| Class: | Beast, realistic |
| Hab: | Plains and woodlands, arctic to tropical |
| Fre: | Unommon |
| Num: | 50-5,000 |
| Lair: | 10% home all the time, 100% are home 10% of the time |
| Size: | 1,000-3,000 pounds |
| Move: | Horse-fast |
| Def: | Massive, very tough hide, forequarters armored, thick skull |
| Att: | Trampling charge, horns |
| Int: | Basic beast |
| Spec: | Create large-scale warrens |
| Posns: | Mole-soft fur, meat, horded fodder |
The burrowing bison are every bit as large and otherwise very like their wider-ranging common cousins, the tawny bison of the plains and the somewhat smaller, darker woodlands bison. The most obvious difference between the burrowing bison and the regular surface lands bison is that burrowing bison have much larger horns. These horns are broad and curved, forming an almost closed Turkish crescent. The edges are kept quite keen, for these horns are the bison's primary digging tools, and so are constantly whetted by the action of burrowing. The hooves of the burrowing bison are very broad as well, being rather like spades; it uses them to cast back the earth loosened by its horns.
Another point of differentiation between burrowing and non-burrowing bison lies in their hair. The common bison has cow-like hair ornamented by a shawl of wooly fur about its shoulders. Such a pelt would become quite filthy underground. Instead, the burrowing bison is covered all over in sleek plush, a pelt rather like that of a mole. This fur, luxuriously soft, is quite a prize for subterranean bison hunters.
The hump of the common bison serves to increase its stature, making it seem more imposing to its rivals, and to store fat for the winter. The burrowing bison has instead a pad shaped almost like a horse collar, set across its shoulders and down the outer side of each forelimb. This pad is of a strong but somewhat plastic, sinew-like material, and the coat over it is rather like the extremely thick, pebble-set hide of a rhinoceros. This armoring extends over the whole of the forequarters, including the neck and head. The function of this pad is to ram the earth against the walls of the burrow; the walls of rammed earth are as sturdy as brick. Were this not enough, the bison are known, where sufficient water is available, to make mud wallows, fill them with straw, trample the mix to a paste, and then plaster this upon their burrow walls; this is the very recipe with which most bricks are made.
Burrowing bison spend the fairer seasons grazing. When they have eaten their fill, they expel their cud in the form of compressed grass pellets, which they store in larders in their borrows. During the depths of winter, they can dine in peace upon their stored food. The bison generally store up enough to get through a bad summer, when drought or excessive rain stunts the grass. Having deep burrows well stocked with food also gives the bison a safe retreat when fire sets the prairie or forest overhead ablaze.
Because of their hording of cud-pellets, burrowing bison are able to survive much longer, harsher winters than are other sorts of bison. They are even able to live as permanent residents upon the arctic tundra, where even musk ox and mammoth can live only seasonally.
The Hulder Folk who live beneath the hills, as in Scandinavia, are known to cross burrowing bison with their rothë, which are dwarf black kine, as much like small musk ox as like black, fur-coated cows.
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