#digialillustration

Aggression/ Danger to humans: High - Medium

Element/ Ailment: Scent Marking

The Azure Falswine “Tusk Boar” or T’ïkh Balat/ T’ïkhxpïm (Tuhk Balat/ Tuhk-Pym) meaning “Tusk Boar/ Falswine,” sometimes called the Azure Menace, is a small hooved multituberculate that inhabits the forests of the Northern Eastern Continent of Atterra and is a chiefly vegetarian omnivore. Azure Falswine travels in herds (gangs) up to fifty animals strong.  What the Azure Falswine lacks in size and weight, it more than makes up for in attitude and defense. With a robust sense of smell, decent eyesight, and good hearing, the Azure Falswine keeps a vigilant lookout for predators in the Atterran wilds at all hours of the day.

During the night, gangs of Azure Falswine will have rotating lookouts, with pregnant females and kids getting the most sleep each night. Should a threat be spotted, the lookouts will sound an alarm to wake up the entire herd and form a defensive ball around the young and pregnant females. Due to their poor night vision, Tusk boars often use their sense of hearing and smell to sniff out the threat. Falswine will use the scent glands on their snouts to paint the target, and the rest of the gang will move towards the scent and attack.

This method of attack works due to the social nature of the Azure Falswine and the way they form bonds within the gang. The scent glands are also used to mark edible feet and nesting areas. All species of Falswine rub each other with their scent glands (Both males and females have them) to bond and intermix their scents. Giving each herd a ‘distinct scent’ unique to their gang and comprised of all the individuals in the gang. Making it easy for Falswine to detect outsiders or gangs at the edges of their territory to attack. Couple this with the scent gland producing a muskier and sharper scent when under stress means that when a predator hunts a Falswine, it or the surrounding area is marked with the alarm scent from the thrashing Falswine. Being a vindictive genus like Earth’s Peccaries or Cape Buffalo, upon smelling the musk of duress from another gang member or species, the whole gang will move to attack the threat to their herd.

Azure Falswine and other Tuskboars have been known to swarm and kill Red-Maned Quill Tails and Guild Huntsman with their sheer numbers and tenacity. There have been a few recorded cases of Falswine waiting up to six hours at the base of a tree a party of Huntsman climbed into, guarding the carcasses of their fellow gang members before leaving the Huntsman and dead behind. This has made Guild Huntsman and other predators wary of hunting Tuskboars, who have taken a hit-and-run approach when hunting Azure Falswine. Should a predator or Huntsman find themselves marked by a Tuskboar, the best course of action is to take the carcass and run or cause enough damage to the herd by killing several pursuing members of the gang so the herd panics and breaks off pursuit. Besides, some predators, such as Chardanes have begun constructing pitfalls and traps to hunt Tusk Boars. The Guild has elected to use bow hunting for a clean kill or light stones to blind and panic the gang of Falswine.

Besides their scent gland, the Azure Falswine and other Tuskboars are equipped with horns on their snout, four tusks, fangs derived from their bicuspids, bone plates on their shoulders, bony spines on their flanks, and hard cartilage plates on their rear. Like the horns, the bony plates and spines are covered in a thin layer of keratin and are used to protect the Tuskboars spine from attack by larger predators.  The plates and spines are not connected with the Azure Falswine’s skeleton and instead are anchored into the upper layer of the muscle so as not to impede the movement or flexibility of the animal. The hard cartilage plating on the rump of the Azure Falswine protects the animal’s rear from the jaws of predators. Allowing the Tuskboar to turn around and gore the predator.

When the Tuskboar is not out for the blood of the enemies of its gang, the Azure Falswine uses its hard cartilage-reinforced snout to dig up roots, tubers, mushrooms, and underground worms and grubs to feed on. Besides those, the Falswine likes eating fallen fruit on the forest floor and low-growing ferns, shrubs, nuts, and Wax Fruit. Tuskboars mark the edges of the gang’s territory by rubbing their scent glands on the rocks and trees at the far ends of their range, which, on average, are around a thousand acres in size. The herd periodically moves from feeding ground to feeding ground on well-worn trails throughout the year, with the gang only deviating from the path should one of the two to three small scouting parties (usually between three to 5 individuals in size and usually made up of senior members of the gang) find a new source of food or nesting grounds for the gang.

Tuskboars can mate and give birth in any season to twins or triplets per litter, with two births happening yearly and primarily in the spring and summer months. Female Tuskboars will gestate their kids for five months before giving birth to a litter of kids, usually around a pound in weight at first breath. Kids are very vocal and playful, lacking the bone plating of mature Falswine, and will nurse for eight weeks before weaning and moving onto solid food. Baby Azure Falswine are usually reddish and black in color with white bellies like adults but lack the characteristic blue fur (The blue coloring being due to hair follicle structure and not blue pigmentation in the fur) of mature individuals.