Wolf [Greyhawk]

All wolves share a strong family look: powerful jaws, broad teeth, tall ears, bushy tails, round pupils and gold or amber eyes. Coat colors depend on climate. Wolves of the north come in white, gray, black and every blend between, while southern and dry-country wolves are reddish and brown.

These cunning, energetic carnivores range across nearly every climate and terrain. Tracks have even turned up in the harshest deserts, though such sightings are rare.

People call the wolf a wanton killer, a story probably spread by those unsettled by its intelligence and persistence. In fact, no healthy, uncharmed wolf has ever been known to attack a human or demihuman. A lone wolf has a 1% chance of being rabid.

Pack hunting is a late fall and winter habit, when the only prey around is big game such as deer, moose, caribou and musk oxen. Wolves dislike chasing large animals because the effort is great, and even then they take the oldest, sickest and weakest. A pack typically brings down one large animal a week and may fast for days between kills. Given the choice, they would rather eat mice, squirrels and other plentiful rodents; in summer a single wolf may down more than 20 mice daily.

Wolves fear only humankind. When attacked, they run unless cornered, and even then they bite at clothing and limbs only long enough to break free. Their habit of abandoning any area where people move in is why they are so hard to find, and why they survive both hunters and poison bait. Often the only proof a pack passed by is a line of tracks found the next morning.

Wolves live in tight families with a rigid ranking. The leader is the alpha male, normally the biggest and strongest wolf, and his mate is the strongest female. After a large kill, the alphas feed first and the rest follow by rank, which weeds out the weak. Challenges to higher-ranked wolves are a normal, needed part of pack life, since rank decides who eats when and who may breed.

Only the alpha pair mates, with a beta female (the second-ranked female or a former alpha) helping raise the cubs, and the rest of the pack actively stops anyone else from breeding. The resulting inbreeding magnifies flaws and strengths alike, but a flawed wolf grows up weak and never wins breeding rights, while a sound rival can challenge the alpha and restore strong blood.

Stares are how wolves settle who is stronger. An alpha uses a hard look to discipline a pack member who breaks the rules, and the offender usually cringes at his feet and rolls over to bare its belly in surrender.

Packs want country free of rival predators, full of boulders, deadfalls, brooks and streams to play in; without such features they soon wander off in search of a livelier home. Soft, diggable earth matters too, for wolves dig birthing dens and deepen the same den year after year to better guard the cubs.

Wolves keep nature in balance. Mass hunting driven by fear has wiped them out in many places, and rodent and deer populations have then surged and damaged the land. Left alone, wolf numbers rise and fall with the deer and caribou: plentiful herds mean plentiful wolves, while herds thinned by hard winters or dry summers mean many wolves starve until things even out.

Humans poison carcasses to kill wolves, but mostly kill the coyotes that trail packs to scavenge. Wolves take livestock only where settlements surround them and people have already wiped out the native game.

In some arctic regions, sled drivers tie out female dogs in season for wolves to mate with, hoping to toughen their teams. The offspring end up torn between pleasing a master and running free.

A few people have truly communicated with wolves, which requires a full grasp of their language. That tongue is simple by human standards, yet hardly anyone bothers to learn it or even believes it exists. The howl, contrary to popular belief, is not a territorial marker; a wolf howls after wandering off to check on something and finding that its pack has moved on out of sight.