An adult bull stands roughly the height of a draft ox at the shoulder but is considerably broader and lower to the ground, built like a wedge driven forward into the earth. The silhouette is front-heavy, the shoulders are the widest point, and the body tapers slightly toward the haunches, giving the animal an impression of perpetual forward momentum even when standing still.
The defining feature is the hide. From the base of the neck across the shoulders, back, flanks, and haunches, the skin grows in fused dermal plates roughly the size of a dinner platter each, overlapping from front to back like the scales of a pine cone pressed flat. The plates are grey-brown with a faintly granular, compressed-sand surface, organic and pliable on a living beast, never rigid like shell or stone. They stiffen noticeably within hours of the animal's death. The underbelly, throat, and inner joints are unplated: short coarse hair over softer hide, and the points a hunter must reach to drop one cleanly.
The head is broad, low-set, and carries a blunt intelligence. Eyes are small, weak, and positioned low on the skull. The species evolved for ground-level threat detection, not distance sight. Two short horns curve forward from the brow, blunt-tipped, more useful for ramming than goring. The hooves are wide and heavy, the legs thick with muscle suited for sustained ground-work rather than speed.
Mature bulls can channel earth mana briefly into their shoulder plates during a charge, a momentary stiffening that turns the shoulder into a dense battering surface. The effect lasts only seconds and appears involuntary, an instinctive escalation rather than a trained technique.