Sexual Dimorphism: Geolord Mottle

You may have noticed in a few of my reviews that I've been unable to even tell what gender a particular rare mob may be. This is not terribly surprising. After all, creating two separate models is twice the work, and outside of the player races gender equality is not as important. In most cases. Then again, whereas we still have not seen a female ogre or broken draenei, some races do have female models. Quilboars are one of those races.

This entry concerns Geolord Mottle.



Back to Durotar

Geolord Mottle is a rare mob quilboar found in Durotar, on Kalimdor.



Mottle is the second rare quilboar in this zone, and complements Captain Flat Tusk. Like Flat Tusk, Mottle can be found in several of the quilboar camps surrounding the western road to the Barrens.

What sex is my quilboar?

As indicated by the title, quilboars have two different models. It would be easy to assume that the "warrior" style quilboars (which use models similar to Flat Tusk) are male and the "caster" quilboars found wearing robes and using magic are female. Certainly there are several examples of "warrior" quilboars having male titles, and "casters" having female ones. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by Mottle here, it's not that easy. Mottle has the "caster" model but a male title ("Geolord").



Now, it is certainly possible that "lord" in this case is used as a gender-neutral title. It is also possible that male quilboars do become casters, but more rarely than females. A closer examination of the "caster" quilboar model does seem to indicate that it has breasts, though (this is much closer than I ever wanted to look at a quilboar *shudder*). As such, I feel it is fairly safe to call Mottle a "she".



It is interesting that such a minor race would get a proper female model, whereas some other very prominent races with which you have constant dealings (ogres spring to mind) do not. I guess someone at the developing team liked the quilboar a lot! It is also important to note that quilboar sexes are not as wildly differentiated as those of some other races (such as trolls or draenei).

Earthmagic

The quilboar have strong shamanistic traditions, and often command powers associated with shamans. It is not uncommon to find quilboars commanding elementals or using totems, or replicating player shaman spells. Mottle (being such a low level mob) only uses two spells, but those fit well with the theme. She surrounds herself with a lightning shield and uses healing magic to heal her wounds (or those of any other mob involved in the fight). The fact that Mottle can heal herself up fully can make her dangerous for underpowered adventurers.



Despite this, Mottle is a significantly easier fight than Flat Tusk, and should pose little threat. She has no special drops.



A rather average rare, Mottle still serves as an early lesson about the danger of enemy healers, and the fact that quilboars have different models for males and females is an interesting curiosity in itself.

Until next time
~Dragonshade