More posting!
- Thread starter Kevar
- Start date
FrankManic
Artisan
No!
We will not give in to your wicked demands!
We stand strong!
We will not give in to your wicked demands!
We stand strong!
Stoneskull_Rockfist
Adept
Kevar said:
*awaiting bribe*
FrankManic
Artisan
Here is the eight page wall of text that came out when I started thinking about how humanoid great cats would form societies and cultures. I'll give you a cookie if you read it all.
3. The Sarr are humanoids derived from big hunting cats. Which means they eat meat, in quantity. Which means, if they’re civilized, they are ranchers. They’re also big cats, which tend to be highly territorial, and ranches require huge amounts of space. They don’t need anything to run the ranch, per-se, having teeth and claws at hand to butchering. Ranches are held in families with one Dominant male who exerts little real control over affairs, a small pack of primary females, and their kittens and their kittens adolescents. The primary clique of females exercises authority over the family. A clique of younger females may coup and drive their mothers to the periphery of the range, the mothers of their mothers will be driven from the range entirely to beg. The male will be killed, in any case, to prevent the mothers from breeding. Excess males are landless vagabonds of low status. They may form bachelor prides and wander the boundaries of ranches. They may be hired as mercenaries in inter-pride conflicts. Individual males may sneak onto pride territory to seduce females. Resident males will attempt to pursue and kill these males. A central aspect of the power structure is as follows
A. The Females have a single male to whom they have continual access. This allows them to produce enough kittens to maintain their lands. The Male, and less actively the females, seek to prevent the kittens from having ready access to males. In order for any group of kittens to make a coup attempt they must have enough offspring, mercenaries, and resources to both oust the dominant clique and slay or drive off their sisters. To this end they will dally with likely males when the opportunity presents itself. Sarr mature rapidly and have a high mortality rate, largely due to continual border raiding, which is pursued as play and as practice for war. “The Neighbors calf is sweeter”.
B. A coup goes like this. A group of kittens, together with their mature children, mercenaries, and whatever other resources they can muster, will assault the big house in the center of the ranch lands. Their aim is to kidnap and sequester the dominant female clique and murder their father. They may coerce their mothers with violence but killing them is shunned. Once they have control of the big house and the mothers they will work to drive their sisters off the land and establish control. In modern days this process is generally fostered and encouraged by the mothers. As the dominant female clique advances in age beyond it’s ability to readily manage the stead they will groom a particular daughter clique to replace them and quietly contribute clan resources to the murder or ouster of their daughters. These events tend to happen once in a given clans generation, and mechanisms in society exist to ensure a smooth transition. Generally, the mother clique will request aid from neighbors in hunting down and ousting their unfavored daughters.
C. Unfavored daughters and males who are not currently pride alphas will be found at the periphery of Sarr society. Many of them end up living in towns, wretched, marginal places at the boundaries of poorly controlled ranch territories. The clannish and semi-solitary nature of the sarr makes these places violent and unpleasant. Bachelor prides will hire themselves out as mercenaries in inter-pride struggles, but no one wants landless females, so they are found at the lowest rungs of society. These people are tanners, miners, ditch diggers, roadlayers, stonedressers, loggers. Sarr are poorly suited for working underground or in close confines with many of their fellows, so these jobs go to the marginalized Sarr. Likewise, many forgework tasks are miserable for the furred Sarr. While ranches will have trained blacksmiths within the households, town smiths produce many munitions armor for the militia and muster. Tanning and papermaking are major industries.
D. Border cities, border regions, and port cities are a contrast to the miserable interior cities. With room to roam the Sarr are much more at home in these places, and rather than producing resources from the earth they engage in trade. It is in the cities of the border that prideless females may find some measure of independent stability and security. Other races are employed to perform undesirable tasks, trade is carried out through male or prideless intermediaries, though under the watchful eye of pride representatives, and the bachelor prides and prideless sarr are free to wander to border wilds.
E. Sarr Morality is not like human Morality – Sarr do not have a concept of family as western Americans do. They are loyal to the continuity of the pride. Part of the reason that the transfer of power within a pride may occur is that many unfavored kittens will leave of their own accord, or find some way to commit a suicide of convenience in the advent of a coup. Likewise, pride territories tend to be old and well established, arising from the availability of ranch land, defendable terrain, and water access. Major prides act as a stabilizing factor is sarr politics, working against major changes in the power balance. The Sarr Military is the Militia, a formal force of rangers and border police, and the Muster, which is less formal, but more recognizable as a military. In the advent of war the Muster will be called and the Prides will round up bachelor prides and townies, forming a host that will set out from Sarr lands to meet foreign enemies. Interpride conflicts are largely settled with proxy wars fought by bachelor pride mercenaries, which keeps the population of stray males down to an acceptable level and provides males an important chance to prove themselves worthy of siring kittens. Many pride alphas are males who distinguished themselves in their youth by demonstrating their cunning and fighting skill pride conflicts.
F. Sarr are committed to their kittens and defer to their mothers. They are largely ambivalent towards strangers and siblings, viewing the former as competition and the latter as allies of the moment. Friendships form between generations rather than within them. Likewise, Sarr will frequently have companions among the neighbor ranches with whom they associate to hunt, gossip, or travel. These are not precisely like friendship, again being more of a temporary alliance. Sarr freely make use of slaves for needful tasks on the ranches, preferring to use gelded males taken as prisoners during proxy wars. Male Sarr are inherently, biologically subservient to females to a minor degree, such that a Male Sarr will rarely consider attacking a female without direct provocation, and even then may choose to flee or submit unless he has numbers. Bachelor gangs of sufficient number do not experience this problem, but the potential repercussions of prides should they misbehave keep them in check. Prideless females travelling alone are in danger of ****, robbery, and murder, but prides will not tolerate females being kept as slaves by bachelor prides.
