Snow Tiger [Great Cat]

At home in subarctic brushland and chilly highlands, the snow tiger changes coat with the seasons: pale brown with green stripes in spring and summer, fading through fall to white with black stripes. Legends credit it with near-human cunning, but in truth it is simply a large carnivore struggling to survive a harsh land.

In any season it blends in so well that it is treated as concealed, and an attack launched from hiding surprises its target automatically barring other factors. Its own keen senses mean it is never surprised. It can charge at double speed for 1d4 rounds with no attack or damage penalty. It bites and claws, and if both front claws hit in a round, its powerful rear claws rake automatically for 2d4 each.

Usually solitary, snow tigers may travel in mated pairs in spring and summer, with a 25% chance of 1-2 noncombatant cubs. Hill-folk hunters of a cold eastern land sometimes take cubs to raise as hunting companions. Only a cub younger than three months can learn; its trainer needs three consecutive successful animal training checks, rolled a week apart, and any failure resets the count. Older cubs cannot be trained and are usually released.

Its preferred meals are big animals like horses, sheep, mountain goats, and deer, but deep winter may force it to hunt mice, rabbits, and foxes. A rare few learn that humans are easy prey; most avoid people unless starving or cornered.

Found across the cold north and east of a prime world, snow tigers are most common in that eastern land, whose berserkers revere the cat's speed and power, imitate its look and manner, and even keep a snow tiger lodge. Reverence does not stop the hunt: killing one alone, unarmored, with only a broad sword or bow, is a noble sport and a great honor. Snow tiger cloaks mark status there and among certain barbarians; such a cloak is not for sale and may be worn only by the one who made the kill, and impostors are usually attacked by locals who learn the truth. Stories of tigers cunningly luring hunters to their deaths are just stories.