ink, then digital.

Work for an upcoming Ironclaw project.

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Goats are often characterized as stubborn, ornery misanthropes that are unimpressed with any ambition beyond what is necessary, including social achievements. Why seek a thousand friends when two will do? And this is particularly true when those friends are a sturdy pair of hands. Goats are independent, observant and thoughtful, often self-sufficient or self-employed in occupations that do not require excessive socializing (such as farmers, prospectors, mountain guides or trackers).

In more urban settings, the goat has no choice but to be around others, but tends to take on roles that afford some measure of solitude; the janitor, the gravedigger, the reddleman, the court executioner or shadowy assassin. However goats may also rise to positions of power or prestige simply because those positions allow for greater independence. Social standing itself is of little concern, and there is slim personal difference between high and low class goats. Living alone in a shack on a craggy cliff and chipping flint for a piece of copper per basketful, or living alone in a fine mansion as the regional tax authority whom the locals despise, or living alone as a widely celebrated explorer of harsh and dangerous lands is still living alone.

They also tend to excel in creative fields requiring great personal focus, as artists, virtuoso soloists or composers, and authors of works of profound philosophical merit. It is a mistake to see the taciturn goat as dim-witted, or lacking in spirit; they are instead intensely passionate people able to apply this inner energy to great effect when allowed to do so undisturbed. This is most obvious when watching kids at play, and indeed as hardy and stoic as most goats are, their children are the very nature of sprightly capriciousness.

The turning inward that happens comes from a sense of irretrievable tragedy. Any goat in moment of private revelation will tell you about The Event that ended their childhood. It is a common caprine theme: a lost great love, a death in the family, a crushed dream, etc.

This is because it is not that goats are born jaded isolationists, but the very opposite: they are incredibly lively, fragile creatures, no more so than as children. And when the world is first revealed as a possibly unfair, dangerous and hurtful place, it is generally a harder lesson for the deep-feeling goat to learn than for other species. Their withdrawn nature is a defense from feeling too much and from being too sensitive.