W a r r i o r D o g s || ShadowPack

[RogueRunner]

S h a d o w P a c k

Little else is feared more in the Forest Territory than ShadowPack, and the Pack's members know this fact - and love it. ShadowPack prides itself on instilling fear in the hearts of enemies and being fully capable of holding their own, particularly against the other Packs. Though not necessarily evil, its members do tend to be more aggressive and ambitious than your typical Pack dog. They are fiercely loyal, cunning, and defensive individuals that will stop at nothing to do what they believe is best for their Pack, regardless of what - or who - they must stomp on to achieve their goals. Their high intelligence and fearless spirits make them dangerously stealthy, and their infamous ability to fight and hunt in total darkness as well as they can in the light of day only worsens their bad reputation.

Territory Type:
Extremely dense woodlands,
with plentiful undergrowth

Favorite Prey:
Lizards
Frogs
Rats

Shares Borders With: RiverPack and WindPack

Ideal Breeds: ShadowPack dogs specialize in stealth, striking fear with aggression, and the ability to make use of what others discard, making cunning and hardy individuals ideal members. No one class is best suited for this Pack, but gravitate towards breeds that strike a balance between intelligence and aggressiveness, as well as adaptability.
Examples: Anatolian Shepherd, Doberman Pinscher, Dutch Shepherd, German Shepherd, Rottweiler

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[RogueRunner]

WIP

[RogueRunner]

♟
V E L V E T S T A R
( ♀ ) - ( Wolfdog mongrel ) - ( Alpha ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 24 moons old ) - ( Apprentice: Birchpaw ) - ( Bisexual ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Birchpaw )
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Before responding to her apprentice, she looked upwards, towards the sky, and inspected the position of the moon. It was just beginning to dip below the horizon as an orange glow began towards the other side of the sky. Noting it, she grinned and shrugged her broad shoulders. "I suppose I can free up some time for you from my valuable schedule." She stood up and signaled her apprentice to follow with a flick of her bushy tail. "Seriously, though, let's hurry. I want to get to sleep before morning." As she walked towards the border, she said, "I don't quite remember where we left off with your training, but, even if this is old stuff, I feel that it's important to review." She stopped walking entirely and stood before her apprentice. Noticing how tall and probably intimidating she seemed, she sat down. Abruptly, she questioned the smaller dog, "What part of me do you think could do the most damage to you?"

[Owlcat]

Birchpaw

( ♂ ) - ( Staffordshire Bull Terrier ) - ( Apprentice ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 10 moons old ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Velvetstar )

Birchpaw stood facing Velvetstar, pondering her question. He looked up at her face, and saw her huge, glistening fangs, that looked like they could bite through a branch, no problem. He also looked down and saw her massive claws though. They looked like they could slice through any material no matter how tough. Both of these things looked twice as big and deadly as his though. He shook his head a little, both clearing his head, and being thankful that he would never have to face Velvetstar in a battle. He looked up to Velvetstar again, "your fangs." He replied. He wasn't sure if he should start to explain his reasoning though, he might start talking too much, and anger her. So he waited for what she had to say next.

[RogueRunner]

♟
V E L V E T S T A R
( ♀ ) - ( Wolfdog mongrel ) - ( Alpha ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 24 moons old ) - ( Apprentice: Birchpaw ) - ( Bisexual ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Birchpaw )
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She cocked an ear thoughtfully. "That is a dangerous misconception. You aren't exactly wrong, but try to think more...broadly." To clarify, she launched a sturdy-looking branch into the air with a stomp of her paw to its end and caught it in the back-most section of her jaws, breaking it into several segments almost instantly with an enormous, sharp snapping sound. She let the shattered pieces fall from her mouth and back to the forest floor. "So you see," she began after licking her chops, "it isn't just a couple of teeth that you want to avoid while defending and utilize while attacking, but the jaws themselves." She smiled after she visualized a good comparison. "When you eat prey, you usually use your fangs to rip and your back teeth to crush. That doesn't change when you fight. So, optimally, you want to keep the opponent's whole jaw, rather than just fangs, away from you. For example..." She stepped away from her apprentice, standing squarely in the center of the clearing. "Charge me and try to grab my throat." Very aware of Birchpaw's reluctance when faced with violence, she added with a mischievous grin, "And don't fret too much - I can handle whatever you can throw at me."

[Owlcat]

Birchpaw

( ♂ ) - ( Staffordshire Bull Terrier ) - ( Apprentice ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 10 moons old ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Velvetstar )

Birchpaw cocked his head a little. Did Velvetstar actually mean that I could use my full strength? Or she only said that to be kind and to go easy anyways? Velvetstar doesn't seem like the type of dog to just say things to be kind.
She said things because she meant them. He shook his head again, trying to clear his thoughts. Maybe I'm just complicating things too much again. He replayed the conversation in his head again. Yeah, I was. He decided. He then went into an aggressive crouch and lunged forward, his muzzle open showing his teeth, trying to latch onto Velvetstar's neck with all of the strength he could muster.

[RogueRunner]

♟
V E L V E T S T A R
( ♀ ) - ( Wolfdog mongrel ) - ( Alpha ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 24 moons old ) - ( Apprentice: Birchpaw ) - ( Bisexual ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Birchpaw )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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She splayed her paws and lowered her skull, feigning bracing for impact, before she twisted her body out of reach of the smaller dog with an arching leap. With the opening the dodge created, she countered with a lunge of her own, trying to grip his muzzle in her own powerful jaws, albeit more gently than she was used to, while throwing her paws onto his exposed flank to pin him onto his side.