G. The primary units of society are Prides, consisting of a clique of females, their chosen alpha male, their adolescent children and adult daughters, and the adolescent children and adult daughters of their daughters. Each Pride owns a large territory centered on a defensible homestead, fort, or fastness. These territories are largely unimproved, being given over to the semi-feral free-range herd animals from which the Sarr derive their food supply and wealth. The territories are seeded with small fastnesses and redoubts for the pride to use at need, some obvious and many hidden. The majority of the pride’s population is either at the big house, or ranging around the territory guarding the herds and protecting the borders.
H. After the Pride the most important element of society is the bachelor pride, groups formed by males once they are cast out of their prides upon reaching maturity. Bachelor prides range from tens to hundreds in numbers, with any group larger than that tending to fracture under social pressures. Bachelor prides are semi-nomadic, employing themselves by brigandage and mercenary work, or living rough on the land. They occupy the sparse border regions between ranches, the so called roads, though few of them are recognizable as such. Bachelor males have a short life expectancy. Violence is the rule of their life, and they earn their daily meat in near constant proxy wars between the prides which serve the social function of keeping the surplus male population at a manageable level. The ultimate goal of any male is to rise to the alpha position of a powerful bachelor pride and hire onto a pride clique engaged in a coup attempt. Commonly these powerful leaders are chosen as the consorts to the dominant clique, and can expect a life of relative ease and plenty, one that will certainly be longer than their fellows.
I. The third element of society is the Town. Towns are marginal places built in areas the Prides don’t want. Towns produce much of the Sarr’s industry. The population of towns is mostly males and prideless females. While the population of these places is relatively high, they have almost no political power, as settled town life is inimical to the Sarr’s mentality. Male Sarr are naturally disinclined to act against the female dominated prides and Female Sarr have extreme difficulty in forming lasting bonds outside of the context of a pride family structure. Most city Sarr form small pseudo-prides of two or three females who pool their resources. Organizations larger than that exist, but are ephemeral and wield little power. The towns are the places of miners, tanners, metal workers, weavers, carding houses, ropemakers, papermills, dye makers, and most other industry found in the sarr regions.
J. The final element of Sarr society is the border town. These areas are quite different from the interior towns, and tend to pop up where there is a threat to the border or an opportunity to trade. These areas, while just as dangerous as anywhere else in Sarr lands, are viewed as a place of opportunity for both bachelors and for prideless females. Prides exert minimal control on the border towns as long as they are not fleeced too badly for trade goods. In return, prideless females have access to wide, uncontrolled spaces that a Sarr needs to roam in order to maintain a healthy mind. Opportunity to gain personal wealth and interact with non sarr abound, and many sarr, male and female alike, find it refreshing to interact with non-sarr races, as they have a somewhat easier time forming bonds with them. Brigandage and mercenary work again are important to the local economy, though a knowledgeable trader can make the right payments to ensure that his shipments get through relatively unmolested.
K. Some comments on Sarr physiology. Sarr are, by some method, related to distinctive species of great cats. This essay thus far deals with Leonid Sarr, who are by far the most numerous and social of the Sarr species. Sarr, generally speaking, are larger than humans on average. An average male Leonid sarr weighs 200-250 pounds and stand 6’5”-7’-8” tall. Relative to humans Sarr have disproportionately long and heavily developed legs, partly due to their digitigrades stance. Sarr are able to run considerably faster than humans, with larger lungs proportionally, more muscular legs better adapted for rapid sprinting, and proportionally smaller and weaker arms than humans. The spine is heavier than the humans and differently curved, both to support the larger head with it’s developed jaws and to assist the Sarr is storing energy when leaping. A sarr in good condition can reasonably leap twice it’s height, sprint at as much as 35 miles per hour over short distances, and maintain a sustained pace of 15-19 miles per hour over longer periods of time. In contrast to humans and other great cats their body layout gives them some difficulty in swimming, and they have a somewhat limited postural repertoire compared to humans due to the arrangement of their feet., specifically having difficulty maneuvering from their knees.
L. Sarr are carnivores. While they eat small amounts of plant matter their primary diet is meat, which is reflected by their dentition and the structure of their digestive tract. Sarr do not need to cook meat, but will do so if they have the luxury, primarily as a matter of taste. Combined with a preference for warmer climate, a tendency towards social groupings, and their covering of body fur, Sarr have noticeably less impact on trees and ground cover in a region compared to humans as they do not need to constantly gather firewood for warmth. On the other hand, being far better adapted as hunters they can quickly deplete available food supplies, which is a likely reason that Leonid Sarr cultures tend to be organized around the intensive herding of heterogeneous semi-domesticated herd animals.
