Beasts & Animal Wounds

Animals live in the world's three disposition sections by their natural stance: a predator that has not been provoked is a Neutral, with its hunting aggression on record in becomesHostileIf and dangerIfProvoked. A Horse, Dog, or Falcon is an Ally — bond, support, and the conditions that keep it one.

Reading a beast's body

Every animal file carries an anatomy map: how it is built, where the vitals hide, what protects them, and what kills it. Adjudicate wounds the same way as people — match wound depth to tissue layer — but let the anatomy overrule the human defaults:

• The boar gristle plate swallows glancing blades; aim behind the foreleg.
• The rhino and armadillo present armor; wounds slide until they find the fold or the belly.
• The lion and wolf are killed where they kill — throat and vitals behind the foreleg.
• The horse looks durable and is not: its deaths wait inside it (colic, shattered leg), not on its surface.

Beast wounds

Beast-specific injury templates live beside the human ones in /Injuries/:

• Splintered Leg — grievous; a beast that stands to live cannot stand on a shattered leg. This is not the person's Broken Leg.
• Colic — the gut twisting on itself; half die within a day untreated, and the treatment is walking, not resting.
• Crushed Hoof, Bowed Tendon — the stable's recurring wounds; weeks to months of lameness.
• Deep Claw Wounds, Bite Punctures — what predators and their prey collect.
• Gored Flank, Kicked Ribs, Ruptured Eye, Split Ear — horns, stables, and honest scars.

Severity, pain, and bleeding work identically to the human ladder. Treatment stays two-tier: field treatment stabilizes; surgery mends — where surgery exists for a beast at all.

Mounted and beast bonds

A trained Horse supports Riding checks and carries its rider's fight; a warhorse kicks and tramples on command. A Dog guards, hunts, and drags the wounded. A Falcon hunts from the air and spots what ground eyes miss — fed and flown on schedule, or it goes wild within weeks.

Beasts die of the honest things: a splintered leg, a twist in the gut, a river crossing taken at the wrong moment. The system prices that truth in — buy the second horse before you need it.