animals is wrong.

Note!! Feel free to link to this guide if you want a super realistic roleplay and want to set guidelines for the rules of realism.

Disclaimer!! This is not meant to offend anyone. You're not wrong or foolish at all for believing common misconceptions. That's why they're called common. Misconceptions are everywhere in the world, about everything, and exist for tons of reasons. It's not your fault for believing what everyone tells you. Now, onto some mythbusting.

(Another disclaimer, please don't post here yet. Once I've allowed posting after I've cleared my posts up, feel free to comment, as long as it's civil and polite.)

[AtlasHyperion]

This is one animal where it's really easy to accidentally make mistakes, because there are a lot of nit-picky, silly-sounding rules for wolf genetics in the real world. Let's dive on in, shall we? Quick note, important words are bolded, so if you want to skim for rules and skip the explanations, look for bold chunks.

Appearance

Coat Colors
Disclaimer time! These coat color rules apply to gray wolves only. Different breeds will be mentioned in another section.

Gray wolf coat colors are pretty simple. There are a lot of them, and some are more common than others, but if you Google-search "wolf" for the perfect picture to use in your character form, you'll likely find a realistic color. Here's a short, easily comprehensive list of coat colors that exist in gray wolves.

Black to White Spectrum

- entirely black
- black and gray
- shades of gray (most wolves on the black-white scale fall here)
- solid gray/silver
- very light gray
- white

Brown Spectrum

- gray/white/black/brown mixes
- red-brown
- brown and black
- light brown/sandy
- blonde/yellowy

That's easy, right? Now, a lot of wolves on the black/white spectrum have brown markings around their ears and along their snout, yellow and tan tints on white and very light gray fur, black lowlights, and white or light gray highlights. Most wolves are not solid black, white, or gray.

Now let's talk rarity. The vast majority of wolves have a coloring called agouti, which gives their coat alternating bands of black and yellow coloration. Like this wolf. And this wolf. Most wolves are on the brown spectrum, with a mix of gray and brown and agouti coloring. Solid white or solid black wolves are quite uncommon. Delving into genetics, the gene that codes for a wolf to be black is dominant, represented by letters KK or Kk, and kk is the recessive that causes the wolf to be non-black. However, most wolves with genes KK die before they are born, so your wolf is either Kk or kk, and without at least one black parent, definitely kk. And most black wolves, anyways, are actually just on the brown scale, having both dark brown and black coloring.

In summary of rarity, black or white = rare, brown/gray agouti = common, so go for brown/gray wolves and use white and black sparingly.

Now let's talk markings. Simple rule, really. Wolves do not have clearly-defined markings. All wolf coloring blends together. No wolf markings have clear edges; instead, all are gradients.



Eye Color
Boy oh boy, this is the one that is most often messed up. Again, not your fault for not knowing. In wolves, the eye color rules are more simple than the coat color rules. In fact, there's really only one rule.

All adult wolves have yellow eyes.

Let me explain, because I'm sure someone's thinking, "But Tankie, wolves can have brown eyes! Wolves can have amber eyes! Wolves can have blue eyes!" First off, only two of those are true. Every color naturally seen in wolf eyes falls on the yellow spectrum, which ranges from gray-white to brown-black. Here's a handy-dandy chart for you! The colors on this chart include the following, also comprehensive list. I love lists, so expect more of them.

Brown Eyes

- dark brown
- medium brown
- light brown
- dark amber
- medium amber
- light amber

Yellow Eyes

- dark/bright gold
- medium gold
- pale yellow

Other Eyes

- green-yellow
- green-gray
- gray
- white-gray

See, easy! All real wolf eyes fall under four categories: brown, amber, yellow, and gray. Some yellow-gray mixes can look green. Some grays can look blue. But here's a fun little rule for you, adult wolves don't have blue eyes. Additionally, wolves do not have heterochromia. And that's all you need to know about eye colors.



Wolf Pups
The rules for wolf pups are not the same as the rules for adult wolves, so here's a picture, credit to artist. There's one rule for wolf pups.

Wolf pups are brown with dark!! blue eyes.

Wolf pups are brown when born, though shades vary. Compare these tan and white pups playing, and these brown and black buddies. Adorable, but more importantly, all brown. The white one in the first picture is actually a sandy, very light brown, and the black one in the second is a dark, charcoal brown. Their eyes are dark blue, never icy blue like huskies.

Around six months of age, varying depending upon the individual, pups develop clearer markings, different coat colors, and yellow eyes. At this point, they transition from puphood to adulthood.



Other Breeds
This guide didn't cover any breed of wolf that isn't the gray wolf, but, considering the gray wolf is the most common type of wolf and likely the one you're roleplaying, unless otherwise specified, that's fair enough. Here's a chart of other wolf breeds, in color, that also shows size in comparison to other breeds and the average adult human male.



Behavior

Packs
Let's keep this guide simple with comprehensive lists and bold rules. Here's one right now! Alpha wolves don't exist. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the same guy who came up with the theory later scrapped it because his research was on domestic wolves at a zoo, not wild wolves. Here's how the story goes.

A scientist named L. David Mech, in 1977, researched wolf packs and observed that one male wolf was on top, ruling over all. But then he tried to replicate his study in the wild, and found that he was wrong. Alpha wolves weren't dominant males, they were just parents, naturally with more authority than their pups. But his attempts to get his book off the shelves and denounce the term were in vain, and now people throw "alpha", "beta", and "omega" around all the time.

