Cinnavixen

This foxlike animal is sometimes trapped for its fur, but it is wanted far more for its ability to lead the way to deposits of a curse-warding red metal. A cinnavixen's coat is a deep, lovely red swirled with burnt orange on the chest, ears and paws, and on some animals around the eyes as well. It is almost three feet long counting its foot-long bushy tail, with dark brown eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth. It yips in a high, sharp bark and howls with an eerie cry that sounds a lot like shrill laughter.

Cinnavixens would much rather run than fight, unless hunting or defending their pups. A threatened one never stands still; it darts around in circles so quickly and nimbly that it is extremely hard to hit, which is doubly frustrating for fur traders trying not to spoil the pelt. It strikes with a bite and springs back, sizing up the wound when hunting or offering a truce when defending itself.

That bite is nasty. Every bite bleeds freely, costing 1 hit point each round, until someone presses firmly on it, and the pressure cannot be lifted until the wound has stayed bandaged for more than 24 hours. There is also a 20% chance per bite that the wound picks up redrot, a blood parasite (see the Parasite entry).

A young cinnavixen spends its first summer wandering the woods, sleeping each night under a rocky ledge or among tree roots. By fall it is ready to settle and looks for a mate, and the pair dig a burrow together. They mate for life. Litters usually number four to six pups, which stay in the den until the next early summer, then leave to roam on their own.

Cinnavixens always know where the nearby red-metal deposits lie. Some crafty humanoids try following one while it hunts, but this is hard, as the animal is clever and uses many tricks to throw off pursuers. Because they are so soft and pretty, cinnavixens are often caught and tamed as pets, but a tame one loses its ability to find the metal, which only works in the wild.

Its metal-finding talent is really a by-product of how it hunts. Rodents make up its diet, and its favorite is the little beast known as bilge vermin, which feed on the scarlet pimpernel plant. A cinnavixen tracks down that plant knowing its prey will be near, then waits in ambush to catch one.

An unmarked pelt, properly cured, can fetch five gold pieces at most. Since the red metal is so vital along the frontier coast, most locals disapprove of anyone hunting cinnavixens or wearing their fur, and the curse-gifted orders actively shield them. The animals are often plagued by cardinal ticks, which is why many form symbiotic partnerships with a little songbird that picks them clean.