The Svalbard Goats are large pack animals native to the Svaldbard forest and herded by the Orcs. They look like oversized goats, about the size of a horse, with the exception that as they grow older eyes and horns keep appearing all over their forehead and snout. The eyes appear in irregular patterns and most of them are totally blind. The Goats remain half feral for their entire life and they can never be fully tamed, or even enough to be ridden. They are omnivores in their natural environment so they have long and pointy canines, yet the Orcs rarely feed them meat. The Orcs use them as pack animals, wool, milk and meat sources. The beasts' ability to fulfill all those roles, travel through difficult terrain and survive in many different climates makes them extremely important to the Orcish tribes.
Habitat[]
The goats are only found in the Svaldbard forest beyond the North-western border of the Muscovite Empire and off the Northernmost point of the Orcs’ migration route. The forest is extremely dense, humid and dark, even during the summer days. A large part of its ground is covered by half frozen peat bogs, which makes it a very dangerous place to cross.
Goat Fathers[]
The Orcs use only the female specimens of the kind, who roam the forest in small packs, usually with some of their young. The males on the contrary are solitary, extremely aggressive and dangerous bipeds. Those beings, known as Goat fathers are very rarely encountered. They do not seem to be any more intelligent than the female goats but are extremely aggressive. Each Goat Father spends his life roaming the forest and attempting to fertilise any female pack he comes across. The fact that both are naturally very aggressive, especially females with youngs, makes those mating attempts very dangerous for the goat fathers.
Orc Goat Mothers[]
Female goats are strong and fast and thus extremely difficult to capture. Even if they are caught, they usually fight madly to the death and are impossible to tame. Moreover, due to the peculiar nature of the Goat Fathers, breeding the Svalbard Goats in captivity has proven to be an impossible task.The Orcs manage to attain tame specimens through the actions of the Orc Goat Mothers.