Dire Ice Fox

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Dire Ice Fox is a quadrupedal member of the canis vulpes. They are roughly fifteen times larger on average than any other fox, between 135 and 300 lbs, and are characterized by pronounced triangular snouts lined with razor teeth and bulging, beady eyes. Their fur ranges between arctic white and various glacial shades of blue. Its front paws are tipped with curved retractable claws like a raptor and have regular joints while the back haunches have no curved claws and backward joints. The fox evolved past a digitigrade form of locomotion due to their exclusivity in snow-covered climates. They have sinewy, prehensile spines and limbs that allow them to shake themselves deep into snowbanks and shuttle themselves through it as if swimming through water, and their springlike back haunches allow them to leap through the air. In an environment not primarily snowy, they have difficulty turning themselves or adapting to heat. Their tails are pointed, not like a scorpion stinger but more like a sizeable hedgehog quill, and is also prehensile as they use them to pierce up through the snow in order to attack unsuspecting prey on the surface or create pockets of air at intervals with which they breathe.

Biological Traits

Sweat glands and saliva create liquid nitrogen and dry ice-like substances upon secretion. Blue-to-white fur, razor-tipped claws in the front. A natural ability to shimmy into mounds of snow and burrow through like a gopher.

Genetics and Reproduction

The Dire Ice Fox reproduces through pregnancy, gestation, and birth like any other species. Female ice foxes may ovulate until death, while male ice foxes can only copulate for reproductive purposes in temperatures below 10 degrees Fahrenheit, as ice is involved in the sexual reproduction process. Mothers then burrow into

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

The secretions of the wolves are used for freezing potions and as a rare and pricy alchemical reagent. The furs of the ice fox, when properly stripped of these secretions, can be used for warmth. Ice fox meat is stringy and tough and not often considered for consumption. The rare minority of alchemancers that specialize in the ice or cold sphere can use their unique sense of heat detection to control them, but they can never be fully domesticated.

Facial characteristics

Long, triangular face like a cross between a pterodactyl and a fox.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Population restricted to the northern stretches of the Eyris continent.

Average Intelligence

On parallel with a common vulpes vulpes.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Dire Ice Foxes have standard hearing, sight, taste, smell, and touch as the rest of the family Canidae, but they have two particular traits that set them apart involving their skin and the fur beneath their skin. Dire Ice Foxes are actually naturally very hot internally, and to counteract this their skin releases reagents in their sweat glands that, when exposed to oxygen, has an effect almost like dry ice; the species can detect any changes within this mist due to having heightened perception of heat and pressure for their tactile senses- this makes them dangerous in an icy climate but also renders temperate climates inhospitable to them and anything hotter is unbearable. It also makes their bites or claw attacks deadly, and they can completely freeze through flesh within seconds with a well placed bite or if their claws dig in too much, at the very least causing near immediate frostbite and inevitable gangrenous infection afterwards.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

Most of the normal worms, motes, and fleas cannot exist on an ice fox due to the extreme cold temperatures; however, hypothermia tulpas, frenzy tulpas, and frost elementals in the same general vicinity can feed off of the foxes mentally or physically to bolster themselves.

Scientific Name

Canis vulpes glacies

Origin/Ancestry

Foxes, Dogs

Lifespan

20-25 years

Conservation Status

This species is not under protection. It is regularly hunted in the north as an apex predator within its glacial habitats of northern continental Eyris. It has roughly 400,000 members of its species and reproduces at an uncomfortably fast rate.

Average Height

.8 - 1.5 meters

Average Weight

135 - 300 lbs

Average Length

2.6-3.1 meters

Average Physique

Slender in the front, tapers wider in the back; there is more muscular distribution towards the rear haunches and abdomen than in the front legs or chest.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Blue, cyan, aquamarine, white, or gray fur, with flecks or patterns of any of the colors. Blue, white, or gray fur with brown, red, or black streaks are only in the rare case of cross-breeding between normal foxes and ice foxes.