The Leucrocottas

above: a particularly fierce-looking continental leucrocotta.

Leucrocottas comprise 3-4 living species in the genus Truxmonoceros and at least 1 extinct species, which are or were all carnivorous sophonts descended from unicorn thorngrazers. Leucrocottas are very behaviorally and physically diverse, even within single species, but very broadly they resemble combinations of hyenas and horses, with some taking more after one or the other, and of course all walking on just three legs, not four. They have highly modified jaws relative to other molodonts in which the single upper tooth has become very small and narrow - a sharp biting weapon, but no longer suitably shaped to grind or chew food. Leucrocottas have evolved a work-around to this, a sharp bone plate along the upper jaw against which their much larger lower tooth can slice food. This complex, many-cusped lower tooth runs the length of the jaw and does not flex like the upper tooth. The upper bone plate is shared with their closest relatives among the savage thorngrazer lineage, but most well developed in this genus. Leucrocottas may be hypercarnivores - animals which need around 70% of their diet to come from the animal kingdom - but they are not exclusively meat-eaters and supplement their diets with fruit, starchy root vegetables, and - for settled populations - processed grains in the form of bread and cereals. 

above: a diagram showing the tooth anatomy of the leucrocottas, which is unusual among molodonts for the presence of a secondary bone ridge on the upper surface of the mouth which replaces the actual upper tooth in chewing.

The continental leucrocotta is the most common species, and is further divided into sub-populations of varying genetic distinctness. Their most common ecotype, steppe leucrocottas, evolved into valley leucrocottas, central nomad leucrocottas, eastern leucrocottas, desert leucrocottas, and boreal leucrocottas, with the latter three being more genetically isolated than those before them. Valley and nomad leucrocottas today are most numerous by number, owing to concentrated populations permitted by settlement and agriculture, but steppe (excluding valley) is the widest ranging across Serinarcta. Continental leucrocotta are usually large, weighing up to 650 pounds, though 400 is more typical of most populations. They have stronger jaws, short dewclaws, and generally limited manual dexterity; their jaws are their primary manipulators. Settled leucrocotta in more urban regions today have modern technology and agriculture, but received both from influence from the whisperwings that share these environments; while this relationship is largely mutualistic, there is possibly some aspect of domestication at work, in which whisperwings have altered some leucrocotta's behavior in order to use them as a tool in the advancement of their own societies. This is most clearly demonstrated in the valley leucrocotta, who show several characteristic domestication traits including an unusually wide array of colors, smaller teeth and jaws, and retention of child-like playfulness into adulthood; such traits often go hand-in-hand with a selective pressure for lower aggression in a species, and these leucrocotta are the most social of them all.

Continental leucrocotta are functionally trichromats, seeing all visual light spectrums, but having little (but not zero) sensitivity to UV. They tend to favor activity in daylight hours, but usually have multiple sleep and wake cycles in a single day, being awake during both day and night periods with multiple rests in between, usually at midday and latest night hours. Lifespan is typically around 40 years, 45 as an upper limit. A few of the most isolated continental leucrocotta populations, which will be discussed more below, may differ more from the generalizations described here. 

All leucrocottas are very scent-based sophonts, more than any other. While their hearing is acute and sight is decent (a little less clear than baseline human eyesight up close, but superior at a distance and in low light), scent is very important in their social communication, in a way humans cannot relate to. Leucrocotta can determine one another's sex, sexual receptivity, approximate age and even lifestyle (by cues varying based on diet) by smell alone, and have scent glands on their chins, in front of their eyes, and on their flanks which they habitually rub on surfaces and on one another in social greetings to exchange information in a simple and instinctual way. Scent marking with bodily excretions in public places and even on other individuals was once common but is now considered most unsanitary and gross, and is strongly discouraged in both settled valley and littoral leucrocottas, but persists in many nomadic steppe and boreal groups - an example of rapid cultural evolution, rather than genetic change. Yet it remains permissible, and common, for individuals of even the most upper class leucrocotta to smell one another's hind ends when meeting, though you should definitely wait for an invitation. Some valley leucrocottas, more heavily influenced socially by the strictly visual (and auditory) whisperwings which live among them, will find even this uncomfortable and unnecessary. Scent cues are much more important to leucrocottas than visual ones in mate choice, with partners being far more inclined to find someone's scent attractive or unappealing compared to their appearance, which is responsible for the very wide range of color forms of leucrocottas that appear any time populations do not have other need for subdued patterns, such as hiding from prey: leucrocottas just don't care much about looks, and don't reject mates on such arbitrary factors. Hybrids may be different enough in structure to notice, however, and their scent cues will also differ significantly from baseline. Unions between the two species are often organized and political, or form from friendships that grow into stronger romantic attractions over time, rather than being simple hook-ups, as different species (but not different "ecotypes" or "races" of a single species) are not often immediately attractive to each other without other context.