M. Sarr Herds. Sarr herd a mixed menagerie of semi-domesticated food animals. Any sizeable population of Sarr can rapidly deplete available prey in a given area, so herding and husbandry is vital to maintaining food supplies. The complete reliance on meat for the Sarr diet shapes Sarr politics and culture, as the Leonid prides require enormous amounts of land to sustain suitable herds. Sarr herd a far greater variety of animals than humans. These include buffalo, several varieties of antelope, wild pigs, zebras, wild horses, llamas, camels, gnus, cattle, goats, sheep, various giant rodents, flightless birds, giant lizards, and others. The specific composition of herds varies widely among the various Leonid subcultures, depending largely on what creatures are suited to the local environmental conditions. Leonid herd animals are notably less wary of large predators than their wild counterparts, and are typically of larger size with shorter periods of gestation than their wild cousins. At some point Sarr in various regions domesticated mid sized Camelids, resulting in the breeding of a creature that greatly resembles a short necked, short haired llama. These llamas are kept by the Sarr as guard animals, and attach themselves to subgroups within the larger herds. When predators or unfamiliar Sarr are detected the Llamids will make a very distinctive bellowing noise and spray a pungent urine that can be detected over considerable distance. Sarr have also domesticated some baboon like creatures, which serve as pets, companions, and camp assistants, being highly intelligent and capable of learning many tricks and simple commands. Finally, Sarr have domesticated several forms of giant antelope to serve as pack animals. These creatures resemble buff colored, lightly built oxen and are used wherever brute labor in needed. A curious aspect of Sarr domestication is that whatever selection process made Sarr herd animals comfortable in the presence of Sarr lead them to abandon many of their natural defenses against attacks by big cats. Various phenomena result from this, such as Sarr herd beasts being very vulnerable to attack by big cats and monstrous felinoids due to lack of evolved defences. On the other hand, many horse riding races will seek to purchase Sarr horses or Zebra to breed with human domestic horses. The resulting hybrids are often sterile, but unlike Human horses will rarely ever buck and are notably easier to break for riding.
N. The majority of Sarr are derived from large hunting cats. They have keen binocular eyesight with full color register and a sense of smell many times better than humans. They retain special structures in the eye which offer them superior night vision compared to humans, and have approximately the same sense of hearing, balance, and direction as humans. Compared to humans they are not readily able to form large, closely organized social networks, their hands are somewhat less dexterous with large claws and shorter fingers, and due to the development of their legs for sprint running they are not well suited to swimming. It should be noted that while well conditioned humans with access to water can run for considerable distances in the hottest parts of the day Sarr are frequently forced to rest during the hours around noon, and are much more active at night and during dawn and dusk. Sarr are not nocturnal per se, but their improved vision and reduced ability to maintain their body temperature under the light of the sun create a tendency towards nocturnal activity in tropical sarr. Given their need to follow herds, Sarr tend to leave a smaller number of permanent structures, though the structures they do invest time in, such as fortresses and ranch seats, are quite elaborate and are likely to endure for centuries. As Sarr are not well suited to enduring sieges their fortresses tend to be built as military storehouse and administrative centers. The Sarr equivalent of a fortress to resist siege will be a network of small fastnesses and redoubts stretching over miles and interconnected with many tunnels, hidden paths, stores, trenches, previously prepared ambush sites, and so forth. Sarr defenders will make fullest use of this treacherous terrain to stage continual raids on invaders hoping to distrupt them to the point that they cannot function effectively. Many Sarr military tactics are aimed at the staging rear-area attacks to disperse or slaughter an enemies herds to the point where the enemy can no longer rely on the herd as a source of food and must with draw. While Sarr can survive on preserved meat indefinitely they are not well suited to confinement and suffer from extreme anxiety if confined to a particular place for long periods of time. This gives them unique advantages and disadvantages. Sarr have difficulty effectively sieging conventional fortresses and when fighting enemies used to siege tactics they will instead of laying siege disperse widely to burn villages, slaughter peasants, destroy crops, livestock, and industry. More than one county has survived a Sarr siege only to suffer massive famine and plague in the following years due to complete destruction of infrastructure.
O. Non leonid sar are far fewer in number than leonid Sarr. Non-leonid Sarr do not generally form settlements or permanent populations. They tend to wander in family groups consisting of an adult pair and their adolescent offspring. Occupations tend to derive from the cultures around them, and in many cases non-leonid Sarr may be said to be part of the non-Sarr cultures with which the primarily interact. Sarr can scent each other over long distances, and if game is available they will interact amiably, sharing news and information and exchanging goods and gifts. A loose sense of clan exists among these Sarr, and they will inquire after the health and well being of relatives. While reading and writing is known only in a limited sense the non-leonid Sarr of many regions have a sophisticated oral system of transmitting cultural stories and news. Many Sarr use a semi-formal system of trail marks and signs to leave information for their fellows. These Sarr have no real political organization due to their very small numbers and large ranges. They may participate in the politics of other races from time to time. Generally conflicts within the sarr community tend to be between individuals, couples, or clans. Of these individual and couple fueds are often the most intense and the only ones that are likely to come to any sort of violence. Clan disputes are generally either settled by the exchange of gifts, arbitration by an neutral clan, or one of the two clans simply leaving the area. Compared to Leonid Sarr non Leonid Sarr are much less fecund, typically bearing one or two kittens at a time. Non-leonid Sarr generally do not become pregnant again until their kittens have reached the age of maturity in their early teens. It should be noted that while Leonid-Sarr tend to maintain fairly fixed, if large, pride ranges, Non-Leonid Sarr tend to travel very widely. As such any given group of Non-leonid Sarr will have interacted with many other widely disperse non-leonid sar, such that Non-leonid Sarr in a given geographical region tend to share a single diverse monoculture and a single primary language, which may be either a language unique to the Sarr or adopted or derived from the language of another species. Often it is a variation on the Language used by the Leonid Sarr.
