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You can always go back to the Wiki, I've wrote up a few things on Appaloosa coloring.

https://wiki.huntandjump.com/books/all-about-appaloosas-wip

Varnish Promoter (Vrn)
The presence of this gene will increase Appaloosa Varnishing. This gene is Incomplete Dominant, and its expression will strengthen over a horses life time. It can also be influenced by other genes. Must have at least one copy of LP to be shown. This gene will not affect Spots on the horses coats.

The key words being "increase Appaloosa Varnishing", so they varnish out faster.


Het for Varnish Promoter


same horse with HOM Varnish Promoter and refreshed.

Varnish is the "roaning" or ticking that horses with LP display.

OK when a horse "roans" out ; additional white hairs are replacing what ever color the coat was; so more roaning = more white, until the entire coat is white Except for the spots.
Here is a 30yo BlueRoan Snowflake Appy :


LG6 14331158

this is a Snowflake appy foal ; by the time he hits 30 he will also be completely "roaned" out or all white also :


LG8 HSN 19054950

Edited to change the title to ask my question.

Does varnishing mean roaning, and if so, why are there two different genes to modify?

Varnish Promoter isn't going to look like anything physical on a horse. By itself, it is nothing.

In the game, it AMPLIFIES the Varnishing effect of the LP gene.

The pictures I posted show you a Medium and an Extreme Varnish example. With the medium being heterozygous for Varnish Promoter, and the Extreme being homozygous.

Ignore @annismyrph she's got Roan on the brain LOL. When discussing Appaloosa color, I try to make sure I always use the term Varnish for this very reason. There are a lot of words out there to describe white ticking in a horses coat. Roan and Varnish are 2 different groups of genes, and behave in very different ways. Even though the end result they can look the same.

Yes, The visual result is basically the same ; they both end up mostly white.
No Roan works in and of itself. You can have a Roan Horse without him being Appoloosa and vice versa.
While Roan is on the same Gene Loci as the "whites" it does not change or influence the lethal combinations.
Appoloosa is on a different Gene loci as the "whites" and also does not influence the lethal combinations.

And varnish progressively makes the horse whiter with age but roan doesn't. Roan can vary in how much it shows though. On some horses the roan is barely visible and on some it's very obvious, but it doesn't continually make the horse whiter with age.