Yzobu

An yzobu, also known as a "battle yak", is a herd animal found in the cold hills, plains and mountains of the Fingerbones.

Description
Yzobu look like crosses between a horse and a yak. Its head is bovine, with a pair of thick, slightly curved horns protruding from the sides of its flat forehead and four smaller prongs jutting from the top. The fur of an yzobu is long and shaggy, protecting it from the harsh winters of its habitat. Yzobu exude a pungent secretion that accumulates in this pelt, resulting in an odour that the unaccustomed often find nauseating.

Behaviour
Yzobu live in complex social groups, ranging from solitary specimens to herds that number in the thousands. These herds can pose a severe problem to settlers due to their sheer size and collective destructive power - a single herd can range over a spread of tens of thousands of square miles in a year, devouring all the grass and small vegetation in the region, trampling what they can’t eat, and forcing other creatures—including humanoids— to move elsewhere, or suffer the same fate.

Yzobu are extremely aggressive, and fight ruthlessly to defend even the weakest member of their herd, making them difficult pests to deal with, and even more difficult to train for service or war. However, the hobgoblins of the Iron Dominion have grown skilled at the process, keeping a fair number of tamed yzobu which they use as mounts and beasts of burden. The hobgoblins breed their tame yzobu with wild yzobu every few generations to keep them fierce.

Ecology
Yzobu are native to the Fingerbones archipelago, where they graze on the plains and hills. Their diet consists of the numerous types of grasses and sedges found throughout the isles. While yzobu are extremely aggressive and hardy animals, individuals are predated upon by dire wolves, cave bears and sabre-toothed tigers.

Background
Ozdak shot and killed a solitary yzobu as part of his Azdhka training, and fashioned a cloak from its hide that he still wears to this day.