P. On the physiology of Non-leonid sarr. The most common non-leonid Sarr are Leoparids, which resemble big cats such as the Jaguar, Puma, and Leopard. Fur patterns range widely from spots to rosettes to individuals with a solid coat and no markings. Melanistic Sarr are known, and are viewed differently by different Sarr cultures. Some Sarr groupings consider melanistic Sarr to be a sort of good luck symbol, being associated with a goddess of healthy cubs. Leoparid Sarr are roughly midsized, smaller than the Tigirids and Lionids and bigger tan the Cheetah, and Lynx. Subgroups of the Leoparids seem to derive from Smaller hunting cats like Ocelots. Leoparids are not as tall on average as Leonid-Sarr and tend to be closer to human body proportions, with somewhat longer fingers and less developed claws and teeth. Their social groups are fluid, generally containing one male and female with their pre-adult offspring. However it is not uncommon for other adult males or females to join these nuclear groups. Likewise, when siblings reach maturity they often go off together, travelling as a family group for several years as they find mates and territories and disperse. Sarr tend to mate for the duration of the adolescence of their children. Once their children are mature and leave the family group Sarr couples may either part ways to seek other partners or stay together to raise another brood, depending on the preferences of the individuals. Couples that remain together will often adopt additional younger adults into the relationship. Some of these ‘Marriages’ are known to last for intergenerational periods of time, and many Non-leonid sar cultures consider this something of an ideal of family and romance.
Q. Cheetah derived Sarr are perhaps the smallest group of Sarr. They tend to be very long legged and lightly built, being dedicated sprinters. They are notably less intelligent than both humans and Sarr on average. Legends tell of a time when these Sarr were more numerous and apparently much cleverer and more adaptable, but it seems that the species is in severe decline. Cheetah Sarr are the fastest of their breed, with some exceptional individuals able to sprint up to 45 miles an hour for short distances. In many places Cheetah Sarr are found as the slaves or servants of Leonid Sarr or other species. Leonid Sarr may keep them as specialized military troops or exotic entertainments. In many places where Cheetah Sarr are no longer found Kittens will occasionally appear among non-leonid sarr with tufted ears, longer than average legs, or distinctive rosettes indicating some cheetah ancestry. Some legends say that the Cheetahs were once messangers to divine beings, running across the land at their masters behest. When their masters faced grave danger, the Cheetahs were entrusted to seek aid from the five corners of the world. They raced out from the cities of their masters and sought help, but by the time they returned their masters were destroyed and their cities cast down in ruin. The legend goes that the Cheetahs lead their Master’s allies to destroy the assailants of their masters, but in the aftermath of their victory they were so shamed by their failure to defend their masters that they vowed that they would decline as a race and pass out of the world forever more.
R. Lynx derived Sar are notable for a variety of distinctive physiological features.
S. Petty Sarr – In addition to the major Sarr morphs, the Leonid, Tigrid, Leoparid, and Cheetah, there are some forty other felinoid bipeds that can be loosely identified as ‘Sarr’. While some of these morphs are apparently hybrids of the major Sarr races, such as the hybrids of Leonids and Tigirids which are reputed to grow to enormous sizes, others seems to be unique races, many evincing derivation from smaller wild cat populations. For instance, Serval Sarr are known, as well as Caracal Sarr. It is notworthy that many of the minor Sarr are not especially intelligent, comparable to chimpanzees or some of the minor monstrous races. Almost all of the minor Sarr are non-social, living singly or in a mated pair. Groups of minor Sarr are usually a female and her pre-adult young. Some of the minor Sarr are not dedicated bipeds and may shift between bipedal and quadrupedal movement. Some of these creatures are referred to as cat-monkeys by those encountering them for the first time. There are also, rarely, reports of ‘monstrous sarr’, bipedal and apparently intelligent creatures with the features and characteristics of monstrous felinoids. At least one confirmed account exists of a creature that seemed to be a Sarr-like biped, but with the coloration, build, and spiked appendages of a displacer beast. The creature had two legs, four arms with fingers and thumbs, an almost entirely felinoid face, and expressed the displacer’s unique vision distorting defense mechanism until it was killed. The report states that the creature killed many people in a logging region. The attacks were initially blamed on more mundane mountain cats, but as the number of dead increased and the survivors reported glimpses of the creature, many came to believe it was some manner of ghost or demon. Eventually the creature was killed when, having ambushed a small group of loggers, one of the lumber jack’s scored a lucky hit that appears to have crushed one of the creatures knees and caused significant bleeding. When the survivors of the attack sought aid a party of hunter’s and militia, emboldened by the obvious blood trail from the wound, were able to track the creature, eventually treeing it in a tall pine a few miles off the main logging road. The tree was cut down and the creature was killed in the fall. The body was skinned, and the strange, eight limbed pelt is in the possession of the count of that region.
Seriously. If you read all that? Cookies.
