Contest - Bander Guessing Game

[The Jenn]

The thin, two-story rowhouse sat near the edge of the capital city's bazaar market area, close enough to the residential district that most would confuse it for someone's private dwelling if not for the small sign hanging above the carved wooden door. Faded red brick left the building looking unremarkable when compared with its neighbors, a small flower box sitting outside one of its windows the only attempt at decoration, if that. The plant growing there didn't have any blossoms popping up, nor did it seem likely that the prickly green needles would ever sport such decoration.

A middle-aged mustelid poked his head from the second story window to survey the morning, then quickly ducked back inside and closed the shutters tightly. They were a nondescript brown color, contrasting sharply with his silvery mane of hair and blue-gray fur.

Anyone standing outside would notice noises coming from within, some of them easily explained away as movement and others somewhat more unusual. A chorus of purring coughs could be heard when the pine martin descended to the ground floor and his rich baritone chuckle answered, all of the sounds muffled by the barely-opened glass of the window with the flower box. The front door opened without warning and the pine martin stuck his head out once again, this time standing and stretching as he assumed his bipedal form with relative ease. In his mouth was a small sign, which he took hold of as soon as he had hands and hung on the front door. It swung back and forth as he reopened the front door and retreated once more indoors.

Open for the day. Inquire within regarding special offer.

As people began to enter his shop, the bipedal shopkeep greeted them with a dry smile and the slightest of bows. Some of them had entered because they were regulars; others, perhaps, were merely curious passerby. Either way, he treated them all with the same droll respect, as if amused that he ran a business at all and these individuals had sought him out.

"Ladies, gentlemen, a pleasure," he murmured, tone just as ironical as his mannerisms. "I welcome you to my shop and humble abode. My name would be Ashwin, for those of you unaware. Have you been referred to me by other knowledgeable persons, by chance, or were you blown here by the winds of chance? Either way, I'm sure at least some of you will be interested in my wares, as soon as they finish with breakfast."

Seemingly on cue, a small creature leaped up onto his wooden counter and rubbed its head against the side of his arm, then turned to survey the people whose attention it had just attracted. With a derisive sneeze, it butted the man again and he snorted, keen eyes busy surveying the reactions of the crowd. "Perhaps you are in some way familiar with bandersnatches, domesticated or otherwise?" His question held an edge, as if suspecting that several people had never seen one before. "If you've encountered one in the wild, it's likely an experience you'll never forget. Regardless, if you're new to the city then you may have never come in contact with the species as a household pet. Their breeding and competitions have been mostly confined to this corner of the world."



He relented to the insistent attention of the creature and gave it a small scratch behind the ears, which seemed to satisfy it for the moment. "Treasach here isn't for sale, of course. He's my own companion, descended from champion lines and studded to the female of the Beast himself. I doubt any of you could afford such a service." His chuckle mocked them all as he picked up the stocky bander and put him back on the floor, where he proceeded to saunter throughout the room, its unchallenged sovereign.

"He's a dappled blanket khaki, for those of you not in the know regarding colors and patterning," the man continued, then grimaced. "There are quite a few different arrangements out there. I've organized a little challenge for the curious souls amongst you. Following a particularly unexpected personal development, I need to leave the city for a few weeks and won't be able to transport my entire personal breeding colony, much less those recently shipped to me for sale by other breeders. Here are the rules..."

---

The genes of five random banders are below, shown to anyone interested in participating. He gives you no clues, relying on any prior knowledge (or pure ignorance) to guide you in your choices. Based on these codes alone, pick your three favorites and explain why you chose the ones you did.

Everyone will be entered into a random lottery for the five randoms in question, assigned one entry in the raffle. If you roleplay your response to Ashwin with your character, you will receive an extra entry, though it is not required. Whether your character is 'right' or completely 'wrong' in their guesses is irrelevant. Roleplaying it will also earn you a reply point if you meet the 150-word minimum normally required for roleplays.

You will have however long this contest runs to go through and edit your replies. I'll probably close it some time after the first round of breedings have been decided.


