Crooked Peaks Nested Brushtail

Color Nests are spots inside the bodies of living beings where Colors needed for the organism to function are stored. Normally, they are invisible, and only certain spells and items that use Blue can reveal them. For the last few years, however, all beings born around the Crooked Peak have their Color Nests visible through their skin and fur. One of the first species noticed with this condition was spotted brushtails, living in the mountain's area.

Appearance

Aside from the changes in their coat and skin, nested brushtails don't show any changes in the structure of their bodies when compared to spotted brushtails. Just like them, they have quite bulky but short bodies with very long tails that almost triple the length of their bodies. Their forelimbs are massive and long while their hind legs are both shorter and thinner. This results in their backs being sloped down, similar to those of striped hyenas. Both their front and hind legs are equipped with a set of long sharp claws. They have a short, thick neck that ends with a triangular, flat head. Their two sets of eyes are almond-shaped, with the front ones being smaller and completely black. Their ears are short and pointy.

Coat

Both nested and spotted brushtails have most of their bodies covered with ~7cm long course, spiky fur. The fur gets shorter around their bellies and more than doubles its length on the manes that grow around their necks and reach halfway down their backs and on the tips of their tails (a thing they owe their name to). In stressful situations, the fur on their bodies stands up. During colder seasons, their whole coat grows longer.
Compared to the normal specimens most of the nested brushtails' fur is completely dark gray.

Visible Color Nests

The unusual condition of the brushtails living near Crooked Peak causes their Color Nests to be visible. Said Nests manifest within their bodies as 17 spheres connected with their tail by tube-like structures. four behind their eyes are blue, one in their throat is green, the one near their heart is white, and the one near their gut (the biggest one) is black. There are four intertwined red and yellow ones, a pair in each of their legs. The last yellow one appears within their tail while the last red one is usually located on the bottom of their jaws. While the nests can be seen through their skin, eyes, and fur as if they were transparent, any other parts of their bodies, such as looking through the inside of their mouth or at their claws, block them out completely.

Brushing the Colors

The splash lasted only a second, but it still turned her sight blue completely. Great, now she had to fight one of them while being blind. And after the green one, she couldn't even call for help.

For a long time, it was believed that brushtails could 'swipe' the Colors from their surroundings with their tails to splash them at their prey, rivals, or aggressors. But thanks to the curious condition of the nested brushtails, the true nature of their ability has been discovered. Each of the Nests located on the body of the brushtails seems to have multiple tube-like structures that lead from the Nest to the tip of the brushtail's tail. Under normal conditions, those tubes are empty, however, any stressful situation causes them to fill with Colors. At that point, if the brushtail swings its tail, the Colors are released. As of yet, it is unknown if brushtails can control which Colors are released or if there are other factors that decide it.

Social

When not in their mating season or when taking care of their young, brushtails are solitary beings. They are territorial creatures, however, they only enforce their territories when dealing with individuals of the same sex. One male can have a domain intersecting with multiple females and vice versa, but if any other male moves a little too close for his comfort, he will try to get rid of the intruder. But unless there is food scarcity, it has been noticed that brushtails don't really expand their territories, leaving pretty significant gaps between the two of them.
The change comes when a male and female decide to mate. At that point, the male will move into the female's territory to protect her and their future young from any danger and other males and females. The mating season comes twice a year and affects all individuals that aren't currently taking care of their young, so the change of the territories often comes without a hitch.
The male and the female bond together as long as they take care of their young (around one year). After that time, their young are old enough to live on their own and search for their own territories, while their parents split up. During the next mating season, they might meet each other again or they'll seek completely different partners.

Dietary needs

Sound of torn flesh and broken bones.

Brushtails are facultative carnivores. Their diet consists mostly of meat but in dire situations, they can consume plants to supplement the nutrients they need or just to survive longer during a period where their prey might be harder to find. They eat once every few days and thanks to their ability to 'swipe the Colors' they are capable of hunting prey larger than them. They mostly hunt herbivores and omnivores, but there have been some cases where some of them were spotted eating the meat of another carnivore, though that happened only a few times.

She has managed to escape. This time something else became the monster's dinner.

Lifespan

12 years

Average Height

1m

Average Length

1m (3m with the tail)

Geographic Distribution

• Crooked Peak

Domestication:
Impossible to tame without the use of magic. If kept, extreme caution is required.

Passing the mutation

While the mutation that makes their Color Nests visible affects their appearance, it doesn't affect the animal's genome. As such, two nested brushtails can have completely normal spotted brushtail offspring. The only thing that affects the appearance of the animal is its proximity to the Crooked Peak during its birth. Anything born within 5 km of the mountain will always show the change.

Distribution

Compared to their kin, spotted brushtails, which are more spread out around the continent, nested brushtails only show up within 5 km from the Crooked Peak. There were only a few cases where one of them was pushed farther away from its territory.

Perception

The creature looked around the area carefully. Then, as if knowing where she was, it looked directly up at the tree she was hiding on.

While their two bigger eyes seem to be capable of perceiving the spectrum of light in a range similar to that of big cats, already giving them good eyesight both during the day and in the dark, their additional, smaller, pair of eyes are capable of perceiving Colors and traces they leave when moving through the air. This gives them the ability to track creatures that passed through the area earlier that day. This often more than compensates for their pretty weak smell and hearing.