3. The Sarr are humanoids derived from big hunting cats. Which means they eat meat, in quantity. Which means, if they’re civilized, they are ranchers. They’re also big cats, which tend to be highly territorial, and ranches require huge amounts of space. They don’t need anything to run the ranch, per-se, having teeth and claws at hand to butchering. Ranches are held in families with one Dominant male who exerts little real control over affairs, a small pack of primary females, and their kittens and their kittens adolescents. The primary clique of females exercises authority over the family. A clique of younger females may coup and drive their mothers to the periphery of the range, the mothers of their mothers will be driven from the range entirely to beg. The male will be killed, in any case, to prevent the mothers from breeding. Excess males are landless vagabonds of low status. They may form bachelor prides and wander the boundaries of ranches. They may be hired as mercenaries in inter-pride conflicts. Individual males may sneak onto pride territory to seduce females. Resident males will attempt to pursue and kill these males. A central aspect of the power structure is as follows
A. The Females have a single male to whom they have continual access. This allows them to produce enough kittens to maintain their lands. The Male, and less actively the females, seek to prevent the kittens from having ready access to males. In order for any group of kittens to make a coup attempt they must have enough offspring, mercenaries, and resources to both oust the dominant clique and slay or drive off their sisters. To this end they will dally with likely males when the opportunity presents itself. Sarr mature rapidly and have a high mortality rate, largely due to continual border raiding, which is pursued as play and as practice for war. “The Neighbors calf is sweeter”.
B. A coup goes like this. A group of kittens, together with their mature children, mercenaries, and whatever other resources they can muster, will assault the big house in the center of the ranch lands. Their aim is to kidnap and sequester the dominant female clique and murder their father. They may coerce their mothers with violence but killing them is shunned. Once they have control of the big house and the mothers they will work to drive their sisters off the land and establish control. In modern days this process is generally fostered and encouraged by the mothers. As the dominant female clique advances in age beyond it’s ability to readily manage the stead they will groom a particular daughter clique to replace them and quietly contribute clan resources to the murder or ouster of their daughters. These events tend to happen once in a given clans generation, and mechanisms in society exist to ensure a smooth transition. Generally, the mother clique will request aid from neighbors in hunting down and ousting their unfavored daughters.
C. Unfavored daughters and males who are not currently pride alphas will be found at the periphery of Sarr society. Many of them end up living in towns, wretched, marginal places at the boundaries of poorly controlled ranch territories. The clannish and semi-solitary nature of the sarr makes these places violent and unpleasant. Bachelor prides will hire themselves out as mercenaries in inter-pride struggles, but no one wants landless females, so they are found at the lowest rungs of society. These people are tanners, miners, ditch diggers, roadlayers, stonedressers, loggers. Sarr are poorly suited for working underground or in close confines with many of their fellows, so these jobs go to the marginalized Sarr. Likewise, many forgework tasks are miserable for the furred Sarr. While ranches will have trained blacksmiths within the households, town smiths produce many munitions armor for the militia and muster. Tanning and papermaking are major industries.
D. Border cities, border regions, and port cities are a contrast to the miserable interior cities. With room to roam the Sarr are much more at home in these places, and rather than producing resources from the earth they engage in trade. It is in the cities of the border that prideless females may find some measure of independent stability and security. Other races are employed to perform undesirable tasks, trade is carried out through male or prideless intermediaries, though under the watchful eye of pride representatives, and the bachelor prides and prideless sarr are free to wander to border wilds.
E. Sarr Morality is not like human Morality – Sarr do not have a concept of family as western Americans do. They are loyal to the continuity of the pride. Part of the reason that the transfer of power within a pride may occur is that many unfavored kittens will leave of their own accord, or find some way to commit a suicide of convenience in the advent of a coup. Likewise, pride territories tend to be old and well established, arising from the availability of ranch land, defendable terrain, and water access. Major prides act as a stabilizing factor is sarr politics, working against major changes in the power balance. The Sarr Military is the Militia, a formal force of rangers and border police, and the Muster, which is less formal, but more recognizable as a military. In the advent of war the Muster will be called and the Prides will round up bachelor prides and townies, forming a host that will set out from Sarr lands to meet foreign enemies. Interpride conflicts are largely settled with proxy wars fought by bachelor pride mercenaries, which keeps the population of stray males down to an acceptable level and provides males an important chance to prove themselves worthy of siring kittens. Many pride alphas are males who distinguished themselves in their youth by demonstrating their cunning and fighting skill pride conflicts.
F. Sarr are committed to their kittens and defer to their mothers. They are largely ambivalent towards strangers and siblings, viewing the former as competition and the latter as allies of the moment. Friendships form between generations rather than within them. Likewise, Sarr will frequently have companions among the neighbor ranches with whom they associate to hunt, gossip, or travel. These are not precisely like friendship, again being more of a temporary alliance. Sarr freely make use of slaves for needful tasks on the ranches, preferring to use gelded males taken as prisoners during proxy wars. Male Sarr are inherently, biologically subservient to females to a minor degree, such that a Male Sarr will rarely consider attacking a female without direct provocation, and even then may choose to flee or submit unless he has numbers. Bachelor gangs of sufficient number do not experience this problem, but the potential repercussions of prides should they misbehave keep them in check. Prideless females travelling alone are in danger of ****, robbery, and murder, but prides will not tolerate females being kept as slaves by bachelor prides.
G. The primary units of society are Prides, consisting of a clique of females, their chosen alpha male, their adolescent children and adult daughters, and the adolescent children and adult daughters of their daughters. Each Pride owns a large territory centered on a defensible homestead, fort, or fastness. These territories are largely unimproved, being given over to the semi-feral free-range herd animals from which the Sarr derive their food supply and wealth. The territories are seeded with small fastnesses and redoubts for the pride to use at need, some obvious and many hidden. The majority of the pride’s population is either at the big house, or ranging around the territory guarding the herds and protecting the borders.
