LEOLAND

The Land is divided north and south by the River, which is easily fordable except during Floodtime. To the west rise the Red Hills of Madness, and to the east the River divides to create a large island, Spirit Isle. The Leonines are somewhere between a neolithic culture and an early civilization. Their geography / economy does not allow for cities, and they have no writing, but they have oral traditions both in philosophy and in a popular bardic literature. They do have metalworking, mining ore in the Red Hills, and smiths are greatly honored among them.

SUN PRIDE

North of the River, on the Veldt, lives the Golden Pride. They live in kraals and herd cattle, and also hunt among the great herds of wild antelopes and zebras and others. Their noble class is centaur-like, leonine body and head but with humanoid torso and arms. They call themselves the Sun Manes, as their skin is golden brown but their manes the color of maize.

The lesser classes of the Golden Pride include humanoid cougars, who may fight with spears or bows or sword-and-shield; smaller herders who ride large lynx-like cats and trackers who skirmish.  The Veldt is rich in meat, and the Golden Pride can muster many warriors into a horde that is quite balanced in its tactical potential: ferocious “cavalry”, reliable close order infantry with a variety of weapons including bows, light “cavalry” and skirmishers. The Pride’s shaman eschew Fire magic, both as too physically dangerous to the Veldt and also too sympathetically close to the Blood Madness, but they readily employ earth and air spells.

DARK PRIDE

South of the River is the Forest, habitat of the Dark Pride. They live in great tree kraals, but hunt both within and outside the shadow of the trees. Many of the herds of the Veldt cross the River and graze in a fertile belt of grassland that stretches from the River to the Forest’s edge a mile or more away. Unlike the Golden Horde, the Dark Lions enjoy the taste of fish and may net many a meal. The Forest itself is perpetually in the shade of the great trees and few grass eaters can live there. But several species of giant mammals do, foraging on the lower branches of the trees with their trunks or long necks.  These behemoths are beyond the ability of any single lion to bring down, but can be and are hunted by well organized parties of the Dark Pride.  The Dark Pride occasionally is able to capture and domesticate a young one, building fighting towers on its back the same way they build their tree-top homes. The Forest also surrounds many open glades, which support herds of animals comparable to those on the Veldt, if somewhat smaller.

The nobles of the Dark Pride, the Black Manes, are humanoid, as their tree homes would be inaccessible to four legs. The noble lionesses, the Black Spears, form an elite close-order unit. The lesser classes are panthers, much like the cougars of the Sun Pride except for their dark spots and sometimes even darker fur. The Dark Pride makes less use of the mounted herders and the tracker-scouts, but they are not unknown.  More important in both the ecology/economy of the Pride, and also in its politics, are the Panther Assassins. The Dark Pride shaman rely on water and druidical spells.

BLOOD PRIDE

The Leonines of both Sun and Dark prides understand themselves to be balanced – some think precariously balanced – between an animal Nature and an intellect born of Spirit.  It happens from time to time that a member of the Sun Pride or the Dark Pride will find his animal instincts and appetites growing ascendant; sometimes the physical manifestation of this change is behavioral, and sometimes it is revealed in a growing redness of eye and fang and claw. The roots of golden or black fur may become a deep red. Any or all of this – or none, for the change may be entirely internal and suppressed for a long while – signals an apparently irresistible and irreversible change into a berserker. Normally those undergoing such a change will choose of their own accord to leave their clan and Pride and travel towards the Red Hills; any not so choosing will eventually be encouraged to do so by former friends and family.

Upon arriving at the Red Hills of Madness the newcomer will be tested and forced to fight for place, but most survive to join the Blood Pride. Those (few) born to the pride will show entirely crimson-red eyes and fangs and claws; their fur is a deeper shade of auburn.  The born-to-the-blood nobles of the Pride, the Fire Manes, are humanoid, but near giants, with monstrous tusk-like fangs. Every class and clan may be represented among the Blood Horde, the newer arrivals from Sun and Dark sometimes mixing with their Blood equivalents but also forming distinct units of their own. Berserkers seem to lose the knowledge of bows. Blood Pride shaman do not call on any spirits but their own, but they can easily awaken a killing rage that makes even the lesser classes dangerous to the most powerful enemy.

The Blood Pride will occasionally raid into Veldt or Forest, but generally refrain from large scale invasions, as such an onslaught would surely bring a response from their antithesis the Ghost Pride, and probably a defensive alliance between Sun and Dark. Not even the berserkers are eager to fight against the other three Prides united, which are, in any case, the major basis of their own recruitment and growth.  However, Blood Pride also raids the non-leonine races to their west, or north of the Veldt and south of the Forest.  Blood raids may provoke retaliation by enemies who are ignorant of or indifferent to any distinction among the Prides.  In short, the Blood Pride is a constant source of strife and bloodshed, from the level of individuals in clan and pride, up to large-scale warfare among the prides or against external enemies.

GHOST PRIDE

More rarely than the Blood change, but still not unknown, is the transformation of a Sun or Dark Pride member into a member of the Ghost Pride, Platonic philosophers indifferent or even hostile to the flesh. Such deep thinkers are not unwelcome among Sun or Dark. Those preoccupied with Spirit are rarely concerned with animal matters such as death or pain or hunger, and so can be socially useful in a variety of situations, as they often provide entertaining social or political commentary, subtle plans for hunting or warfare, or just fascinating weirdness. Too many in one kraal or clan is generally taken as a bad sign and discouraged, however, and there are some clans that regard even one philosopher as too many. Sooner or later the philosopher will move to Spirit Isle.

Outsiders are not allowed on the Isle (no one ever returns to tell what becomes of them), but the Prides can communicate by sending along messages with philosophers going there, and the Ghost Pride sometimes answers. Generally the inhabitants of Spirit Isle allow the rest of the Land to live their mundane lives as they will and can, but major threats either from Blood Pride or an outside force provoke a Spirit host of great power. As with the Blood Pride, the Ghosts seem to include members of all classes of both Sun and Dark, but manifesting as but pale reflections of their former selves. Fear precedes them, and they pay no heed to river or marsh or obstacles of any sort save Fire, which they will not willingly approach.