Pack ranks, in order of highest to lowest

- primary mates (depending on the pack, one might have more authority than the other)
- adults still in the pack (typically female offspring waiting to be courted, female loners courted by the primary male, offspring of previous "leaders", or loners accepted into the pack)
- pups (usually related to one or both "leaders", or a previous "leader")

And that's it. Wolves fight over territory, food, shelter, and mates, but fights between two wolves are about a carcass or a mate, not who is more dominant. Most fights between two male wolves are over a female, and sometimes these fights result in a new "leader" of the pack. It goes like this:

A male loner sees a female wolf in a pack who looks like a good mate. He approaches her and attempts to court her (courting means attempting to mate, though sometimes the female is uninterested and dismisses his attempts), and they hit it off, but oh no! The leading male in her pack has spotted him, and doesn't want to lose his lady friend. He snarls and growls, and soon enough, they're fighting. If the leader wins, he keeps his lady and the loner will probably never come back. If the loner wins, he can leave with the female or chase the leader from the pack, becoming leader of the females in the pack.

And that's how fighting works. It's not about asserting dominance so much as it is about who gets to mate with a female. A lot of spats are about territory, though packs don't typically fight with each other. A couple of loners might fight over who gets to claim a den or a certain field. Packs often chase off loners, sometimes even fighting with them. Two loners might bite and snap about a deer or rabbit carcass, or two members of the same pack might exchange blows about who gets first bite.

Additionally, packs are often comprised of only the primary mates, adult females, and pups. Young males (2-3 years) typically leave their birth packs in search of mates.



Parents and Pups
Pups are typically born in litters of 6. They are blind and deaf when first born. The pack, or just the mates, travel to a spring den site to have pups in the winter, birth and raise them in the spring, and then, when they are old enough, teach them to hunt and bring them back to the rendezvous site to become members of the pack or to leave.

Pup mortality rate ranges from 30-60%, depending on location, parents, genetics, and external factors. When a pup dies, the pack mourns them deeply. Wolves are highly social with the rest of the pack, and are known to bury dead pups.

Here's an easy, comprehensive list of the stages of a pup's development. (Borrowed from here)

- 10-13 days: the eyes open
- 3 weeks: the milk teeth appear, they start to explore the den
- 4-5 weeks: short trips outside the den, begin to eat meat
- 6 weeks: moving up to a mile from the den (with adult wolf)
- 6-8 weeks: pups are weaned, traveling to rendezvous site.
- 12 weeks: begin to travel with the pack on hunts (with adult wolves)
- 15-28 weeks: milk teeth are replaced
- 7-8 months: begin to hunt with the pack

Wolves seem rough with their pups, often nipping, swatting, or pushing them in response to bad behavior. The pups tend to replicate this behavior between themselves, and love to play-fight, which is encouraged by their parents, but adult wolves often step in and punish a pup if it was playing too rough with its littermates. Wolf mothers do not tend to dislike any one pup, regardless of how much they punish individual pups. The runt (smallest) of the litter is not treated any differently than its littermates. Wolf pups receive an abundant amount of punishment and encouragement as they learn right from wrong, until they understand the morality of wolf society.



Mates
Some wolves mate for life, some do not, but wolves tend to be monogamous while their mate is still alive. If a mate dies, wolves mourn them for a long time, and often stay with them during death and return frequently to the site. Wolves are known to return to the den they shared with a lost mate or the spot of the mate's death even years after the mate dies.

Mates often "snuggle" together, keeping close while walking or laying down, similar to how humans cuddle and hold hands. Contrary to popular belief, male wolves don't tend to have more power than female wolves; rather, their power manifests in different ways. A mother is not challenged on how she raises her pups or when she challenges other females that get too close to her mates, and males are often submissive to their female mates.

Additionally, female wolves tend to be very defensive of their mates. If another female approaches, the female might snap at her if she gets too close to her mate, or tackle and fight her if she tries to court him. Males tend not to challenge the other female, merely disregard her. The same applies the other way; if an unfamiliar male approaches his mate, he's likely to challenge the stranger.

Now let's talk about the lgbtq+ community. I've seen a lot of "I support the lgbt community, but", followed by the roleplay creator saying that they don't want lgbt characters in the rp for various totally supported by fact laws of realism, right? Wrong. Wolves can be gay. Dude wolves can like other dude wolves. Lady wolves can like other lady wolves. If your roleplay is really realistic, let people make gay wolves.



In Conclusion
Basically, wolves follow a few simple rules. Ready for another comprehensive list?

Rules for your wolf roleplay

1. Brown/gray coloring is much more common than black/white coloring.
2. Wolf eyes fall on the yellow spectrum, which ranges from gray to brown-black. Adult wolves don't have blue eyes.
3. Wolf pups are brown with dark blue eyes until around six months of age.
4. There are no alpha wolves, just primary mates who have more authority than other adults or pups. Sometimes outside wolves or wolves within the pack challenge the primary mates, but it is usually because they want to mate with one of them, not because they want to take over the pack.
5. Wolves love their pups and mates deeply, and are known to bury dead pups or mourn lost mates for years.
6. Fights between wolves are not over dominance, but are about territory, prey, or mates.

So what should you do with this, being so used to alphas, betas, and omegas in pack roleplays? Well, maybe when you're making your next rp, have primary mates, secondary mates, other mates, single wolves, and pups. And remember to have mostly agouti brown/gray wolves with yellow eyes. Make it clear if you have a "realistic wolves only" rule that that means common coloring, no blue eyes, and no "dominant/submissive" personalities or "alpha wolves". Or else establish what about your roleplay isn't realistic, and what "realistic rules" people can break.

And if you feel discouraged by this guide, if you didn't know a lot of this, first off, now you're three hours of me Googling things and typing smarter, and secondly, don't be disheartened. Misconceptions are everywhere. It's not your fault that you didn't know, and it's okay to stick to the old "alpha/beta" system with white coats and blue eyes if you want. Roleplays are so that people can become anything and go on adventures together through writing and imagination, and imagination doesn't have to follow any rules.