Base Coats
Base coats are the primary bases that can be modified by other color genes present on the phae genome.
Black – Ee or EE/aa
Carrier: n/a
A coat that is dark brown at lightest, or pitch black at darkest. Minor hue shifts in lighter or darker colors can occur to add depth to a black coat.
Bay – Ee or Ee/Aa or AA or AAt
Carrier: n/a
A reddish coat with dark brown to black points on the face and legs with a dark brown to black mane and tail.
Wild Bay – Ee or EE/A+a or A+A+ or A+A or A+At
Carrier: n/a
A tan to reddish brown coat with a dark brown to black mane and tail and restricted darkening of the points concentrated around the knees and fetlocks.
Seal Bay – Ee or Ee/Ata or AtAt
Carrier: ata
A dark brown, sometimes almost black coat, with light brown to gold or chestnut hues on the underline of the body. It can also be expressed minimally on the belly and throat areas.
Chestnut – ee/aa or Aa or AA or A+a or A+A+ or A+A or A+At or Ata or AtAt
Carrier: n/a
A variety of colors, chestnuts can range from cherry red, to golden, to dark liver brown. Coats are uniform without any darker points.
Modifier Genes
Coat modifiers alter the appearance of the base coat. Many modifiers can be added onto one base to create a combined effect.
Flaxen – ff
Carrier: nf (no expression)
Flaxen is visible only on chestnut (ee) bases. It lightens the mane to a red, gold, or white color that is noticeably paler than the body. Flaxen may result in a gradient of the mane and tail.
Pangare – nPg or PgPg
Carrier: on black based coats only.
Pangare creates paler hairs that are prominent mostly around the undercarriage, muzzle, and fetlocks. It does not display on black-based coats
Roan – nRn or RnRn
Carrier: none
Roan creates pale hairs across the majority of the body, but it leaves the points the original coat color.
Silver – nZ or ZZ
Carrier: only on chestnut based coats
Silver is visible only on black or bay bases (E required), where it lightens the mane to a silver/grey or white. It may result in a gradient and may or may not also affect the coat to lighten it to a chocolatey brown or create desaturation near the muzzle and hooves.
Sooty – nSty or StySty
Carrier: none
Sooty creates dark-to-black clouding or dappling on the body, most commonly descending from the top line, but can also originate from the points.
Dun – nD or DD
Carrier: none
Dun creates a brassy tone or brown tone over the base coat and frequently creates stripes around the knees, dorsal stripes down the back, sometimes with faint stripes on the shoulder, and sometimes even faint ‘lacing’ on the forehead and tail.
Grey – nG or GG
Carrier: none
A phae with a grey coat grows pale with age. It may result in fleabites or dappling. The expression of grey changes throughout a phae’s life, and usually turns them completely white. As long as the phae are 50% or so lighter than their base coat coloring over about 80% of their body will count as ‘greyed out’.
Single Cream – nCr
Carrier: none
Single cream Lightens the coat of bay, seal bay, wild bay, and chestnut based phaea to a yellowy cream color. Black based phaea have a slightly more chocolatey brown coat color.
Double Cream – CrCr
Carrier: none
Double cream significantly lightens all coat colors to pale, milky-white to soft tan, depending on their base genetics. Sometimes, it can be as pale as almost white, but should have some visual distinction from white.
Champagne – nCh or ChCh or ChchL
Carrier: none
Champagne dilutes the base coat to a brassy gold or yellow version, similar to the cream dilution. Both body and mane are affected, with black-based coats becoming a lighter grey brown, and chestnut and bay based coats becoming yellowy, with bay based manes becoming reddish, and chestnut manes becoming pale or white.
Pearl – prlprl
Carrier: nprl
Pearl dilutes the base coat to a lighter, more brassy coat color, similar to champagne, but slightly more desaturated. Coats often have a pearly sheen to them, lending to the gene name!
Pseudo Double Cream – Crprl
Carrier: none
Pseudo double cream significantly lightens the base coat, sometimes to near-white, and closely mimics double-cream dilutions. Pseudo double creams can be told apart by eye and hoof color, as they are not truly blue or pink, respectively.
Gened Mutations
Gened mutations are coat modifiers that alter the appearance of the base coat differently than the normal modifier gene, if they have a counterpart (exp; Sooty vs Wolf-Sooty). Many mutated modifiers can be added onto one base to create a combined effect.
Winter Roan – nRnW or RnWRnW or RnRnW
Carrier: none
Winter-roan is a mutation of the regular roan gene in Phae genetics. It works similary to the normal roan gene, and appears on the same locus. During summer, winter-roans may be lightly flecked with white, but will become almost completely white with the growth of the winter coat and return to normal when the coat is shed. Winter-roan is co-dominant with regular roan, meaning both may express on the same phae.
Wolf Sooty – nStyW or StyWStyW or StyStyW
Carrier: none
Wolf-sooty is a mutation of the regular sooty gene in Phae genetics. It alters the expression of the sooty to create heavy ticking on the back, flanks, and face in patterns similar to the dark markings on wolves and dog breeds such as german shepherds and huskies. It appears on the sooty locus and is dominate to regular sooty; e.g., similarly to seal bay and bay, wolf-sooty overwrites regular sooty.
Extended Dun – nDx or DxDx or DDx
Carrier: none
A mutation of dun, extended dun stripes extend past simple shoulder and leg barring. It causes thick or thin stripes, covering areas from upper legs, face/neck, to full body coverage. These stripes are frequently zebra-like or tiger-like in appearance, but are up to creative interpretation.
