Artisan Wolf

The artisan wolf is an omnivorous species of wolf native to Yuriba, best known for its peculiar artistic skill and equally artistic fur decorations which conceal the light brown coloration which would otherwise cover the wolf's entire body. It can typically be found in the forested areas closest to mountains, usually near some type of berry, particularly the Yuriban Passionberries, living in packs ranging from ten to twenty members.

The artisan wolf will spend most of its time in a chosen living area, and generally is only active when it is hunting. Even when hunting it rarely strays far from its living space unless it fails to find prey, mainly because its highly territorial nature lends it to always being in the immediate surrounding of its den in order to protect it. The living area for a pack of artisan wolves will usually include as many dens as it has pack members, unless observed during or immediately after its mating.

The name of the artisan wolf is derived from the fact that it has the technical skill and aesthetic sense to do a variety of things including building simple dens from stone, arranging flower gardens, and even being able to use the juices of berries to paint both its stone dens and the fur of other artisan wolves with beautiful, and often complex, designs.

Mating

Artisan wolves mate throughout the year using two artistic rituals, one during the process of finding a mate and another after a wolf has found her mate. The ritual used in finding a mate begins when the pack separates enough so that none of the individual members can see the others, and it involves creating an elaborate display of flowers for the other wolves in the pack. After every wolf in a pack has created her display, she will leave it in order to look at the displays of the other wolves. Generally, a wolf will mate with another who has a display like her own, but they have been observed choosing mates which have displays with no apparent similarities.

The second ritual, taking place after the wolves have chosen their mates, is the ritual which results in the decorative patterns seen on the fur of the artisan wolf. The two wolves will begin by cleaning each other, licking off any coloration remaining from the last mating. After both of the wolves have returned to their plain brown state they will crush passionberries, and sometimes a few other types of berry, and use the juice to decorate each other's fur. Once both of these things have been done, the wolves are considered to have mated, and they will share a single den until a few weeks after the mating.

Folklore

Yuriban lore has long said that the artisan wolf was created when another wolf species mated with a young artist who had been cursed by one of the Jusenkyou springs to take a completely wolven form, though no samples of water from that spring have ever been found.