H. After the Pride the most important element of society is the bachelor pride, groups formed by males once they are cast out of their prides upon reaching maturity. Bachelor prides range from tens to hundreds in numbers, with any group larger than that tending to fracture under social pressures. Bachelor prides are semi-nomadic, employing themselves by brigandage and mercenary work, or living rough on the land. They occupy the sparse border regions between ranches, the so called roads, though few of them are recognizable as such. Bachelor males have a short life expectancy. Violence is the rule of their life, and they earn their daily meat in near constant proxy wars between the prides which serve the social function of keeping the surplus male population at a manageable level. The ultimate goal of any male is to rise to the alpha position of a powerful bachelor pride and hire onto a pride clique engaged in a coup attempt. Commonly these powerful leaders are chosen as the consorts to the dominant clique, and can expect a life of relative ease and plenty, one that will certainly be longer than their fellows.
I. The third element of society is the Town. Towns are marginal places built in areas the Prides don’t want. Towns produce much of the Sarr’s industry. The population of towns is mostly males and prideless females. While the population of these places is relatively high, they have almost no political power, as settled town life is inimical to the Sarr’s mentality. Male Sarr are naturally disinclined to act against the female dominated prides and Female Sarr have extreme difficulty in forming lasting bonds outside of the context of a pride family structure. Most city Sarr form small pseudo-prides of two or three females who pool their resources. Organizations larger than that exist, but are ephemeral and wield little power. The towns are the places of miners, tanners, metal workers, weavers, carding houses, ropemakers, papermills, dye makers, and most other industry found in the sarr regions.
J. The final element of Sarr society is the border town. These areas are quite different from the interior towns, and tend to pop up where there is a threat to the border or an opportunity to trade. These areas, while just as dangerous as anywhere else in Sarr lands, are viewed as a place of opportunity for both bachelors and for prideless females. Prides exert minimal control on the border towns as long as they are not fleeced too badly for trade goods. In return, prideless females have access to wide, uncontrolled spaces that a Sarr needs to roam in order to maintain a healthy mind. Opportunity to gain personal wealth and interact with non sarr abound, and many sarr, male and female alike, find it refreshing to interact with non-sarr races, as they have a somewhat easier time forming bonds with them. Brigandage and mercenary work again are important to the local economy, though a knowledgeable trader can make the right payments to ensure that his shipments get through relatively unmolested.
K. Some comments on Sarr physiology. Sarr are, by some method, related to distinctive species of great cats. This essay thus far deals with Leonid Sarr, who are by far the most numerous and social of the Sarr species. Sarr, generally speaking, are larger than humans on average. An average male Leonid sarr weighs 200-250 pounds and stand 6’5”-7’-8” tall. Relative to humans Sarr have disproportionately long and heavily developed legs, partly due to their digitigrades stance. Sarr are able to run considerably faster than humans, with larger lungs proportionally, more muscular legs better adapted for rapid sprinting, and proportionally smaller and weaker arms than humans. The spine is heavier than the humans and differently curved, both to support the larger head with it’s developed jaws and to assist the Sarr is storing energy when leaping. A sarr in good condition can reasonably leap twice it’s height, sprint at as much as 35 miles per hour over short distances, and maintain a sustained pace of 15-19 miles per hour over longer periods of time. In contrast to humans and other great cats their body layout gives them some difficulty in swimming, and they have a somewhat limited postural repertoire compared to humans due to the arrangement of their feet., specifically having difficulty maneuvering from their knees.
L. Sarr are carnivores. While they eat small amounts of plant matter their primary diet is meat, which is reflected by their dentition and the structure of their digestive tract. Sarr do not need to cook meat, but will do so if they have the luxury, primarily as a matter of taste. Combined with a preference for warmer climate, a tendency towards social groupings, and their covering of body fur, Sarr have noticeably less impact on trees and ground cover in a region compared to humans as they do not need to constantly gather firewood for warmth. On the other hand, being far better adapted as hunters they can quickly deplete available food supplies, which is a likely reason that Leonid Sarr cultures tend to be organized around the intensive herding of heterogeneous semi-domesticated herd animals.
M. Sarr Herds. Sarr herd a mixed menagerie of semi-domesticated food animals. Any sizeable population of Sarr can rapidly deplete available prey in a given area, so herding and husbandry is vital to maintaining food supplies. The complete reliance on meat for the Sarr diet shapes Sarr politics and culture, as the Leonid prides require enormous amounts of land to sustain suitable herds. Sarr herd a far greater variety of animals than humans. These include buffalo, several varieties of antelope, wild pigs, zebras, wild horses, llamas, camels, gnus, cattle, goats, sheep, various giant rodents, flightless birds, giant lizards, and others. The specific composition of herds varies widely among the various Leonid subcultures, depending largely on what creatures are suited to the local environmental conditions. Leonid herd animals are notably less wary of large predators than their wild counterparts, and are typically of larger size with shorter periods of gestation than their wild cousins. At some point Sarr in various regions domesticated mid sized Camelids, resulting in the breeding of a creature that greatly resembles a short necked, short haired llama. These llamas are kept by the Sarr as guard animals, and attach themselves to subgroups within the larger herds. When predators or unfamiliar Sarr are detected the Llamids will make a very distinctive bellowing noise and spray a pungent urine that can be detected over considerable distance. Sarr have also domesticated some baboon like creatures, which serve as pets, companions, and camp assistants, being highly intelligent and capable of learning many tricks and simple commands. Finally, Sarr have domesticated several forms of giant antelope to serve as pack animals. These creatures resemble buff colored, lightly built oxen and are used wherever brute labor in needed. A curious aspect of Sarr domestication is that whatever selection process made Sarr herd animals comfortable in the presence of Sarr lead them to abandon many of their natural defenses against attacks by big cats. Various phenomena result from this, such as Sarr herd beasts being very vulnerable to attack by big cats and monstrous felinoids due to lack of evolved defences. On the other hand, many horse riding races will seek to purchase Sarr horses or Zebra to breed with human domestic horses. The resulting hybrids are often sterile, but unlike Human horses will rarely ever buck and are notably easier to break for riding.