1) XX rrYybbCc DDPpTtLl - Kari
Yellow Blanket Female


2) XY RRYYBBCc DdPPttLl - Gen
Brown Tabby Blanket Male


3) XX rrYYBBCC DDPpTtll - Vyn
Green Female


4) XY RRYybbCc DdPpTtLL - Tigs
Orange Leopard Male


5) XX RrYyBbcc DdppTtll - Petzi
Sand Point Female

[ivchameleon]

Haret walked in, almost completely disregarding everything except the cute little Bandersnatch. Almost as if she had fallen in love at first sight, the easily-depressed Jekyll/Hyde persona oggled for a few moments before carefully looking over her options.

The first of them seemed alright, but something about those two small r's made her uneasy. Her choice would have to start with a capital letter, that was for sure. So that instantly crossed out numbers one and three. That suited her just fine, and left her with her three choices. She just had to put them in her favorite order.

"Well," she said. "I can't choose numbers one or three, because the genes don't start with capital letters."

Thinking now, looking at the three left, she contemplated which one appealed to her the most.

"I think I really like number four as my first choice," she noted, writing it down on a piece of paper.

She wasn't sure why she liked it the best, exactly. But those two capital r's really spoke to her. Number two had capital r's as well, but it didn't end with two capital l's. Yes, that was why she chose number four. It began and ended in capital letters.

"Number two will have to be my second choice, leaving number five as my third choice."

On her piece of paper she scribbled down her picks of the five, and handed it over to Ashwin.

Haret
#1. Four
#2. Two
#3. Five

"There you go. I picked number four because of the capital letters at the beginning and the end. And then number two because it starts with capital letters and has one capital letter at the end. And number five because it has one capital letter at the beginning."

Simply explained, she smiled as best as she could in her own twisted way and petted the Bander that was presented to them.

[Vyn]

Ophelia had always been one for oddities. She loved to browse along the unusual shops just to see what they had to offer and today was no different. Only, of course, today she found this contest and the chance of a lovely little Bandersnatch awaiting her. What had first been a moment of curiousity that the doe hadn't intended to dwell on abruptly became a cause of heavily anticipated interest.

A contest founded around deciphering genetics? Oh no, there was simply no way to pass this up.

They were not the genetic lines she was used to, simplified for basic animal breeding as it was, but they were familiar enough that she could begin to put the pieces together as she studied them.


After a considerable amount of time had passed and Ophelia was satisfied with her decisions, the 9 of Spades would approach Ashwin with a thoughtful but satisfied grin, the paper with her decisions written upon it in hand, to propose her decision.

"I've done a considerable amount of work in genetics and although these codings aren't familiar to me, they were definitely enjoyable to work through, if nothing else." She wouldn't spare a glance down to her scaled visage but no one could deny her 'work' in genetics was well displayed. "Regardless, I'd have to say my three favorites are: 1, 3 and 4.

1 for a mix of coloration and markings.
3 would be primarily for coloration.
4, on the opposite side of the spectrum, would be primarily for markings."

Even if she didn't get pulled from the raffle, Ophelia was eager to see how her estimations settled with the actual Banders being displayed.

[Kari Muffin]

He had a weak spot in his heart for the adorable. Adorable with pointy teeth doubly so. Theofilus could have done without the smug shopkeeper, but he was curious enough to ignore that.

Genetics? What had he learned from books about genes? Small ones were for recessive traits, and large ones were dominant? Recessive traits would be good for long term breeding possibly, but then again they could cause problems.

Well, he could always go with number five, it had one dominant trait and one recessive. That would work.

Then he could pick one of the small ones, and one of the large ones for a start. What did the letters stand for? Coat color, pattern? He wasn't all that sure. He stared blankly at the sheet of paper for a moment.

So everything really hinged on what the letters stood for and their combinations. He would take a blind stab in the dark, that sounded like a wonderful idea.

He scribbled down his answers and reasons on a piece of paper as best he could.

1. Five - the combination of recessive and dominant traits, primarily the "R," "B", and "T" traits
2. Three - The dominant trait of "Y"
3. One - The recessive b trait

He turned to the shop keeper with a smile and spoke as cordially as he could. "To be perfectly honest I know nothing about genetics, except for a few minor things from books," He coughed. He had no skill compared to anyone else here. It was nice being useless for once. "I hope it's acceptable if I wrote my reasoning down for you. Five is my first choice for the combination of recessive and dominant traits, Three is my second choice for the dominant trait of Y, and my final choice is for the recessive trait of b."