All species of leucrocotta naturally tend to live in extended families, natural extensions of a pack structure based on a pair and their young which was typical of their ancestors. Monogamous pairs are common but not universal; it is considered common for dominant male steppe leucrocottas to have harems. Males usually provide childcare as much as females. In settled cultures, clans can become very large and united through marriage of their members, while in nomadic cultures they are small by necessity and so more prone to conflict without marriage to unite them. Same sex relationships exist, but at lower levels than in whisperwings. Most leucrocotta are heterosexual, but have little concern about what others are doing; same-sex friendships between them are often very strong and could be viewed as romantic anyway. Leucrocottas are very touchy and feely with friends in a platonic way, and in settled regions may be often more so in public situations than with their actual mates, due to social norms around modesty. It is often considered crass and rather rude to have sex in public, or appear like you're going to, so opposite sex couples are less touchy around others than males will be with male friends, or females with female friends. Same-sex pairs can get away with being more publicly affectionate than straight ones because it is generally not expected they will be more than close friends. Gender expression in settled valley leucrocottas is expected by default to be binary, but there are virtually no gender-specific social roles, so it is not particularly troublesome to identify outside expectation. In the modern day a third gender is being more widely understood, and has uses in social interaction. Non-binary leucrocotta may use a non-specific pronoun to identify themselves as this third gender category, which exists mainly as a filter to potential mates, rather than to change social roles. Trans individuals, who may identify as a specific gender different from that expected of them, will also often use this designation. It is unfortunately difficult for a transgender leucrocotta to pass as the opposite sex due to innate scent cues that are difficult to mask (though perfumes can help a lot). They are likely to identify as third gender in general social circumstances for convenience, as it is an understood category to other leucrocotta, while among their own social circles of familiar individuals, they may choose to be identified as their chosen gender. But if you are, by chance, a hybrid, your scent cues may be muddied enough anyway to the majority that you may have less problems in deciding how to present yourself socially. This may be the only actual privilege hybrids get in any leucrocotta societies.   

Growing Up

 Leucrocotta childhoods are much shorter than those of humans, and their growth and development is comparatively rapid. Their total lifespan is also considerably shorter, usually around 45 years, though this varies and outliers exist.

above: a valley leucrocotta infant. This foal shown above is a relatively rare color mutation for the valley population, being almost entirely red.

Leucrocotta children are called foals, and they are born small relative to similar earth ungulates due to a narrower birth canal (this is true for all tribbetheres on land.) A newborn leucrocotta typically weighs only thirty to forty pounds, or less than 20 for some of the smaller species. Most thorngrazers are born without teeth, but the meat-eating forest unicorns, like leucrocottas, are born with their teeth partially erupted; tusks, though, do not even begin to appear for four months.

Leucrocottas are precocial and can walk and jump around within 24 hours of birth. They are born with an innate set of instinctive behaviors - to freeze or run from danger, to follow their parents, and to solicit food by nuzzling the mouth of familiar adults and producing a characteristic shrill whining sound. Their cognitive level at birth is somewhere around the range of a 2 year old human infant, and though they are born knowing almost nothing, they are capable of extremely rapid absorption of information in their first year, to the point that they mature many times faster than a human. A 3 month old leucrocotta can speak simple words and short phrases and has a larger understanding of spoken language, a 6 month old is equivalent to a 6 year old human, and a one year old leucrocotta is equivalent to a 8 year old human. They are weaned by 6-8 months of age, but will not participate in hunts for big game for at least another year. In their second year mental development slows down, and a two year old leucrocotta is still only around 13 human-years old. Adulthood is typically considered to be five years old, at which time adult size is attained, and sexual maturity has usually occurred, though some cultures - especially those outside settled regions - may be independent by age 3 by necessity. 

above: two 6 month old leucrocotta children, a littoral type and a valley type, play together. Sanctuary Crater, home of the valley people, is the most likely place for these two species to come and live together in one society.

Leucrocottas entirely lack a visual sense of "cute" to induce parental care toward their young, which has always been strange to whisperwings, who think anything can be cute and will want to baby it and make it their pet. Leucrocottas don't notice these features, and they don't trigger maternal behavior even in mothers. Instead, leucrocotta foals smell cute, with strong and distinctive, sweet scents and pheromones that trigger strong maternal (and paternal) bonding behaviors in all leucrocotta, not only their parents. Large eyes and other visually pleasing traits seen in the infant are a side effect of being young and undeveloped, and serve no purpose in triggering care from adults, unlike in humans. Because they can't visually tell that an animal is 'cute' by its appearance alone, they don't instinctively transfer their parental behaviors onto substitutes like pets, but can learn to adopt other animals into their social groups from early socialization and culture, and modern leucrocottas do keep pets (to a lesser degree than in whisperwings, and this tendency only recently became widespread.) Leucrocotta who bear hybrid children can have difficulty forming an initial parental bond with their foals because their smell is not correct - greater effort may have to be taken to compensate in the first week or so without the strong, instinctive motivations that may not be present, but ultimately parents will imprint on the specific scent cues of their own offspring shortly after birth, and will begin to respond to them more innately once they are well acquainted with their children. Some hybrids unfortunately may receive poor initial care from their parents due to these issues, and they may grow up maladjusted. These communication barriers make interbreeding between continental and littoral leucrocotta uncommon, despite hybrids being both viable and fertile.