N. The majority of Sarr are derived from large hunting cats. They have keen binocular eyesight with full color register and a sense of smell many times better than humans. They retain special structures in the eye which offer them superior night vision compared to humans, and have approximately the same sense of hearing, balance, and direction as humans. Compared to humans they are not readily able to form large, closely organized social networks, their hands are somewhat less dexterous with large claws and shorter fingers, and due to the development of their legs for sprint running they are not well suited to swimming. It should be noted that while well conditioned humans with access to water can run for considerable distances in the hottest parts of the day Sarr are frequently forced to rest during the hours around noon, and are much more active at night and during dawn and dusk. Sarr are not nocturnal per se, but their improved vision and reduced ability to maintain their body temperature under the light of the sun create a tendency towards nocturnal activity in tropical sarr. Given their need to follow herds, Sarr tend to leave a smaller number of permanent structures, though the structures they do invest time in, such as fortresses and ranch seats, are quite elaborate and are likely to endure for centuries. As Sarr are not well suited to enduring sieges their fortresses tend to be built as military storehouse and administrative centers. The Sarr equivalent of a fortress to resist siege will be a network of small fastnesses and redoubts stretching over miles and interconnected with many tunnels, hidden paths, stores, trenches, previously prepared ambush sites, and so forth. Sarr defenders will make fullest use of this treacherous terrain to stage continual raids on invaders hoping to distrupt them to the point that they cannot function effectively. Many Sarr military tactics are aimed at the staging rear-area attacks to disperse or slaughter an enemies herds to the point where the enemy can no longer rely on the herd as a source of food and must with draw. While Sarr can survive on preserved meat indefinitely they are not well suited to confinement and suffer from extreme anxiety if confined to a particular place for long periods of time. This gives them unique advantages and disadvantages. Sarr have difficulty effectively sieging conventional fortresses and when fighting enemies used to siege tactics they will instead of laying siege disperse widely to burn villages, slaughter peasants, destroy crops, livestock, and industry. More than one county has survived a Sarr siege only to suffer massive famine and plague in the following years due to complete destruction of infrastructure.
O. Non leonid sar are far fewer in number than leonid Sarr. Non-leonid Sarr do not generally form settlements or permanent populations. They tend to wander in family groups consisting of an adult pair and their adolescent offspring. Occupations tend to derive from the cultures around them, and in many cases non-leonid Sarr may be said to be part of the non-Sarr cultures with which the primarily interact. Sarr can scent each other over long distances, and if game is available they will interact amiably, sharing news and information and exchanging goods and gifts. A loose sense of clan exists among these Sarr, and they will inquire after the health and well being of relatives. While reading and writing is known only in a limited sense the non-leonid Sarr of many regions have a sophisticated oral system of transmitting cultural stories and news. Many Sarr use a semi-formal system of trail marks and signs to leave information for their fellows. These Sarr have no real political organization due to their very small numbers and large ranges. They may participate in the politics of other races from time to time. Generally conflicts within the sarr community tend to be between individuals, couples, or clans. Of these individual and couple fueds are often the most intense and the only ones that are likely to come to any sort of violence. Clan disputes are generally either settled by the exchange of gifts, arbitration by an neutral clan, or one of the two clans simply leaving the area. Compared to Leonid Sarr non Leonid Sarr are much less fecund, typically bearing one or two kittens at a time. Non-leonid Sarr generally do not become pregnant again until their kittens have reached the age of maturity in their early teens. It should be noted that while Leonid-Sarr tend to maintain fairly fixed, if large, pride ranges, Non-Leonid Sarr tend to travel very widely. As such any given group of Non-leonid Sarr will have interacted with many other widely disperse non-leonid sar, such that Non-leonid Sarr in a given geographical region tend to share a single diverse monoculture and a single primary language, which may be either a language unique to the Sarr or adopted or derived from the language of another species. Often it is a variation on the Language used by the Leonid Sarr.
P. On the physiology of Non-leonid sarr. The most common non-leonid Sarr are Leoparids, which resemble big cats such as the Jaguar, Puma, and Leopard. Fur patterns range widely from spots to rosettes to individuals with a solid coat and no markings. Melanistic Sarr are known, and are viewed differently by different Sarr cultures. Some Sarr groupings consider melanistic Sarr to be a sort of good luck symbol, being associated with a goddess of healthy cubs. Leoparid Sarr are roughly midsized, smaller than the Tigirids and Lionids and bigger tan the Cheetah, and Lynx. Subgroups of the Leoparids seem to derive from Smaller hunting cats like Ocelots. Leoparids are not as tall on average as Leonid-Sarr and tend to be closer to human body proportions, with somewhat longer fingers and less developed claws and teeth. Their social groups are fluid, generally containing one male and female with their pre-adult offspring. However it is not uncommon for other adult males or females to join these nuclear groups. Likewise, when siblings reach maturity they often go off together, travelling as a family group for several years as they find mates and territories and disperse. Sarr tend to mate for the duration of the adolescence of their children. Once their children are mature and leave the family group Sarr couples may either part ways to seek other partners or stay together to raise another brood, depending on the preferences of the individuals. Couples that remain together will often adopt additional younger adults into the relationship. Some of these ‘Marriages’ are known to last for intergenerational periods of time, and many Non-leonid sar cultures consider this something of an ideal of family and romance.
