Stats are the lifeblood of Tyrlidon battling and growth, so it is vital that you understand what each portion does and how this affects your Tyrlidon. When you obtain an Tyrlidon, you will receive some general information along with a stat table, like this:

Life Points: 100
Strength: 30
Speed: 40
Intelligence: 30
Cunning: 35
Defense: 20

Attacks:
Growl -- lowers Defense of opponent by 10% of original value each time used
Nip -- 30 Damage

Now, this may seem confusing at first, but stick with me and we'll see if we can't clarify.

Life Points -- This should be pretty self-explanatory. When battling, your goal is to get your opponent's Life Points down to 0 before your Tyrlidon's. Most Tyrlidon pups start at 100 Life Points. More Life Points will be awarded to Tyrlidon periodically by the Clan Leader, as based on their battle activity. During a battle, Life Points are taken away by attacks from an opponent. They are reset to the original value after every battle is over.

Strength -- Strength tells you many important things to remember when battling your Tyrlidon. If you divide the value by 10, you get a number of turns (in this case, 30/10 = 3). If this number is a decimal for some reason, it gets rounded (.4 and below rounded down, .5 and above rounded up). This number has two uses:

This is the number of turns your Tyrlidon can play before its defense lowers by 10% the original value. For our sample, this means that at the end of its third turn, the Tyrlidon's defense will drop to 18 (20 - [10% of 20]). Then, at the end of its sixth turn, its defense will drop to 16 (18 - [10% of 20]). And so on until the battle has ended.

Also, this is the number of damaging attacks your Tyrlidon can make in a row. For example, a damaging attack is Nip (30 damage), while Growl is a non-damaging attack. This Tyrlidon could use Nip three times before it must use its non-damaging attack, Growl. This applies to any combination of damaging attacks. For example, an older Tyrlidon with different attacks but still 30 Strength, could use Nip, Bite, and Tackle (all damaging attacks), but then on its fourth turn, it would have to use a non-damaging attack, or, if it does not have one, rest a turn. You can "reset" the turns at any time by using a non-damaging attack (for example, you could do Nip, Growl, Nip, Nip, Nip).

Speed -- Speed, first of all, tells which Tyrlidon goes first in a battle. The Tyrlidon with the highest speed goes first. If the two Tyrlidon are equal, than the owner of the Tyrlidon that issued the battle challenge must flip a coin. Heads, and the opponent goes first; tails and your Tyrlidon goes first. One flip, one answer; not two out of three or any such nonsense. This is an honor-system move, and it is considered a grave dishonor to lie about the flip of a coin. As a battler, you must learn to accept rules, even if they are not to your advantage! I trust that anyone who comes to this situation will flip a coin and tell the truth about the results. Speed also figures into Cunning, which will be mentioned later.

Intelligence -- Intelligence is the second factor in Cunning. Intelligence also gives you a pricing level for all attack purchases. Here are the price level divisions:
0-49 = Level 1
50-99 = Level 2
100 and up = Level 3

The higher this level, the lower your cost. The theory behind this is that intelligent Tyrlidon will learn moves more easily than those of less intelligence, and thus, intelligence is rewarded.

Cunning -- This stat is the average of the Speed and Intelligence stats ([40+30]/2 = 35). This stat then determines a turn number, but in a different way than other stats. Here is the grid for Cunning stats:
0-49 = 5 turns
50-149 = 4 turns
150-199 = 3 turns
200 and up = 2 turns

For this example, we will use our sample stats. Cunning of 35 falls within the 5 turn range. This means that every 5 turns, this Tyrlidon gets to attack twice in one turn. (So, on its 5th, 10th, 15th, etc. turn). The reasoning behind this is that the faster, smarter Tyrlidon will be able to get in attacks more often than a slower or less intelligent Tyrlidon.

Defense -- This stat is fairly obvious. This number represents the defense of the Tyrlidon. Half of this value is taken away from the Damage issued by attacks. For example, if another Tyrlidon attacked this sample Tyrlidon with Nip (30 Damage), then half of the Defense stat would be subtracted from the damage (30 - [20/2] = 20). The Nip would only do 20 damage instead of 30. Now, right now, you must be thinking that these battles will go slowly, and this is true. We want to give time for factors like Strength and Cunning to come into play, not have the battle end in four turns. Also, don't forget that larger attacks with more damage can be purchased. Nip and Growl are just pup attacks.

Attacks -- Now, finally, we get beyond the base stats and reach the Tyrlidon's attacks. These are pretty easy to understand. Some attacks do damage (Nip -- 30 damage). Other attacks have different effects (Growl -- lowers opponent's Defense by 10% of original value each time). So, if our Tyrlidon used Nip (30 damage) on another Tyrlidon with a Defense of 20, than the damage would be 20 (30 - [20/2] = 20). If our Tyrlidon used Growl, than the effect would be that the opponent's Defense would drop to 18 (20 - [10% of 20] = 18). If our Tyrlidon used Growl again later, it would subtract another 2 points (10% of 20). The attacks and their effects become more complicated when elements are involved, but since these aren't available to Tyrlidon just starting out, we'll leave that discussion for later.