The total lack of a "visual cute" reflex in the leucrocotta almost certainly relates to their ancestral diet of other, closely-related unicorns. Kelpies, their precursor, fed specifically on the foals of their closest relatives, young animals that looked much like their own foals. Any sense of nurturing toward young that looked like themselves had to be lost to allow this diet and niche to develop, replacing visual cues with scent cues more specific to their own kind. Many leucrocotta still feed mainly on other unicorns, and would probably have a harder time doing so if everything they eat looked like a literal child to them.

above left: food or family? This eager valley child is just happy to be included (but his scent, still that of a youngster, dictates that he is still to be cared for, not consumed.)

above right: this pre-teen steppe leucrocotta, only months older, seems to have already decided that you are the food...

Notable Leucrocotta Varieties: Continental Group

These leucrocottas share several traits, particularly robust jaws, stocky body shapes (comparatively), short manes, short crests, barely or non-serrated lower teeth (as visible when the mouth is closed), and dewclaws on the front legs which are short and not very mobile. They are the more basal of two clades, and some still closer resemble the common ancestor of all leucrocottas. They are by far the most successful clade, present across all of the northern continent today, a dominion they have often maintained by force against other leucrocottas.

The steppe continental leucrocotta is the most widespread of the leucrocotta varieties, with the largest population and the greatest adaptability to different habitats. They still most closely resemble the earliest leucrocottas of millions of years ago, and they are found across most of Serinarcta, generally at high latitudes where the sun is less intense, though they are usually thinly distributed. Leucrocottas were historically nomadic, and lived in small, isolated clans which were antagonistic to one another. With the aid of the whisperwings some have developed new ways of life including agriculture and settled populations, namely those in the lowlands of Sanctuary Crater, but many populations of this species still live the older way of life as far-ranging, social predators of big game, though they are no longer as cut off from each other as they once were. Many leucrocottas within a cultural sphere around the Craterlands - but less so within it - call themselves the "Teeth" in reference to their predatory nature. These leucrocottas are usually not shy about their lifestyle as obligate carnivores which kill to live, and until recent times, the keeping of pets or any sort of animal not used as a food resource was an unheard of idea. For many leucrocotta outside the crater, it still is.

Steppe leucrocottas are the most common ecotype of this species, and are the least changed from the common leucrocotta ancestor of 297 million years PE. They are robust and stocky nomads that wander the vast, empty steppe in search of prey, with thick jaws and large teeth to subdue it, and occur east to west over most of Serinarcta. Although thanks to widespread cooperation with the whisperwing, many continental leucrocotta now live in a more interconnected world where clans can communicate with one another in ways they could not have done long ago, there still remain conflicts, prejudices, and antagonistic relationships between different populations, even within the same race. These people are still the products of an evolutionary history as aggressive apex predators which fought over increasingly limited resources, and for many this is still a fact of life. Efforts to improve global food security show the most promise to improve relations and forge cooperation over conflict, as those leucrocottas which live in settled, stable communities have adopted the most gregarious habits and show the least amount of territoriality. But this, too, is complicated by ever-worsening global climate, and the whisperwing's largest government now being notoriously insular and opposed to interfering with groups of sophonts living beyond the walls of the crater city, be they leucrocottas or others.

right top: the face of royalty? With a characteristic white blaze typical of a valley leucrocottta, the otherwise dark-furred Karzavraz is the young but confident leader of the Sanctuary Crater people.

right lower: A rather sad-looking leucistic leucrocotta shows a total lack of fur pigment, but with dark hooves and eyes, this leucrocotta is not truly albino.

The boreal leucrocotta is a large and distinct variant of continental leucrocotta native to the tundra and north fork peninsula regions, just south of the glaciers. It, and other continentals, are given their own status as a subspecies for convenience, but most forms are not truly genetically isolated enough to be true subspecies. Boreals intergrade with other continentals to the south of their range. They are, however, more genetically distinct as a rule than the very closely related steppe and valley leucrocottas. Boreal leucrocottas include the heaviest of them all, with an average weight of 500-550 lbs. Within this species they are the more divergent in body shape than those seen above, having greatly reduced patterning, wide padded hooves to stride on snow, very pale fur which is also quite long, a robust jaw, short crests covered in insulating hair, and the largest teeth of all. Boreal leucrocottas are the most adapted of all to hunt large megafaunal prey, mainly other thorngrazers as well as the fierce arctic giraffowl of the capricock lineage. They live in the smallest groups as a rule, as food is very scarce, and have no permanent ranges, being nomadic to search for prey. Even in the modern day, the boreal leucrocotta is the least integrated group into wider society; only a few larger clans have been formally contacted, and most, living isolated lives in very small, scattered numbers, remain largely unaware of the civilizations which have sprung up far to their south. The boreal leucrocotta is thus rare in Sanctuary Crater, but is not entirely absent.