Q. Cheetah derived Sarr are perhaps the smallest group of Sarr. They tend to be very long legged and lightly built, being dedicated sprinters. They are notably less intelligent than both humans and Sarr on average. Legends tell of a time when these Sarr were more numerous and apparently much cleverer and more adaptable, but it seems that the species is in severe decline. Cheetah Sarr are the fastest of their breed, with some exceptional individuals able to sprint up to 45 miles an hour for short distances. In many places Cheetah Sarr are found as the slaves or servants of Leonid Sarr or other species. Leonid Sarr may keep them as specialized military troops or exotic entertainments. In many places where Cheetah Sarr are no longer found Kittens will occasionally appear among non-leonid sarr with tufted ears, longer than average legs, or distinctive rosettes indicating some cheetah ancestry. Some legends say that the Cheetahs were once messangers to divine beings, running across the land at their masters behest. When their masters faced grave danger, the Cheetahs were entrusted to seek aid from the five corners of the world. They raced out from the cities of their masters and sought help, but by the time they returned their masters were destroyed and their cities cast down in ruin. The legend goes that the Cheetahs lead their Master’s allies to destroy the assailants of their masters, but in the aftermath of their victory they were so shamed by their failure to defend their masters that they vowed that they would decline as a race and pass out of the world forever more.
R. Lynx derived Sar are notable for a variety of distinctive physiological features.
S. Petty Sarr – In addition to the major Sarr morphs, the Leonid, Tigrid, Leoparid, and Cheetah, there are some forty other felinoid bipeds that can be loosely identified as ‘Sarr’. While some of these morphs are apparently hybrids of the major Sarr races, such as the hybrids of Leonids and Tigirids which are reputed to grow to enormous sizes, others seems to be unique races, many evincing derivation from smaller wild cat populations. For instance, Serval Sarr are known, as well as Caracal Sarr. It is notworthy that many of the minor Sarr are not especially intelligent, comparable to chimpanzees or some of the minor monstrous races. Almost all of the minor Sarr are non-social, living singly or in a mated pair. Groups of minor Sarr are usually a female and her pre-adult young. Some of the minor Sarr are not dedicated bipeds and may shift between bipedal and quadrupedal movement. Some of these creatures are referred to as cat-monkeys by those encountering them for the first time. There are also, rarely, reports of ‘monstrous sarr’, bipedal and apparently intelligent creatures with the features and characteristics of monstrous felinoids. At least one confirmed account exists of a creature that seemed to be a Sarr-like biped, but with the coloration, build, and spiked appendages of a displacer beast. The creature had two legs, four arms with fingers and thumbs, an almost entirely felinoid face, and expressed the displacer’s unique vision distorting defense mechanism until it was killed. The report states that the creature killed many people in a logging region. The attacks were initially blamed on more mundane mountain cats, but as the number of dead increased and the survivors reported glimpses of the creature, many came to believe it was some manner of ghost or demon. Eventually the creature was killed when, having ambushed a small group of loggers, one of the lumber jack’s scored a lucky hit that appears to have crushed one of the creatures knees and caused significant bleeding. When the survivors of the attack sought aid a party of hunter’s and militia, emboldened by the obvious blood trail from the wound, were able to track the creature, eventually treeing it in a tall pine a few miles off the main logging road. The tree was cut down and the creature was killed in the fall. The body was skinned, and the strange, eight limbed pelt is in the possession of the count of that region.
Seriously. If you read all that? Cookies.
Lost_Nation
Artisan
These are very well thought out ideas about the Sarr. The race has always been a little mysterious to me, but then I’ve never reall been a “cat-person” type of person. I’m more of a hairless-pets-in-a-glass-tank kind of guy. Seriously "a" for effort, I really appreciate the thought you're putting into the game.
That being said I have a couple thoughts;
I always thought of Sarr as smaller groups of nomadic or semi-nomadic hunters. I never really felt that slaughtering livestock would satisfy their primal need for the hunt and to stalk their prey.
But then with this being a roleplaying game we can't think of Sarr simply in terms of the behaviors of the "great cats" and we must consider various evolutionary and societal developments. We must also consider that Sarr are different from Wilderkin in that they have no penalties for buying scholarly skills. Even so I don’t really feel that the concept of a Sarr rancher would be the norm for this race. Thought perhaps a particularly crafty or lazy Sarr might well invest in some fencing and some livestock.
Would Sarr offspring be call kittens or cubs?
That being said I have a couple thoughts;
I always thought of Sarr as smaller groups of nomadic or semi-nomadic hunters. I never really felt that slaughtering livestock would satisfy their primal need for the hunt and to stalk their prey.
But then with this being a roleplaying game we can't think of Sarr simply in terms of the behaviors of the "great cats" and we must consider various evolutionary and societal developments. We must also consider that Sarr are different from Wilderkin in that they have no penalties for buying scholarly skills. Even so I don’t really feel that the concept of a Sarr rancher would be the norm for this race. Thought perhaps a particularly crafty or lazy Sarr might well invest in some fencing and some livestock.
Would Sarr offspring be call kittens or cubs?