Restricted Grey – nGR or GRGR or GGR
Carrier: none
Restricted Grey is a mutation of regular grey in Phae genetics. It causes grey to be restricted to certain areas of the coat in a symmetrical pattern, typically emulating the soft markings of some whales and dolphins, with subtle swooping patterns, dapples, and can only cover a maximum area of the head and side of the neck. Fawns with restricted grey will grey out the same as normal greys, their patterns revealing themselves over a few years. At birth, they will have some grey flecks around the eye at minimum, and will typically be greyed out fully by the age of 20.
Lilac – chLchL
Carrier: nchL (no expression) or ChchL (expressed as regular champagne)
Lilac is a recessive mutation of champagne that lightens and desaturates the base coat, shifting the color to a steel blue/lilac shade. Lilac also affects the eyes, so a red (ee) or black base (Ee or EE) would have dark purple eyes. On a double cream base (CrCr), the eyes are a pale lilac color.
Mushroom – mumu
Carrier: nmu (no expression)
Mushroom is a mutation that interacts with the agouti gene, giving the coat a desaturated brown coloring, lightens the softer underside, creates dark-rooted flaxen mane, hooves, and paler eyes. It does not affect pure black coats.
Taffy – nT or TT
Carrier: none
Taffy is a gene that causes the skin to become a pale, peachy color and can dilute the underline and lower legs similarly to pangare. Taffy is displayed alongside all other genes, but may not be obvious on light bases like double creams, champagne, pearl or pseudo creams, as each of those genes already creates pale skin. Taffy makes the eyes gold and hooves a dark peach unless double cream, champagne, lilac, pearl or pseudo cream genes are present. In this case, the eyes turn silver but the hooves experience no change.
Melanism – nM or MM
Carrier: On black only
Melanism causes the coat to appear darker than usual. Works on all coats but may not be so obvious on already dark coats like blacks and dark bays.
Leucism – ll
Carrier: nl (no expression)
Leucism causes the coat to appear lighter than usual and also affects the mane and tail. It lightens the entire body without changing the saturation of the coat.
Suppression – nS or SS
Carrier: on phae without genes to suppress only
Suppression determines how much a single dilution gene will affect the base coat. Suppression works on champagne (Ch), lilac (chL), cream (Cr), pearl (prl), silver (Z), and dun (D).
White Factor
White factor is characterized as white pinto, appaloosa or pintaloosa markings appearing over the base coat and all other markings on a phae’s body. White factor must cover at least 8% of the phae’s body at minimum. At maximum, it can cover 100% of the body in white.
Carrier: nwf or wfwf without any pt or lp genes
Pinto White Factor – wfwf/npt or ptpt
Pinto markings can represent any sort of paint or pinto markings found in horses. These range from tobiano to tovero to overo to splash to medicine hat to sabino, etc. If it exists in horses, it can exist in phae.
Leopard White Factor – wfwf/nlp or lplp
Leopard markings can represent any sort of appaloosa markings found in horses. These can range from blanket to snowflake to few spots to leopard to peacock, etc. If it exists in horses, it can exist in phae.
Pintaloosa White Factor – wfwf/npt or ptpt/nlp or lplp
Pintaloosa markings can represent any sort of combination of pinto and leopard markings found in horses. Creativity is welcome when combining these markings, but they should remain realistic and it is recommended to use real pintaloosa horses as an example for creating these designs.
Non-Gened Mutations
Non-Gened mutations are coat modifiers that alter the appearance of the base coat without needing a specific gene present. Several non-gened mutations can not interact on one base. For example, Albino covers the whole body making it impossible for the likes of brindle or somatic to be seen.
Chimera
Chimera is present when two embryos fuse in utero to form one fetus with multiple different coat colors and markings. One patch of chimera must cover at least 8% (two hooves) of the phae’s body at minimum, while the other 92% is the other color of chimera. There are no genes linked to this mutation, and as such, it is not inherited like other markings and must be rolled for inheritance.
Somatic
Somatic is the opposite of white factor in that it doesn’t bleach the body but instead ‘turns off’ all genes leaving behind a shade of black hair. They often resemble paint markings like Tobino or Splash, it always has a sharp edge, no fading. One patch of somatic must cover at least 8% (two hooves) of the phae’s body at minimum. There are no genes linked to this mutation, and as such, it is not inherited like other markings and must be rolled for inheritance.
Albino
Albinism is defined as a ‘congenital absence of pigment in the skin and hair and the eyes.’ This means any phae born albino has no color whatsoever. They all have red eyes, pink skin, and creamy white fur. There are no genes linked to this mutation, and as such, it is not inherited like other markings and must be rolled for inheritance.
Brindle
Brindle is a rare color pattern of stripes and unusual hair texture in phae. The unique coloring often looks like dark paint spilled over the phae or sometimes as watery or drippy looking striping (sometimes just partial striping) over the body. Brindle no longs requires sooty, roan, or grey to be present and can be added to any base coat. There are no genes linked to this mutation, and as such, it is not inherited like other markings and must be rolled for inheritance.
Birdcatcher Spots
Birdcatcher Spots are small, random white spots, no larger than an inch across, that pop up spontaneously on the body of phae. They don’t seem to have any kind of patterns, just appearing anymore. These marks have no relation to injury or skin damage. They appear in a minimum of 7 spots or a maximum of 20 that can be spread out however on either side of the body. There are no genes linked to this mutation, and as such, it is not inherited like other markings and must be rolled for inheritance.