Magical gene / speckle and dust

Dust

Fine stipple with no boundary anywhere - up from the pasterns, along the belly, a cap on the muzzle, and a band beside the mane. A third allele carries the same marking worked in greys instead of white - dark where the pale form is light, and the same number of steps.

What it can come out as

OutcomeCarrying
DustDst/Dst · Dst/Dsc · Dst/n · Dst/Dsk
Black DustDsk/Dsk · Dsk/Dsc · Dsk/n
Coloured DustDsc/Dsc
Wild typeDsc/n · n/n

How each one is actually drawn - region by region, and the layers it is built from - is on the coding tab.

Crossing two of them

Finding one

About 1 in 595 wild horses is born showing this. That is the whole of the supply: catch one, or make one with the carrot below. Breeds set their own pools and a breed built around this gene will carry it far more often than the wild population does.

Wild pairShows asHow often
Dst/DstDust0.006% — 1 in 16,667
Dst/DskDust0.008% — 1 in 12,500
Dst/DscDust0.008% — 1 in 12,500
Dst/nDust0.114% — 1 in 877
Dsk/DskBlack Dust0.008% — 1 in 12,500
Dsk/DscBlack Dust0.008% — 1 in 12,500
Dsk/nBlack Dust0.008% — 1 in 12,500
Dsc/DscColoured Dust0.008% — 1 in 12,500
n/nWild type99.832%

Its gene carrot

The file

common/src/main/resources/horsegenetics/genes/dust.json — a data-driven gene, not a Java class. It is listed in the index.json beside it and registered by Genes' class initialiser at startup.

Keyhorsegenetics.dust
Phasemagical — it adds signed colour in phase 3, after the pigment has resolved
Priority342 — where it sits in the one (priority, key) paint order
AllelesDst · Dsk · Dsc · n
Varies per horse3 values drawn once off the expressing allele copy, so a foal that inherits the copy inherits the look
Built fromAXIS, SPECKLE, TOWARD

Why it is built this way

The black allele is the white one with the light taken out of it, and it sits one rung under white in the dominance series - so every combination that existed before it keeps the outcome it had, and only the pairs carrying Dsk are new. The re-toning is a mapping rather than a repaint: every achromatic target moves into the dark end of the scale keeping its order and its spacing, and every SATURATED one is left alone, because that colour is the gene rather than its lightness.

What it paints

Each outcome, described the way the gene file describes it, and then the layers that draw it in the order they are painted. The prose is the part a reader checks a bake against; the list underneath is what the engine actually did.

Dust

Four fields, and not one of them has an edge - the particles simply thin out until there are none. One rises from the pastern and fetlock and dies away between the mid-cannon and just below the knee. One runs the belly from the elbow back to the flank. One caps the muzzle from the upper lip and dissolves at the nasal bone. The last is a narrow band lying alongside the mane down the crest.

  1. up from the pasterns — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  2. along the belly — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  3. the muzzle cap — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  4. the band beside the mane — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD

Black Dust

The same marking as the white form with the light taken out of it: a single near-black tone.

  1. up from the pasterns — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  2. along the belly — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  3. the muzzle cap — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  4. the band beside the mane — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD

Coloured Dust

The same four fields in a colour the line carries rather than in white. Fully recessive: it takes two copies, and a single copy beside the white allele shows white. It never gives blue eyes, whatever the white form does.

  1. up from the pasterns, in colour — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  2. along the belly, in colour — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  3. the muzzle cap, in colour — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  4. the band beside the mane, in colour — SPECKLE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD

Wild type

No dust.

Paints nothing.