Feliquine

Picture a lion from the shoulders forward, head, mane and clawed forelegs, grafted onto the hindquarters of a horse. Most feliquines wear a tawny lion coat. Spotted appaloosas appear now and then, some show horse markings like pale manes, white feet or a facial blaze, and solid black ones are rare. They understand commands but follow them only when they please, and only those bonded to a rider are truly tame. They talk among themselves in snarls, purring and posture.

A wild pride, a male or two with several females, hunts as a team: the females drive game toward the male, though any of them can make the kill, and impatient females simply charge prey that will not be herded.

Standing still, a feliquine can lash out with both hind hooves for 2d6 points of damage, but not in a round when it also uses its claws. Wild animals kick only when trapped; mounts learn to use it in war. A ridden feliquine protects its rider yet rarely claws while carrying one. If the rider goes down it fights with tooth and claw, and some have carried badly hurt riders out of danger. Uncanny alertness gives it +1 on surprise rolls.

Prides roam open steppe after mammal prey. Horses, newly brought to the frontier coast, are now a prized meal, as are other herd beasts. Hunger may drive them against goblinoid villages, but they seldom harm humans or demihumans and never touch cat-folk.

A mount begins life wild. Around its first year a beast rider seeks to bond with it, and it may accept or refuse; feliquines bond only with cat-folk and, now and then, elves. Bonded animals live, hunt and eat with the rider's nomadic tribe and are treated well, but they must be turned loose periodically to hunt and breed or they grow unmanageable. Wild pairs raise one or two cubs within the pride, while a bonded feliquine usually has to fight for a wild mate, and its cubs go back to the wild prides.

Strong and clever, feliquines rank among the steppe's apex hunters and wander elsewhere when game grows scarce.