The boreal leucrocotta, due to its harsh habitat, often still lives by the most ancient ways of life for their species, with very little control over their environments. Domestic livestock cannot survive where they live, and so they depend completely on wild food sources in northern regions. This limits their numbers greatly, and they are the rarest leucrocotta group, as well as the least genetically diverse. This is not usually a problem in their historic range, but in settled regions, the boreal leucrocotta is noted for having little natural immunity to common illnesses in steppe leucrocotta. In the modern day vaccination exists, though its availability is restricted to the larger mixed-species cities. In earlier centuries, plagues have ravaged boreal leucrocottas which spent too long near settled, agricultural leucrocotta communities, reducing their numbers further and resulting in a cultural aversion to large groups or to ever spending long in one place that is still strong today. Though they are recognized by other groups as fellow "teeth" and many use variations on this as their own word for themselves, boreal leucrocottas are also known as wanderers by other steppe leucrocotta for their especially nomadic lifestyle, even compared to other traveler groups. Valley people may call them "giants", which has a neutral connotation. Though boreals are more robust and have larger heads and thicker legs than other continental leucrocottas, valley individuals can match or exceed them in height.

Central Nomads are an ethnic group of continental leucrocotta who have inhabited the greenbelt region between the craterlands and the northfork peninsula, where boreals are common, for at least 100,000 years. They are generally tall and heavily built and represent one of the more prominent intergrade populations between steppe and boreal ecotypes, but only genetically. They do not share closely related language or customs to most boreal leucrocotta, and share some characteristics unique to themselves, most prominently a large "roman nose" which may have arisen as it helps to filter dust from the air and a tendency toward dark, solid coat patterns lacking any other markings which help provide warmth in cold winters and protect from sunburn in summer. These leucrocotta are pastoralists like valley leucrocotta but are generally not settled, moving across the greenbelt with the seasons and stopping only for days at a time in any place. They historically domesticated different animals from other leucrocotta, but their proximity to the craterlands has facilitated thousands of years of trade and cultural exchange, so that unicorn livestock has now been adopted by some nomad groups. When present, their versions of these animals are more primitive in type - less selectively bred and mainly comprised of hardy land races.

This is the second most common ethnic group present in Sanctuary Crater after the native valley group, owing to cultures with similarities in lifestyle and language. Fewer barriers exist to their integration, especially as their own close relationship with livestock animals has produced in them similar resistance to many pathogens afflicting high-density settlements that boreal leucrocotta lack immunity to. And both cultural and gene introgression from valley leucrocottas into the greenbelt region has changed the nomads too, introducing less common coat colors and less stocky body types, as well as reducing the characteristic sloped nose especially in the near-crater region. Comprising several loosely defined territories across the green belt, nomad leucrocottas are broadly allies to the craterland civilization and serve as a natural defense of its western borders from more hostile leucrocotta groups living on the wastelands. The extent of nomad leucrocotta just barely reaches the fringes of eastern leucrocotta territory. Trade here is limited: the two groups historically do not interact much, and when they do it is more likely to be antagonistic. Virtually no genes from the nomad population have entered the very closed-off eastern population, but a small amount of the opposite has occurred as some eastern leucrocotta, perhaps exiled, have historically immigrated into the greenbelt territory.

Eastern leucrocotta are a race of continental leucrocotta endemic to the Fortune River Valley in eastern Serinarcta, where they have developed a highly isolationist and very distinct culture unlike any others which call themselves and their nation the Kir. They are characterized by up to 15% genome contribution from an extinct leucrocotta species which was displaced from the craterlands almost 40,000 years ago, and the genes they retain from that species are more than any other population of their species. This has strongly influenced their appearance, specifically lending them taller manes, longer crests, serrated lower teeth, "beards" along their chins, and more dexterous dewclaws, while being much more robust than woodland leucrocottas with a heavier jaw. They have much less genetic variation than valley leucrocottas and a very low rate of interbreeding; their culture is highly insular and has been for at least 20,000 years, being separated by a vast distance of inhospitable terrain from other settled leucrocottas and generally hostile toward scarce nomads, though there has been a small amount of historic contact with boreal leucrocotta from the north. This isolation has resulted in other physical changes. Eastern leucrocottas have lost the dominant gene for black fur, either solidly or as spots on their coats, and so their entire range of color is faded blonde through red and uncommonly white except in cases of a recent ancestor from another continental race, which is extremely rare as their nation is not easy to immigrate into and known for being very homogenous and culturally unlike any other. Their manes are very long and upright, but virtually without banding. A slightly floppy forelock of hair usually rises from between the crests, often white or partly white in color. All eastern leucrocottas are piebald, but their white markings are fixed in a single pattern of white sock markings on the feet and a small white patch on the forehead, with no marking outside these areas. In contrast, valley leucrocotta can be anywhere from slightly marked to totally white.

