Plains Cat

This big cat is glossy black with a bobbed tail, and males carry white tufts on their ear tips. Its roar is chilling, almost indistinguishable from a human scream.

It hunts at night, nearly invisible in its dark coat, slipping through grass with a 90% chance of perfect silence. The first attack is always a pounce from the darkness, springing as far as 30 feet forward or 25 feet upward. If both forepaws hit, the hind claws rake automatically for 1d4 each; later rounds bring forepaws and bite. Young cats have 2 Hit Dice, leap half as far, and deal half damage. A mother hunting with her litter screams to flush prey into revealing itself to the cubs.

Plains cats are solitary and den in caves by the grasslands; more than one usually means a mother and her young. Litters run one to three, and in the warm grassland domain where most live, two litters a year are possible. A cat seeking a mate calls across miles, and any answer begins a back-and-forth that sounds to the uninitiated like people shrieking in agony.

Most live in one grassland domain of the misty dread realm, with a few in a neighboring land. They prey on wild horses and the odd fool crossing the plains after dark, and are densest in the southwest, where mountain foothills offer caves, though they range all the way to the eastern edge. Locals think a male's white ear tufts bless any stealthy undertaking, and thieves wear braided cat-hair rings for luck. Pelts sell dearly, and fur-trimmed goods are beyond common purses.