[Owlcat]

Birchpaw

( ♂ ) - ( Staffordshire Bull Terrier ) - ( Apprentice ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 10 moons old ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Velvetstar )

Birchpaw yelped in surprise as he felt his jaws close on empty space, and felt Velvetstar bite down on his own muzzle. He soon found himself panting and laying on his back, facing Velvetstar, her massive paws pressing down on his stomach. I would be dead if this was a real battle. He smiled from relief. He then found that he felt slobber drip down his face, and he realized he must look a little stupid, lying down on his back with Velvetstar on top of him, and in no situation should be smiling because Velvetstar just outsmarted him. it's fine though, because Velvetstar is my leader and I'm not dead.

[RogueRunner]

♟
V E L V E T S T A R
( ♀ ) - ( Wolfdog mongrel ) - ( Alpha ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 24 moons old ) - ( Apprentice: Birchpaw ) - ( Bisexual ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Birchpaw )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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In case Darkhowl and Applefrost missed this:

She gave Darkhowl a curious look as he "justified" his rule-breaking. She suspected that he was trying to flatter her with his comment about her usurpation of ShadowPack leadership, but she only felt the hot trickle of rage in her veins. You were a younger apprentice than I was when I killed Bristlestar. You don't know anything about it, so don't try to weaponize it. Rather than letting her growing anger show, though, she completely disregarded his flattery, and prejudice, for that matter, with a slow shake of her head, a wolfish grin plastered on it. "You know, I didn't even know that there was a ThunderPack dog involved until you mentioned that. Thanks." Seeing that Darkhowl didn't deny Applefrost's claim that she had no involvement, the enormous half-wolf dismissed her with a casual flick of her ear, barely looking over. She continued in a low voice, "I don't know exactly what went down, and I won't pretend like I do -" her words became soft as she locked gazes with her aggressive subordinate, "- but we both know well what kind of dog you are. If you're so insistent on bringing everyone down with you, then maybe some time to cool off is what you need. You are not to patrol the borders today, and, if I hear about something like this again, maybe you just won't ever be cut out for it." She made sure to target his patrolling duties because he was known for enjoying beating down the other Packs. She saw it as both a fair and lenient punishment. Despite her stern words, which had only come out of her muzzle just seconds before, her face suddenly wasn't very serious at all and she even smiled as she questioned, "Are we clear?" She barely gave him time to respond as she turned and padded into camp to rejoin ShadowPack. Truly, she didn't hate Darkhowl - in fact, she could argue that she loved him in the way that she loved all of her Pack - but this wasn't the first little stunt that he had pulled and she was getting tired of them. ShadowPack's reputation with the other Packs was poor enough without a troublemaker to fan the flames. She felt her wandering mind quiet as a surge of confidence hit her. It's time. Clawing her way onto the twisted, jagged boulder that she liked to make announcements from, she howled out, "All dogs old enough to catch their own prey, please gather before me!" As they grouped, exchanging quiet, curious words among themselves, she took a moment to build up her usual mischievous and playful composure. She didn't want the following announcement to be tainted by the inherently darker subjects that came with the territory...that is, the loss of their previous deputy, Sharptongue, several moons ago, and the monster that had taken him from them... She quickly refocused herself before she could think of her late friend too much. "My choice is long overdue, I know, but there's no use in whining about it when it's here now, in my opinion." She cleared her throat, desiring for her voice to sound more certain, as she barked, "The new deputy of ShadowPack is Flowerpetal."

Her point made, she released Birchpaw's muzzle and stepped off of him. "A muzzle-grab, like the one that I just performed, is probably one of the better defensive tactics, but it certainly isn't the easiest to pull off -" she chuckled a bit before she added "- particularly if you're facing a larger opponent. But that's alright, because I, frankly, consider any tactic viable if it keeps the enemy away from this." When she said the word, "this," she gently pressed a paw to the apprentice's throat for emphasis, but still hard enough to where she could feel the pulse in a specific vain. "You can survive getting a leg torn off, getting your belly ripped open, even a puncture to your spinal cord - but if the life-giving artery in your neck is severed, it's over." Letting her tone become light again, she said, "This comes back to the different teeth functions I was discussing before the demonstration. You should always be cautious when faced with any teeth, but remember what is deadlier to what parts of you. Fangs can rip flesh and cut off vital arteries, but those back teeth can crush a bone, and, trust me, you do not want to be crippled for the remainder of a fight." Despite the harsh topic, she barked comically, "Basically, if it comes down to you having to choose to dodge one part of the jaws over the other, for whatever reason, determine what they're trying to attack so that you can take the less harmful option." After she finished speaking, she started walking again. She barked back to Birchpaw, "Anything else you want to learn in particular, pup?"

[Owlcat]

Birchpaw

( ♂ ) - ( Staffordshire Bull Terrier ) - ( Apprentice ) - ( ShadowPack ) - ( 10 moons old ) - ( No romance ) - ( Tags: Velvetstar )

Birchpaw found himself getting a little nervous, after Velvetstar told him the way to kill a dog. She seemed very knowledgeable of what she could do, and teach. He sat up after Velvetstar let go of him and inhaled not realizing that he was also holding his breath. "I don't know what I want to know, just what I already learned." He replied, but then tried to think of a better answer. "I don't think I would mind learning some hunting. Or anything else you want to teach me, but that can wait until morning if you want." He said holding this was a better answer. "I'm not the only one you're in charge of."