This leucrocotta race speaks a completely unrelated dialect to the crater language and to most nomadic steppe leucrocotta, and their language is considered one of the most complex and difficult to learn. They are an isolated, agricultural civilization which domesticated livestock independent of the crater leucrocotta, and the species they have tamed are not present in the crater, nor vice versa. Their progress is their own, independently built, not given. They have never been guided by whisperwings, and they show much less of the domestication syndrome traits that are typical of valley leucrocotta. They are fiercely independent, suspicious of outsiders, and can be manipulative for their own benefit - all things that the whisperwings can respect, even if it makes them hard to exploit. The Kir have established mutually beneficial trade relations with the Zenith, a coastal whisperwing nation, but relations remain much more independent and less inter tangled than the politics of Sanctuary Crater's allied peoples, and there is not even a semblance of any shared government.

 Unlike valley leucrocotta, this eastern race of the species is dexterous and has a capacity to create and use their own technology in day to day life, and has thus never been as reliant on others to provide them with tools. Their self-sufficiency has made them difficult for the Zenith to keep in line either through quiet manipulation into a sort of less dangerous domesticated species, as some might say has happened in the crater, or through force. Valley leucrocotta and whisperwings get along well because neither can really threaten the other, but this is not so true for eastern leucrocotta and the zenith, where both parties have more power against the other and thus greater sway in interactions.

The desert leucrocotta are a distinct subspecies of continental leucrocotta, or a possible though disputed fourth leucrocotta species, which have had little interbreeding with other populations for much longer than any other, almost 400,000 years and are thus by far the most genetically distinct form of this clade, and the only one which has no intermixing with other groups. They are endemic only to the Zarre Peninsula of west Serinarcta, and exist at an equatorial latitude that is not suitable for the survival of other ecotypes. In this range they are isolated from other continental leucrocottas by hundreds of miles of uninhabited desert territory, and their isolation has brought about a lot of genetic changes. Desert leucrocottas are much smaller than any other continental group, and are also nocturnal to avoid the heat of the day, which is not typical for others. They have extremely short hair and no manes; though babies are spotted, most grown individuals are entirely without spot markings, while some retain very faded "ghost" spots. They have smaller fang teeth than any other leucrocotta, and are occasionally born with no fangs.

This leucrocotta is still uncontacted by "civilized" whisperwings and unknown to all other leucrocotta, living a highly insular existence which is still tribal and very loosely distributed. The species occurs both inland and along ocean coasts and has a wide, omnivorous diet; the primary teeth are large and blunt relative to the small skull dimensions and narrow jaw, an adaptation to feed on thorny cactaiga plants (more for their water than nutrition.) Desert leucrocotta are not pack hunters and almost always forage singly, with the largest prey animals they hunt being small enough for a single adult to carry. As much as a third of the diet may be made up of plant matter, especially roots and seeding grasses, and this population has many genetic mutations which improve their ability to digest starches. They are long-legged and very fast, being great long-distance travelers. Groups are sedentary so far as clans split up daily and reunite at a central gathering site, but these sites can change throughout the year. Natural caves are used as daytime den sites and a dependence on such shelter limits their range toward rockier regions and away from loose sand dune regions, except where the soil can support artificially dug-out burrows. Coastal populations scavenge all manner of seaside refuse but are much less specialized at living here than littorals and unlike them have no capacity to create complex tools to aid their survival, having no manual dexterity and only small, inflexible dewclaws. Despite little capacity to alter their environment to suit them, desert leucrocottas have very good memories and can form mental maps of their barren habitat and recall details such as routes to water sources which may only appear at different times of year. They also maintain a remarkably complex oral history of their people, despite having no written language.

Notable Leucrocotta Varieties: Woodland Group

These leucrocotta share several traits including longer head crests, narrow jaws, more strongly serrated lower teeth (visible with the mouth closed), tall upright manes, thinner body structures with longer legs, more contrasted markings, and opposable dewclaws that are useful as manipulators. Hybrids often retain this last trait, which has also become central to the identity of the Kir, and which makes these leucrocottas potentially more capable crafters that do not rely on other species to provide them tools. Though they are called the woodland group due to common descent, both living species live in arid equatorial regions lacking forests.

