Most stars in the system are read as a quality a person carries. 贪狼 (tān láng) is read as an appetite — the part of a chart that wants things, and the part that gets them through people. It is the third star of the 天府 series, and it is the only main star whose English name sounds like a warning while its readings sound like a talent.
贪狼 is usually rendered the Greedy Wolf; older translations say the Wolf Star, or the Star of Desire. Our reference data files it as a 主星 (main star), ranked as the chart's great 桃花 star — romance, attraction and social magnetism — with Wood as its element and desire, socialising and talent as its themes.
What this star means here is computed, not judged: the same birth data always lands it in the same box, and the sections below read what that box does in a life.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is 贪狼? | The Greedy Wolf — appetite, charm and talent, and the opportunity that arrives through people |
| Where does it sit? | Two steps on from 天府 — and 天府 itself mirrors 紫微 |
| Strongest seats | 丑, 辰, 未, 戌 (all graded 庙) |
| Weakest seats | 巳, 亥 (both 陷) |
| What does it describe? | Where the appetite is aimed — not how much of it someone has |
| Which stars can share its palace? | 紫微, 武曲, 廉贞 — or it sits alone |
| Can the year stem reach it? | Yes: 化禄 under 戊, 化权 under 己, 化忌 under 癸. No 化科 in our table |
The Greedy Wolf has no placement rule of its own. It belongs to the second series — the 天府 series — and every star in that series takes its position from 天府's own box.
| Star | Series | Offset from 天府 |
|---|---|---|
| 天府 Celestial Treasury | 天府 | 0 |
| 太阴 Moon | 天府 | +1 |
| 贪狼 Greedy Wolf | 天府 | +2 |
| 巨门 Great Gate | 天府 | +3 |
| 天相 Celestial Minister | 天府 | +4 |
| 天梁 Celestial Beam | 天府 | +5 |
| 七杀 Seven Killings | 天府 | +6 |
| 破军 Army Breaker | 天府 | +10 |
And 天府 is not placed either. It is the mirror of the Emperor Star across the 寅–申 axis: put the Emperor at 午 and the Treasury lands at 戌 — whichever bureau and birth day produced the Emperor in the first place.
Two consequences follow from that arithmetic.
The Greedy Wolf always sits four branches from 七杀, and four from 破军. Four branches is the 三合 distance — the trine — in a ring of twelve. So the three stars that our reference data groups together as 杀破狼 are never scattered: they always occupy the three corners of one triangle. In the worked example below, the Greedy Wolf is at 子, its trine partners at 辰 and 申.
The stars it can stand beside are limited to three. Because no offset inside a series repeats, no 天府-series star can ever share a palace with it. Every possible companion comes from the 紫微 series — and only three of those six ever land there: 紫微, 武曲 and 廉贞.
Twelve Emperor seats, twelve Greedy Wolf seats. The middle column is where it goes; the last column names the company.
| 紫微 at | 天府 at | 贪狼 at | Brightness | Shares with |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 子 | 辰 | 午 | 旺 | — |
| 丑 | 卯 | 巳 | 陷 | 廉贞 |
| 寅 | 寅 | 辰 | 庙 | — |
| 卯 | 丑 | 卯 | 利益 | 紫微 |
| 辰 | 子 | 寅 | 平和 | — |
| 巳 | 亥 | 丑 | 庙 | 武曲 |
| 午 | 戌 | 子 | 旺 | — |
| 未 | 酉 | 亥 | 陷 | 廉贞 |
| 申 | 申 | 戌 | 庙 | — |
| 酉 | 未 | 酉 | 利益 | 紫微 |
| 戌 | 午 | 申 | 平和 | — |
| 亥 | 巳 | 未 | 庙 | 武曲 |
Six of the twelve seats leave the star alone, and those six are the only seats where its grade is decided by the branch by itself. The other six hand it a neighbour — and every pairing repeats exactly twice, because each one occurs in an opposite pair of branches.
Take the brightness column alone and the table looks arbitrary. Group it by grade and it stops looking arbitrary.
| Grade | Branches | Who is there |
|---|---|---|
| 庙 | 丑, 辰, 未, 戌 | 武曲 at 丑 and 未; nobody at 辰 and 戌 |
| 旺 | 子, 午 | nobody |
| 平和 | 寅, 申 | nobody |
| 利益 | 卯, 酉 | 紫微 |
| 陷 | 巳, 亥 | 廉贞 |
Three things fall out of it.
The top grade is the four storehouse branches. 丑, 辰, 未 and 戌 are the four earth branches — the positions this system treats as storehouses rather than active sites — and the Greedy Wolf is graded 庙 exactly there, nowhere else.
The bottom grade is a pair, not a scatter. 巳 and 亥 grade 陷, and both are seats where 廉贞 shares the palace. The reference data names that combination 廉贞贪狼 and flags it as the one to handle with care; read from the other star's side, the same two branches are the weakest seats in 廉贞's own table. Two stars, one pair of branches, the lowest grade in both.
Nothing in the table says which way the influence runs. Whether the neighbour colours the grade, or the grade simply travels with the pairing, the lookup does not say — it records only that the two columns always move together. That matters practically: two charts can put the star in the same palace name, at two different seats, and read nothing alike.