It was all one huge stab in the dark. He was sure the shop keeper was enjoying this.

[creme]

Had been in the back of the crowd, until his eye's caught glimpse of the creature that Ashwin had spoke of. In that instant he found himself walking through the crowd to the front table.

He grabbed a small tablet that Ashwin had laid out for the written reason's. He leaned in and examined the small list of five. His eye's read over each option. A mental image of the list appeared in his head.

1) rrYybbCc DDPpTtLl

2) RRYYBBCc DdPPttLl

3) rrYYBBCC DDPpTtll

4) RRYybbCc DdPpTtLL

5) RrYyBbcc DdppTtll

Hmm..4 catches me most, Because of the attractive markings no doubt. 2 next because of its overall whacky way of displaying its color combined with markings.. and 5 as my last because of its almost awesome Genes.

He smiled as he came to his decision. Writing down his mind's thought's.

Cohem
1) Number Four.
2) Number Five.
3) Number Two.

He tore the page from the tablet and put it on the table neatly. then looked to Ashwin to explain his reasons for chooseing.

"Number four caught my eye because of its beautiful coat patterns. Even if the color isnt so hott, the pattern makes up fo it. I choose that one as my first choice. For my secound. I choose number Five. Because of the the fact Ive always been a fan of that type of gene line. And, for my Third choice. I choose number Two. Im oddly curiouse as to what the pattern or display will actualy look like. other than what I can make of it from the gene read up.."

He smiled and shook his head. Pleased with himself for his explaination. He gave one last look at the handsome Bandersnatch, and then returned to the back of the crowd.

[Tigeress]

Syraelia walked in beside a blossoming Astyana, this was obviously a joint decision to come and investigate as they both looked equally curious. Yana thought of investigating the Bandersnatch the shopkeep owned, but it didn't look particularily pleased with all the people swarming around it in the store, so she decided it was best left alone.

After the crowd had thinned a little, she walked closer to investigate what everyone else had been looking at. Oh, a set of genetics, and they chose based on which they liked best, but they had to give a reason. Uh oh. She knew absolutely nothing about this. She looked over her shoulder at the Torquehelm female, who shrugged and shook her head before motioning for the younger female to just go ahead and pick one and make something up.

True, she already had a companion, a Slithey Tove named Sevatt, (who was happily perched on the countertop, waiting for all the fuss to blow over) but this was something she felt would be more for the both of them and would probably stay with Syraelia when Astyana began her adult life on her own. With that in mind, she motioned the larger female over. "You pick one, I pick one, and we decide on one. Okay?" Sneakily she put the idea out there.

"Alright..." And now it was Syraelia's turn to look gleefully confused. Well, she guessed everyone else couldn't know exactly what they were talking about, so might as well make something up!

"I choose number 2 as my first pick, for the strong colouration and..." She leaned over towards the doe to hear her choice before standing up straight again. "Number three as my second for the dappling pattern, as I happen to be fond of it, and finally..." Again the small councel made their decision, the taller Torquehelm glancing back up with a very decisive and content set to her voice. "Number four as my last pick, for a possibility of more than one set of makings." Satisfied with their attempt at appearing knowledgeable about the breed, they backed up and made room in case others would be making an attempt.

[Nyx]

Blyn had stood in the corner listening to the speech that the pine martin had made. He had to admit that he was more than a little interested in acquiring one of the little beasties and had been ever since he had first heard of the possibility of there being a breeder near by. His mouth nearly watered at the thought. Not that he was a great lover of animals or anything like that, but the chance to spar the little buggers was too much to resist. He could just imagine getting a hold of one of the more aggressive creatures and training it to be a champion. Oh, yes, he just had to get his little paws on one of them, but he mustn’t seem too eager, no, that just wouldn’t do.

Once nearly everyone had cleared out of the shop, he walked nimbly to the counter, pushing himself up on hind legs, fore limbs resting on the counter to get a better look at the paper. His red eyes scanned over it, and he was displeased that there was absolutely no clue as to the aggressive nature of the beast described. Oh well, he would just have to take his chances, you never know, a more docile one might have potential as well.