[ EXTINCT ]

The woodland leucrocotta was a leucrocotta that evolved as a sister species to continental leucrocotta. Unlike that species, woodland leucrocottas - as their name indicates - were adapted to live in remnant broadleaf forests in southerly regions of Serinarcta, while their relative adapted to drier, open environments in colder, northerly climates. Behaviorally the two species were not drastically different; both were both social and territorial, pack-hunting carnivores, but they differed in appearance, with woodland leucrocottas being more lightly-built, darker in color, and with taller manes used as display structures. In addition, woodland leucrocotta had more sharply serrated teeth, and more mobile dewclaws, which they used to clamber through thickets and aid in traction while climbing steep terrain. They were faster and more suited to ambush small prey in woodlands, rather than run down larger prey in grasslands or deserts. 

The woodland leucrocotta was once as numerous as the continental leucrocotta, for though it lived over a smaller range, it could have a higher population where it did live as prey was readily available and non-migratory. But by the turn of 300 million years P.E. it had already grown rare, for the habitat it was most adapted to was by then extremely rare and only occurred in a few low-lying regions: central craterlands, and coastal ravine forests. The final holdout of the species in its ancestral form was Sanctuary Crater, the largest of the craterland refugia, but even this habitat did not save them in the end. 40,000 years ago steppe continental leucrocotta ancestral to the modern valley subspecies colonized the crater. They were now allied with whisperwings and practicing animal agriculture, and able to form much larger coalitions than before. A war resulted, ultimately culminating in the invader's conquest and the deforestation of the crater to its modern grassland state most useful for the grazing of livestock unicorns, at the expense of most remaining wild megafauna of the crater. 

above: when the continental leucrocotta and its new avian partners arrived and colonized the craterlands region 40,000 years ago, it would spell dark times ahead for its already present relative, the woodland leucrocotta, which would ultimately be driven to extinction here.

Though the conflict with the continental leucrocotta resulted in many deaths, not all woodland leucrocotta were killed, nor did they flee the craters. Over the next few centuries, a significant number of them remained, ultimately interbreeding into the now much larger continental gene pool until they were lost in their pure form. Steppe leucrocotta today carry 1-2% of their genome from this lost ancestor, while settled valley leucrocottas may retain up to 5% of their DNA. Notable traits originating in woodland leucrocotta which persist in the valley population today include the genes for red hair and the long manes of valley leucrocotta, though in their case they rarely stand upright and instead fall down to the sides. The eastern leucrocotta contains much more - 15% woodland ancestry - and this is reflected in their especially unique appearance including a high upright mane, and their mobile dewclaws.

Though the woodland leucrocotta, in the form it existed in for some 2 million years, is no longer found on Serina today, the non-hybridized species is not entirely lost. Two surviving species are the direct, non-hybridized descendants of woodland leucrocottas which once lived in the ravine forests south of the craterlands some 750,000 years ago, before these collapses relicts of sky islands reduced to their current extent.

The littoral leucrocottas, who call themselves the Nexians after their homeland, are a small species of the Truxmonoceros genus and comprise one mostly homogeneous culture all living in a small area. A very social and cooperative species relative to most leucrocotta, it is one of two descendants of the woodland leucrocotta. Littoral leucrocottas live in equatorial Serinarcta along the seashore of the Nexus Peninsula, braving deadly heat, radiation, and scarce freshwater in order to find food which washes up or otherwise is supplied by the seaway. Though to other leucrocottas and other sophonts, this coast-hugging lifestyle of this species is its most distinctive attribute, the littoral leucrocottas themselves most identify with being nocturnal, which most continental leucrocotta are not. They use darkness as a shield from the sun, waking at dusk to begin their days and retreating to shelter, often natural caves and ancient underground bunkers dug out over thousands of years by many generations. Over one million years as a nocturnal species has rendered most of the population red-green color blind, and most red hue has subsequently been lost from their manes. These leucrocottas may weigh as little as 120 lbs, and have short though dense hair. The mane is only present on the back of the head, though here it is quite long, upright, and banded with contrasted grey and white hairs. The crests are very long, arcing back well past the eyes and angling up from the head; they have some use in cooling the animal's brain in high temperatures as cooler air is continuously flowing in and out of them as the animal breathes.