Take a chart built from lunar 1990, fourth month, fifteenth day, 22:00, a male birth. Our engine places the Life palace at 午, fixes the bureau at 木三 (Wood 3), and from that bureau and the fifteenth day of the month puts 紫微 at 午 with brightness 庙.
| Step | Result |
|---|---|
| Life palace (命宫) | 午 — from the birth month and hour |
| Bureau (五行局) | 木三 — Wood 3 |
| 紫微 | 午 — 庙 |
| 天府 (紫微 mirrored) | 戌 — 庙 |
| 贪狼 (天府 + 2) | 子 — 旺, alone |
| Shares the palace with | nobody among the 14 main stars; the auxiliary 火星 is placed in the same box |
| Year stem | 庚 — attaches nothing to this star |
For that birth data the star can only land at 子. There is no other possibility, and it falls in the Travel palace (迁移). Our reference reading for it there is one of the star's friendlier notes: someone who does well away from home, makes friends wherever they go, and suits work that involves movement and meeting people.
The auxiliary star sharing that box deserves a second look, because it produces a named combination. The reference data's combination table lists 贪狼 with 火星 as 火贪格 — a windfall shape, sudden and impressive, with the same note attached as a warning: easy come, easy go. It is not a property of the star, though. Where 火星 goes depends on the birth year branch and the hour, so the pattern shows up in some charts and not others; in this one it is present, and 贪狼 alone never carries it.
The last piece is the year stem. 庚 attaches nothing to this star, which leaves a whole Greedy Wolf with a silent transformation layer. Change only the birth year and the same seat reads differently:
| Year stem | Slot | What the reference table says |
|---|---|---|
| 戊 | 贪狼 化禄 | The lightest slot: appetite that converts into income — charm turning into something usable |
| 己 | 贪狼 化权 | Desire with force behind it: the star moves from wanting to executing |
| 癸 | 贪狼 化忌 | The heaviest slot: the same appetite read as entanglement rather than opportunity |
The seat does not move and the grade does not change. One field decides which of the four slots the year hands to this star — and for the Greedy Wolf there are three of them.
The star is half the reading; the palace supplies the target. These are our reference readings, compressed.
| Palace | The reference reading |
|---|---|
| Life | Talent and charm, abundant attraction, and self-control as the soft spot; a bright seat turns wanting into achievement, a dim one reads as being led by it |
| Career | Work built on people, performance and taste — entertainment, media, design, hospitality, public relations |
| Wealth | Money through networks and social capital, with a speculative edge: steady and windfall income in the same box |
| Spouse | Attraction and chemistry, and a longer history than average; the note here advises a later marriage |
| Travel | The star's liveliest seat: thrives away from home, makes friends en route |
| Friends | A wide circle from every walk of life, mixed in quality |
| Fortune | An inner life with plenty of appetite — someone who knows how to enjoy things |
| Health | The Wood star's territory: liver and endocrine areas, and the cost of excess |
| Variable | What it controls | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Position (which branch) | Where the Greedy Wolf sits | Fixed arithmetic — one seat per chart, never in dispute |
| Brightness (庙 through 陷) | How the star behaves in that seat | A lookup keyed to the branch |
| Transformation (禄, 权, 忌) | What the year stem attaches | Changes by birth year, not by date |
Two honest notes, because they are the kind of thing that makes two readings of the same chart look like a factual disagreement when it is not.
Its rank and its series are two different statements. The reference data calls this star 北斗第一星 — the first star of the Northern Dipper — while placing it in the 天府 series, which the chart treats as its second series. Both lines sit in the same entry. They do not conflict: the rank is a naming tradition, the series is placement arithmetic, and only the arithmetic decides which box the star occupies.
This star takes three slots, not four, and one of them is contested in the same dataset. Our engine's transformation table gives 贪狼 化禄 under 戊, 化权 under 己 and 化忌 under 癸, and no 化科 under any stem — the same values the site's full stem-to-star reference table prints. The star's own entry in the reference data agrees on 禄 and 权, but adds 贪狼不化忌, which contradicts the table it sits beside. Positions are arithmetic and never differ between engines; transformation tables are conventions, and this is one of the stars where the conventions are thinnest. Where they conflict, this page follows the table the site publishes.
Run the same birth data next month and the Greedy Wolf lands in the same box, at the same rating, beside the same star. The conclusion holds; only the wording around it moves.
Try it free: enter your birth details at askziwei.com, find 贪狼 in the chart, and check its seat, its grade and which star shares its palace. For the wider reading order around a single star, see how to read a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart.
What does the 贪狼 star mean in Zi Wei Dou Shu? 贪狼 (Tan Lang), the Greedy Wolf, is the main star of appetite — desire, charm, talent, and the opportunity that arrives through people. It is placed two branches on from 天府, and our reference data files it as the chart's 桃花 star, with Wood as its element.
Is the Greedy Wolf a good star or a bad star? Neither label fits. It is an appetite, and appetites are read by what they are pointed at and how steady the hand holding them is. A bright seat is read as talent and attraction converting into achievement; a dim one as the same energy running ahead of direction.
Which seats are strongest for the Greedy Wolf? 丑, 辰, 未 and 戌 — the four storehouse branches — all grade 庙. 子 and 午 grade 旺, 寅 and 申 grade 平和, 卯 and 酉 grade 利益, and 巳 and 亥 grade 陷, the lowest of the twelve.
Why do 巳 and 亥 grade lowest? They are the two seats where 廉贞 shares the palace. The reference data names that pairing 廉贞贪狼 and reads it as the sharpest of the star's combinations; the same two branches are also the weakest seats in 廉贞's own table.
Does the Greedy Wolf take all four transformations? Not in our engine's table, which assigns it 化禄 under 戊, 化权 under 己 and 化忌 under 癸, and nothing under the other seven stems. Other tables in circulation also give it 化科. Positions are arithmetic and cannot differ; transformation tables are conventions, and here the conventions differ.
What is the 杀破狼 group? 贪狼, 七杀 and 破军 — three stars whose offsets from 天府 are +2, +6 and +10, which always leaves them four branches apart, the trine distance. Whatever else moves in a chart, those three share one triangle.
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