Magical gene / lines and strokes

Scratches

Sets of three to five near-parallel streaks raked across the hip, the back of the barrel and the side of the neck, each one widest in the middle and tapering to a point at both ends.

What it can come out as

Outcome	Carrying
Scratches	`Scr/Scr` · `Scr/Scc` · `Scr/n`
Coloured Scratches	`Scc/Scc`
Wild type	`Scc/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 893 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 pair	Shows as	How often
`Scr/Scr`	Scratches	0.004% — 1 in 25,000
`Scr/Scc`	Scratches	0.016% — 1 in 6,250
`Scr/n`	Scratches	0.076% — 1 in 1,316
`Scc/Scc`	Coloured Scratches	0.016% — 1 in 6,250
`n/n`	Wild type	99.888%

Its gene carrot

The file

common/src/main/resources/horsegenetics/genes/scratches.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.

Key	`horsegenetics.scratches`
Phase	magical — it adds signed colour in phase 3, after the pigment has resolved
Priority	360 — where it sits in the one `(priority, key)` paint order
Alleles	`Scr` · `Scc` · `n`
Varies per horse	4 values drawn once off the expressing allele copy, so a foal that inherits the copy inherits the look
Built from	AXIS, NOISE, STROKES, TOWARD

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.

Scratches

Long spindle-shaped streaks that run down and back across the body, in sets rather than singly - a set is three to five of them within a hand's breadth, never quite parallel and never crossing. One to four sets a side, on the hip and thigh first, then the back of the barrel and the side of the neck. The legs carry a different form: short bars set across the cannon and forearm rather than along them, which read as banding.

raked streaks across the body and neck — STROKES × NOISE, painted with TOWARD
short bars set across the legs — STROKES × AXIS, painted with TOWARD

Coloured Scratches

The same marking 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.

raked streaks across the body and neck, in colour — STROKES × NOISE, painted with TOWARD
short bars set across the legs, in colour — STROKES × AXIS, painted with TOWARD

Wild type

No scratches.

Paints nothing.