Littoral leucrocottas have very narrow jaws compared to continental ones, and their lower tooth has more, and longer, serrations even near its distal edge, an adaptation to catch fish - the upper bone plate in the jaw is also lined with larger blade-like cusps, and more visible in the mouth when the jaws are open. The hooves are large and splayed, to better support the body walking on sand and mud, and the legs are long and suited to wade into the sea to find food. Adults are only one-third to half the weight of continental leucrocottas, which is a benefit both in needing less to eat and being able to hide from the sun in smaller enclosed places. However, this has historically also left them vulnerable to their larger rivals which sometimes made raids on them in the night. This is now rare, as climate change over even just the last two thousand years has made the equator generally totally intolerable to the larger leucrocotta forms, and the two species were no longer sympatric to any significant degree until very recent changes have brought them tentatively back together in controlled interactions. Long isolationist and reluctant to communicate with whisperwings due to long-held cultural association with them as bad omens and allies of their enemies, this has recently begun to change, and there is now trade and tentative peaceful alliance with other settled groups to the northern, including Sanctuary Crater. Trade routes are still dangerous, as both parties are forced to travel only by night close to the equator, and to rely on pathways often scouted out by whisperwings to find suitable shelter to hide by day. Whisperwings with bad intentions can use this to do away with leucrocottas they have vendetta against by leading them out into the desert, stranded, to die, and though this is actually a very rare occurrence, it is often repeated and exaggerated as a warning, and is another factor in the untrusting nature of the littoral leucrocotta toward all outsider groups. Despite this, these leucrocottas are generally less aggressive than others and are much more inclined to work together with others of their own kind for a common goal, the result of thousands of years of facing other leucrocottas as a common enemy.

above: a group of littoral leucrocotta hunt seabirds on a dark, overcast night (seen through a hypothetical thermal camera). Though some of the inexperienced, recently fledged birds are simply snatched in flight as they are flushed from seaside roosts, the main goal is to drive as many as possible into high nets strung up on poles laid out on the beach by others who wait in the wings. Bird hunting is a year-round way of life for these leucrocotta, but the spoils are richest just after the nesting season. Later in the year, the birds' skills of flight will grow more refined, and they will be less easily captured.

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The front legs of the littoral leucrocotta have evolved more flexible wrists with two large, mobile dewclaws each, which are more dexterous than those of continental leucrocottas and even more refined than their woodland ancestor, and let them make many of their own tools and not be reliant on trade with whisperwings. These people have invented boats, fishing line, basket weaving, and other tools and skills that are effectively absent in non-craterland leucrocotta society otherwise. In addition, they have acquired knowledge of the wheel in recent times from other civilizations, which is most useful in long distance travel. In the past, increased capacity for tool use was one way that littoral leucrocottas could defend themselves and avoid attacks by their relative, and it was a great advantage to find food resources much less accessible to them in the water, despite not being especially strong swimmers. They also have native agriculture including a symbiotic relationship has existed for thousands of years with the flick-eared finguin, a fat flightless sea-demon tribbat, which is provided shelter from the sun to nest beneath, and protection from its many, many predators while nesting in exchange for taking a percentage of their chicks for themselves (which is still, ultimately, less than they would lose to the elements and other animals without this protection.) 

By adapting to be nocturnal and to live in the hottest equatorial regions, these people survived the fierce competition of the continental leucrocotta long enough for the two species to forge relatively peaceful unity and to see the rise of a modern civilization. Though littoral leucrocottas have changed along the way - losing those ancient genes for red hair, for example as most of them lost their color vision in a trade for better night vision and so rendered it useless as a display color - in a way, they still are the woodland leucrocotta: a species technically extinct, but survived in multiple ways through its descendants. And they, in turn, have given rise to one last leucrocotta species.

The vilelands leucrocotta is the smallest (by a small margin), least numerous (despite a wide range), and most reclusive culture of any of the leucrocotta people. They are also the most genetically isolated into the modern day, and have had virtually no intermixing of genes with any other group in at least 120,000 years and possibly as long as 200,000 (Littorals, though isolated for longer historically, now intermix slightly with continentals, and there is again some gene flow between populations.) For this reason, they are considered their own distinct species in the Truxmonoceros genus, though it is recognized by the author that this is arbitrary (taxonomy is all arbitrary.)

As their name indicates, this race lives mainly throughout the vilelands, a vast, inhospitable arid region near the equator characterized by brackish waterways and saline lakes, rocky calcified soil (the remnants of coastal reefs), and forests of cactaiga. They are a descendant species of the littoral leucrocotta, diverging some 300,000 years ago, and still carry a resemblance, but have also been changed by their isolation. They are shorter, with stockier legs and more robust necks, which suit them to clamber over rocky, uneven ground and move between thickets of spiny vegetation. Body weight is also around 120 lbs, but height is shorter than littorals on average. Their jaws are short, very narrow and highly serrated, with relatively long fang teeth. The digits resemble those of littorals but the dewclaws are not quite as dexterous, a reversion toward a more primitive state due to a lack of use. The neck mane is much shorter, but a ridge of hair runs down the entire length of the back. The crests are long and narrow, set closer together than in most littorals and always arced backwards like the horns of a goat. Though some littorals may have even longer crests - especially males - in those the crests usually have an outward arc. The eyes of the vilelands leucrocotta are positioned slightly more forward than in any other form and provide improved binocular vision, a trait which is beneficial as these leucrocotta preferentially live on sloped terrain, as it lets them flee other predators with less stable footing. Though the base colors can vary, light greys and tans similar to littorals are the typical pelage; striping is scarce, darkest on the legs and throat. All vilelands leucrocotta, except for rare cases, have highly contrasted black and white facial patterns which resemble skulls, and this trait - which increases visibility in low light - lends them their latin name of "masked leucrocotta." This is the only leucrocotta which has dark eyebrow markings rather than white, and they are most often a bright shade of red. A very striking black tear mark serves to catch glare and keep sunlight out of the eye during the day.

