Lesser Gem Warg (Lattice Fauna)

The lesser gem warg (Wargus lupus), also known as a crystal wolf, is a wolf-like predator native to Lattice.

Description
The lesser gem warg is a beefy quadrupedal predator roughly the same size and shape as a wolf. It has a bulky snout baring saber fangs on both the upper and lower jaw. Its body is covered in fur, and it has a bristly mane running from its forehead to its lower back. Unlike most latitherians, it completely lacks visible pinnae, instead relying more on its eyes and nose to detect prey. It has a long fluffy tail. It stands digitigrade, and each paw has four clawed toes and no dewclaw--though the innermost toe of each front paw is flexible enough to be used for gripping.

Besides its saber fangs, the lesser gem warg also has slicing incisors and flat stone-crushing molars.

Behavior
The lesser gem warg is social and lives in packs of 10-15 related individuals. They hunt and feed together, and have been known to fuse into one large "superwarg" to battle other packs.

Diet
The lesser gem warg primarily hunts things its own size or smaller, but won't miss a chance to take down large prey that's sick or injured as long as it has a pack to back it up. It will also scavenge shards and unattended gemstones. In areas populated by Gems, it isn't uncommon to see lesser gem wargs supplement their diet with rocks from the floors of kindergartens.

Like most animal life on Lattice, lesser gem wargs do not technically need water to live after birth, but they still drink it if it's available to them. It aids in digestion and waste disposal, and when they're injured it can be used to repair the damage to their stone by combining it with their most recent meal to glue the pieces back together.

Reproduction
In a pack, only the two parents will interbreed in almost all cases. As lesser gem wargs lack separate biological sexes and are androgynous by default, both parents carry their offspring. One parent usually holds 4-6 seeds at a time, and thus there are usually 8-12 offspring developed per successful breeding.

Like with all geovores, young lesser gem wargs incubate inside their parents for the majority of their development period, in this case for roughly three months. When they are ready for the last stretch of development, their parent digs a deep hole in the ground in a safe area to bury them. They spend one more month incubating in the ground, and emerge at full size.

Lesser gem wargs do not have specific breeding seasons.

Abilities
Lesser gem wargs have the ability to generate electricity through friction between the sensitive bristles that cover their backs. This allows them to detect other creatures when the energies of the physical form pull at the bristles, and it can be used as a defense against anything that might try to attack them from behind by giving them a good shock.

As Pets
The lesser gem warg has been successfully tamed and is found to have a variety of uses. They've also become popular companions among some Gem aristocrats, who find them to be "not quite as obedient as a Pearl, but just as brilliant and entertaining in its own way". Due to their popularity among aristocrats, owning a gem warg is considered a justified reason to request a large number of shards, which are required to feed them. Such shards are typically those harvested from criminals and off-colors, however--this squicks out some warg owners, leading to the popularity of alternative, potentially less healthy ways of feeding them.

Lesser gem wargs are wild, but rarely destructive. They make excellent guard dogs, personal bodyguards, and shard processors--they will defend their owner with their life, and their digestive system refines shards into fine powders. Pet gem wargs with regular access to water have also been known to heal injured gems by licking their stones, filling the crack with a paste made from water and gem dust to glue the stone back together.

Pet gem wargs can be obtained by buying them from a warg seller, such as Chabazite. All pet gem wargs originally sold through official means are pre-approved for roleplay unless the individual gem warg's abilities are changed in any way.