Magical gene / lines and strokes

Ink Scroll

Scrollwork inked over the horse - a band of curls round the neck, a ringed medallion at the shoulder and the hip with lines running off them, and a smaller scroll on each cheek. 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
Ink ScrollIsw/Isw · Isw/Isc · Isw/n · Isw/Isk
Ink Scroll, blackIsk/Isk · Isk/Isc · Isk/n
Ink Scroll, colouredIsc/Isc
Wild typeIsc/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
Isw/IswInk Scroll0.002% — 1 in 50,000
Isw/IskInk Scroll0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Isw/IscInk Scroll0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Isw/nInk Scroll0.038% — 1 in 2,632
Isk/IskInk Scroll, black0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Isk/IscInk Scroll, black0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Isk/nInk Scroll, black0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
Isc/IscInk Scroll, coloured0.0027% — 1 in 37,495
n/nWild type99.944%

Its gene carrot

The file

common/src/main/resources/horsegenetics/genes/ink_scroll.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.ink_scroll
Phasemagical — it adds signed colour in phase 3, after the pigment has resolved
Priority372 — where it sits in the one (priority, key) paint order
AllelesIsw · Isk · Isc · n
Varies per horse7 values drawn once off the expressing allele copy, so a foal that inherits the copy inherits the look
Built fromAXIS, SPOTS, STROKES, TOWARD

Why it is built this way

Imported from the magic-gene intake, 2026-09-08. The source placed a medallion at the shoulder and one at the hip by coordinate. Coordinates are not addressable here, so the medallions are a SPOTS field with the spacing set wide enough that the barrel carries about two of them - which means WHERE they land is down to the seed. That is the same lottery auroraband lost (gap 108); the spacing here is well under the barrel's length, so it should not miss, but nothing checks it.

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 Isk 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.

Ink Scroll

A medallion is a big soft disc with a small sharp one taken out of it, which is a ring with a thick edge and a hole - and at this spacing the barrel carries about two of them. The neck band is a saw wave along the crest with strokes multiplied into it, so the curls sit inside the band rather than wandering off it.

  1. scrollwork banded round the neck — AXIS × STROKES, painted with TOWARD
  2. a medallion at the shoulder and another at the hip — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD
  3. curling strokes running off the medallions — STROKES, painted with TOWARD
  4. a smaller scroll on each cheek — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD

Ink Scroll, black

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

  1. scrollwork banded round the neck — AXIS × STROKES, painted with TOWARD
  2. a medallion at the shoulder and another at the hip — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD
  3. curling strokes running off the medallions — STROKES, painted with TOWARD
  4. a smaller scroll on each cheek — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD

Ink Scroll, coloured

The same scrollwork in a colour the line carries rather than in ivory. Fully recessive.

  1. scrollwork banded round the neck — AXIS × STROKES, painted with TOWARD
  2. a medallion at the shoulder and another at the hip — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD
  3. curling strokes running off the medallions — STROKES, painted with TOWARD
  4. a smaller scroll on each cheek — SPOTS × SPOTS inverted, painted with TOWARD

Wild type

No scrollwork.

Paints nothing.