Magical gene / spots and rings

Ehretia

Haloed spots over the barrel and neck, a dorsal stripe, dark socks, and a fine speckled bloom laid over the lot. 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
EhretiaEhr/Ehr · Ehr/Ehc · Ehr/n · Ehr/Ehk
Ehretia, blackEhk/Ehk · Ehk/Ehc · Ehk/n
Ehretia, colouredEhc/Ehc
Wild typeEhc/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 1,786 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
Ehr/EhrEhretia0.002% — 1 in 50,000
Ehr/EhkEhretia0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Ehr/EhcEhretia0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Ehr/nEhretia0.038% — 1 in 2,632
Ehk/EhkEhretia, black0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Ehk/EhcEhretia, black0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Ehk/nEhretia, black0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Ehc/EhcEhretia, coloured0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
n/nWild type99.944%

Its gene carrot

The file

common/src/main/resources/horsegenetics/genes/ehretia.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.ehretia
Phasemagical — it adds signed colour in phase 3, after the pigment has resolved
Priority315 — where it sits in the one (priority, key) paint order
AllelesEhr · Ehk · Ehc · n
Varies per horse11 values drawn once off the expressing allele copy, so a foal that inherits the copy inherits the look
Built fromAXIS, CENTERLINE, SPECKLE, SPOTS, TOWARD

Why it is built this way

Imported from the magic-gene intake, 2026-09-08. The source drew the socks and the dorsal stripe with a pigment op - it wanted to darken the coat rather than paint on it. This is a magical gene and the two phases cannot be mixed in one gene, so both are painted toward a near-black instead. On a dark horse that is nearly the same picture; on a pale one it is flatter than a real pigment restriction would be.

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 Ehk 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.

Ehretia

Each spot is drawn twice - a pale ring where the outer disc survives the inner one, and then the spot itself inside it - so it reads as a mark with a light rim rather than as a blob. Under that, the coat keeps a dorsal stripe and four dark socks; over it, a fine speckle blooms across the barrel and blurs the whole arrangement together.

  1. dark socks running up into a feathered edge — AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  2. a dorsal stripe from withers to tail — CENTERLINE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  3. a pale halo round each spot — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD
  4. the spot itself inside the halo — SPOTS, painted with TOWARD
  5. a speckled bloom over the whole pattern — SPECKLE, painted with TOWARD

Ehretia, black

The same marking as the white form with the light taken out of it: the same 4 steps, moved to the dark end of the scale.

  1. dark socks running up into a feathered edge — AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  2. a dorsal stripe from withers to tail — CENTERLINE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  3. a pale halo round each spot — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD
  4. the spot itself inside the halo — SPOTS, painted with TOWARD
  5. a speckled bloom over the whole pattern — SPECKLE, painted with TOWARD

Ehretia, coloured

The same haloed spots with the centre and the bloom in a colour the line carries. The halo stays pale whatever the centre does - it is the rim that makes it Ehretia. Fully recessive.

  1. dark socks running up into a feathered edge — AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  2. a dorsal stripe from withers to tail — CENTERLINE × AXIS, painted with TOWARD
  3. a pale halo round each spot — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD
  4. the spot itself inside the halo — SPOTS, painted with TOWARD
  5. a speckled bloom over the whole pattern — SPECKLE, painted with TOWARD

Wild type

No spots.

Paints nothing.