A majestic hybrid creature stands poised for action, its form a seamless fusion of wolf, lion, and dragon. Black fur streaked with silver flows into shimmering green and iridescent blue scales, its powerful frame radiating strength. Draconic feet grip the earth, a long spiked tail sways behind, and vast blue wings extend from its back, ready to carry it skyward. Its left hand is a formidable wolf’s paw, the right that of a lion, each clawed and deadly. Swirling, ever-shifting eyes—amber, green, blue, red, and white—gleam with fierce intelligence. A wolf’s muzzle lined with dragon’s teeth gives it a fearsome presence, while lion’s ears and caramel-colored horns curving slightly at the tips complete its regal visage. Strapped across its back, two swords await their call to battle—one glowing with golden light, its circular hilt radiating power, the other a silver blade etched with sun and moon symbols, its ornate grip gleaming in the sun. The creature stands beneath a brilliant sky, the sun casting golden rays over the lush trees behind it and the endless blue ocean stretching beyond the sandy shore. Strength, mystery, and primal majesty intertwine in its presence—guardian of the wilds, ruler of the unseen, and force of untamed legend.

Tiger

The largest cat, individually fingerprinted — territorial by instinct and social by choice.

Overview

Tigers are the largest of the cats, and the most individually identifiable — the striping is unique to each one, functioning much like a fingerprint.

They are considerably more social than the wild animal is. The territorial instinct is real and it is theirs, but it is an instinct rather than a rule, and a tiger can decline to act on it.

Physical traits

Heavily muscled through the forequarters, built for short explosive ambush rather than pursuit.

The striping is unique per individual and pigmented into the skin as well as the fur — a shaved tiger is still striped. Camouflage is its purpose: tigers are orange because deer and boar are dichromatic and cannot distinguish orange from green, so against foliage a tiger reads as effectively invisible to the animals that most need to see it.

Tigers roar, and also chuff — a soft breathy sound used as a close-range greeting.

Magic

The species fixes nothing. Some tigers are tied to magic heavily and some barely at all, and what form it takes is their own.

The sacred are the exception, and they are a breed rather than a species trait.

Shared instincts

Tigers are territorial by instinct, and they are unusually easy in water — they cross rivers by choice and will cool off in water for hours in hot weather, which sets them apart from nearly every other cat.

Both are instincts rather than temperament, and a tiger may act against either.

Nothing about disposition follows from the species. The maternal register sometimes attributed to tigers is individual — some tigers carry it and many do not.

Lineage

Tigers interbreed with lions, as the animals do, and with feliry, whose biology is close enough to allow it.

Where the name comes from

The tiger (Panthera tigris) ranges in fragmented populations across South and Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East, with the Siberian and Bengal lineages reaching 300 kg. In the wild most hunts fail and a tiger will often go a week between kills.

The reputation for aggression is largely undeserved. Wild tigers avoid humans where they can, and the animals that do not are typically injured or elderly.

Breeds

The sacred — the white tigers — are the one tiger breed that is not simply a natural subspecies, and they are not what white tigers are in the wild.

Field notes

Individual striping, colouring, size and magic belong on each member’s own page.

Shared traits

Size
The largest of the cats; males 200–300 kg depending on lineage
Stripes
Unique to each individual, and pigmented into the skin as well as the fur
Territory
A real instinct, and one a tiger can decline to act on
Water
Swims readily and well, unlike most cats
Magic
Individual; nothing is fixed by the species
Breeds
The natural subspecies, plus the sacred

Breeds

  • The Sacred

    The white tigers — deeply tied to the spiritual affinities, and resistant to a great deal of magic.

Members

  • Valethyn

    A morphic tigress who is easier to open up to than she finds it to open up.