Dog (wild)

Type	Dhole	Wild African Dog
Species	canine
No. Appearing	5-20	4-24
Behaviour	social (clan)	social (pack)
Range	barrens, jungle, rainforest, savanna, steppe, woodland	desert, savanna
Size	17 to 22 in. tall	24 to 30 in. tall
Weight	22 to 46 lbs.	40 to 79 lbs.
Intelligence	4	3 to 4
Armour Class	7	7
Hit Dice	2	2
Action Points	5	5
Max. Stride	17	26
THAC0	20	20
Hp/Die	d3 (d4)	d4 (d6)
Attack Form	bite
Damage	1-4	1-6
Special Attack	throat attack

Wild Dog is a term broadly applied to canines that are either African in origin ("wild African dog") or Asiatic ("dhole"). Dogs that are feral, meaning formerly domesticated who have reverted to the wild, should be treated as domestic dogs.

Dhole

Dhole

The dhole are the smaller of the two, being "cat-like" on account of its long backbone and slender limbs. It has a wide skull and is considered to be the more intelligent species. The general tone of the fur is reddish, which grows dull in winter or rainy months. The dhole are remarkably common in both the lowlands and highlands of Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia and India, reaching as far east as Korea. Dhole cannot be tamed.

They are highly social. They typically live in a simple earth den, which they will steal from other creatures or re-use from earlier migrations. As a clan, they have no dominance rituals. The dhole usually hunt in groups of 3-5 animals, joining together as a clan during reproduction or during migrations.

The dhole are not territorial; instead, they will migrate distances of hundreds of miles before moving into a new area. During this migration they will lose several pounds from starvation, which causes them to engage and hunt aggressively when resettling; this sometimes results in "overhunting," in which the dhole will kill more than they can eat. Some villagers welcome the return of the dhole because of this opportunity for easy meat. However, dhole have been known to hunt domestic livestock. They can chase their prey for a dozen hours if hungry. A famous legend tells of numbers of dhole treeing tigers and keeping them there until the tiger tires and falls prey.

Throat Attack

When a dhole rolls a natural d20, it's taken that the predator has made an attack against their target's throat. In the case of such critical hits, the damage is tripled rather than doubled; as with any natural 20, the dice are rolled again, with progressive 20s increasing the damage to quadruple, quintuple, sextuple and so on. Natural 19s do not increase damage with dhole attacks.

Wild African Dog

Alison Theus (artist); a wild African dog

A solidly built, comparatively lean, tall dog with outsized ears and lacking dewclaws. The skull is short and broad and the body is covered by stiff bristle-hairs with no underfur. The animal loses its fur as it ages, so that the experience of a given dog can be determined by experienced persons. Colour variation is extreme, though black with small white and yellow patches is common in the north, while southern African wild dogs are a mix of brown, black and white. The wild dog is found throughout south and east Africa, as well as the Sahel; a small number have been released in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

These animals have strong social ties, with a high ratio of males to females. There is no fixed breeding season. The African wild dog is a specialised pack hunter of medium-sized hoofed animals, hunting by approaching prey silently and then chasing it with phenomenal speed, with numbers of the pack arranged so that different groups can strike at the prey at different angles. Beasts as large as wildebeest and wild boars are hunted, but gazelles and antelopes are preferred. Wild dogs will chase prey, wearing it down for hours if need be, to make it tired enough that it can be killed without threat to the hunters.

See Bestiary