Today, the vilelands leucrocotta is the only one which still lives among larger carnivore species which both threaten and compete with it; continental leucrocotta have exterminated their rivals early in their history, and littorals retreated to hostile outlying regions where few rivals could survive (only the stalkvulture still persists, though even it has become very rare in the densely settled regions of Nexus Peninsula.) Natural selection has favored brains over brawns in this species, which still utilizes deception and trickery to outwit rivals much as earlier ancestral leucrocotta and their even earlier kelpie precursors did. Skillful mimics and master manipulators, vilelands leucrocotta still skillfully imitate the other species around them to lure prey, frighten enemies, and turn rivals against each other. The small size of the species lets them hide in cactaiga forests and flee up steep rocky slopes where they can orchestrate plans to lure and trap other animals while being untouchable. They use the terrain to their full advantage, drawing animals with vocal mimicry to fall into pitfall traps set up in natural low-lying ravines and chasms. In this way, much of their diet remains large prey, much too big for them to kill with their jaws alone, even in numbers. Their success at bringing down larger rivals has protected them from decimation from roaming continental leucrocotta in both ancient and recent history. While littorals tend to flee, vilelands leucrocotta will stand their ground and fight, using their knowledge of their land to win against stronger foes. 

Though they use minimal tools, their skill in using the environment they live in to its full advantage to exploit and take down both rivals and prey is unequaled, and their memory of the landscape and its many varying routes through dangers is very sharp, to an almost photographic degree. In acting upon the vilelands leucrocotta, living in a more complex habitat than most, evolution seems to have rewired the part of its brain which in other leucrocotta allows rapid speech and language acquisition, to instead memorize visual details instantly and in great depth. Though they can still emulate most any sound, their ability to acquire new languages is significantly worse than other leucrocotta, and this has the effect of isolating them much more quickly, both from other species and within their kind. Vilelands leucrocotta are extremely tribal and kill their own species more than any other leucrocotta, for language barriers lead to rapid cultural change and an ease of viewing rivals as others. Their clans are small and break apart easily, rarely reaching more than three generations, and cooperative interactions, such as trade, is very limited across clans even of a single dialect. Vilelands leucrocottas can be considered war-like, prone to frequent conflict and orchestrated attacks on rival groups. This has the effect as well of making them anxious and always on edge, for danger can come from anywhere, and traps can be set at any time. Vilelands leucrocotta have an extremely short average life expectancy of as little as 8 to years, and very rarely live past 20; they are thus independent and sooner than others, as early as age 3, though they would not be considered adult in many other cultures for at least two more years.

A broad extent of range (but a sparse distribution over it) means that vilelands leucrocotta could theoretically meet littoral, steppe-continental, and eastern leucrocotta, though whisperwing claim of the land east of the Nexus peninsula has driven this species out of this extreme edge of its range so that they now do not typically meet the littorals today - and when they did, they were fierce rivals. Conflict with nomadic steppe continentals is ongoing, for the land where the two meet is considered a lawless frontier, while the Kir view these leucrocotta as the most unevolved and savage in the many-tiered hierarchy of leucrocotta in which they place themselves at the top. They have been so villified that they are hardly more than a pest, and generally viewed as below personhood. In earlier - and less enlightned - periods, they were considered so fierce and unsuitable for civilized life that they were not even considered usable as slaves. Kir have vastly superior technology, and have firmly pushed back the vilelands leucrocotta's range far from the green grassy fields of crater bay - where they once could be found on the rocky slopes nearest the sea - and exiling them to the harshest desert regions where no settlements are worth building. It is believed that in earlier eras, perhaps as recently as 3,000 years ago, that some coastal whisperwings formed trade relationship with at least some vilelands leucrocotta and may have cooperated in finding food and shared the spoils. This relationship no longer exists, as the vast majority of coastal wings are now urbanized, and this leucrocotta has long since been chased away from the northernmost reaches of its historic range where they would meet.

Get to Know Some Individual Leucrocottas!

Below can be seen several leucrocottas who live contemporary to one another in this precise period of time in the civilization of Sanctuary Crater (what we will say is the year 3,040,000, though this would not be the year in their own calendars! which would not be nearly so old!) This is the period of time in which the Bleeding Heart story arc is set, and some of these individuals play a role in that story, while others simply live in the same setting. Several of these characters were sponsored by Serina's wonderful patrons, and if so, their entry will say so.

At the time of their lives, in the most modern day world we have yet seen on Serina itself, technology available to them includes steam engines (and trains), radio communication, and glorious indoor plumbing (sorry, not available in all regions.)