He knew very little about the genetics of the bandersnatchs, but he had managed to find a little bit of information out. He did know that the first set of letters dealt with color, but what color he just wasn’t sure. The only gene I know for certain is the dilute gene. There seemed to be only one that had it as a recessive and a dominant, so there was his first choice. "So my first choice would have to be the one with 'CC'." Looking over the list further, he noticed one that had an awfully lost of capital letters, and for some reason, that made him feel that it would be an important if not odd one, so there was his second choice. "Second would be the one with lots of capitals, but that is only to please my mind." Now it would seem that he had a choice with high dilute stats and one with a chance of dilute, so the only logical choice for him at the point was one that didn’t have the dilute gene as a dominant at all and since there was only one on the list, that made for his third choice. He didn't feel like he should voice his reasons, even to him it made him sound quite mad.

He grabbed a little sheet of paper and pen from the counter whit his teeth and scribbled as best as he could with the pen in his mouth, oh how he hated not having hands.

1. Three
2. Two
3. Five

He left the paper on the counter, adding his name as an after thought and nodded to Ashwin before he stepped once more out the door.

[Spiderfly]

((*slinks in quickly* I LOVE THESE GUYS XD Jennnn XD Am I allowed to apply for these guys? If so I'll be RPing when I get back. If not, I'll RP to get points but I won't actually apply XD. Let me know? *snug* Though I feel like I'm being greedy if I apply ehheh))

[The Jenn]

((Hehe, you can apply. XD Nothing against that. <3 This is open to all members.))

[FlyingPanther]

Silvanus had no need to be in the Market Place anymore. He had found all his supplies and was now working none stop to create the most beautiful rings that Igal had ever seen. Igal had not seen much jewellery, to be honest, but these were probably going to be the most beauitful pieces he would see...possibly in his entire life. It all came down to if he would be accepted into the courts when he was older. He didn't really think he was court material, so he couldn't know if he would be or not.

Once again Igal was off on his own, just wandering around. Silvanus had been rather boring as of late, so Igal had to find entertainment elsewhere. There was really no point to his wanderings other then to take in sights...maybe get a bite to eat or something. Nothing was really on his to-do list. It was when he thought maybe he should just head back home that he saw a group of people crowding around a shop.

He approached it to find the shopkeep showing off a very impressive looking Bandersnatch. His face quickly contorted into a look of approval that seemed almost comical. Igal had heard of Bandersnatches, but had never really seen a tame one, and this looked to be just as tame as they come, snuggling up against the shop keep as if it was a familiar! He wondered mildly if there was a way he could get one for his very own, though he was sure Silvanus wouldn't really appreciate him bringing home a friend without first consulting him. He truely didn't care though, soon enough he would be out on his own, and Silvanus wouldn't be able to tell him what to do.

Igal was given a piece of paper, and it seemed to solve all the questions that he had suddenly been coming up with about the Bandersnatches. There was a way! Luckily, Ophelia was a friend of the family, and he had asked her once or twice about genetics in the past. She had tought him well. Reading the genetics was like reading in neat sentances exactly what the man was offering. He could read them better then anyone here obviously....well...except maybe Ophelia, who he saw somewhere in the crowd, but could not wave to her...as she was also inspecting the paper of genetics. Oh well, he coudl always talk to her later.

Finally he was ready to enter into the lottery, and got the Pine Martin's attention in order to let him know what he wanted and why, as the shopkeep had asked. "Ashwin correct? Yes, I'm interested in entering the lottery myself, and these are my choices...

Firstly, Number 4, for a beautiful sounding leopard appaloosa, the genes suggest a possiblity for there to be other patterns in the mix is bred to the right bandersnatch, not to mention the idea of HMZ red is thrilling!
Second, Number 2, for a beautiful brown specimen with lots of pretty markings.
Lastly, Number 5, It's fairly simple, though not as simple as 3, but with most everything being HTZ, it would make a fairly diverce litter if breed to the right bandersnatch.

With his choices made known he stepped back to await the winners.