Wemic

A wemic is a creature with the upper body of a humanoid and the lower body of a lion. Like centaurs, they are considered "tauric" creatures. Wemics are found primarily in The Shaar. Wemics are centaurlike creatures with the upper torso of a humanoid atop a lion’s broad shoulders. They are a proud and noble people who may be the most skillful hunters in all Faerûn. From head to rump, wemics are 10 to 12 feet long, and they stand 6 to 7 feet tall from their front paws to the tops of their heads. They weigh around 600 pounds. Dusky golden fur covers them from head to tail. Their tails feature a brush of black hair, and the males have a long black mane. Wemics’ faces are a mixture of humanoid and leonine, and their golden eyes have the slitted pupils of a cat. Their ears are set high on their heads. All six of their limbs end in claws, but the ones on their hands and their front paws are retractable. Wemics remain children for only five years, and live about 40 years on average. Most wemics die in dangerous hunts on the savanna long before age can take them. Wemics have the same life expectancy and age categories as half-orcs.

History
The wemics are a tribal people with no writing skills or interest in recording history. Nature gave the wemics their hunting grounds, so they fight tooth and claw against the civilizations encroaching upon them from all sides. The wemics aren’t evil and don’t want to hurt anyone in particular, but they do want strangers to stay well clear of their hunting grounds and the wemics’ plentiful prey. Small tribes of wemics live in the arid plains of southern Anauroch and the Shining Plains west of Turmish. However, most wemics belong to large, nomadic tribes that roam vast regions of the Shaar. Several times over the last few centuries, Shaaran wemics have formed great hordes to drive off encroaching human settlement, especially along the southern frontiers of Unther and Mulhorand.

Description
Wemics are larger and stronger than humans; a wemic can make great leaps with a running start. Their front claws are sharp, and they can fight with both claws and weapons at the same time. They have keen eye sight and hearing, they can also rake with their back claws, The human part of a wemic has feline characteristics around his or her eyes and ears, and perhaps in the nose and teeth as well. Males are generally represented as having long mane-like hair.

WEMIC CHARACTERS
Close as they are to nature, there are many druids among the wemics. They have no other spellcasters in their tribes, although wemics that have spent some time in the “civilized” world have sometimes picked up levels as various kinds of spellcasters. In any case, the wemic’s favored class is, of course, barbarian.

Outlook
Wemics live in harmony with nature, uncivilized and proud of it. They eschew the ways of civilization, since they can’t see why anyone would ever want to live under a shingled roof when she could have the sky itself as her roof. Wemics are a proud people, usually slow to anger, but they have no patience for civilized folk who take their lack of familiarity with human society for ignorance. Wemics learn to hunt and fight from a very young age. Female wemics do most of the hunting. The males sometimes lead the hunt, but more often they roam the plains, protecting the pride from outside threats. Adventuring wemics sometimes leave their remote homes to see more of the world. They are fascinated by the colorful human merchants who travel through their territory. With civilization creeping closer to their hunting lands every year, some of the more adventurous wemics realize that it’s in the interest of the pride for them to learn everything they can about their neighbors before it is too late.

Society
Wemics are excellent hunters and fighters. They do not make settled homes, but generally follow the herds they hunt for food. A nomadic folk, wemics are often represented as barbaric, illiterate, and uncivilized; they are famous for being highly superstitious. Others would describe Wemics as nature-oriented people with a rich tradition of oral history; they live close to the earth and are in tune with its magical forces. The magical portions of there culture are deeply shamanistic in origin. Life as a wemic is simple. Most of the day is spent playing around, basking in the sun, or hunting for food. In a single pride of wemics, there are usually 1 to 4 males, 2 to 12 females, and 1 to 6 cubs. The cubs are allowed to play freely until they reach 5 years of age, at which point they are brought out on their first hunt to make their first kill. Once they have proven themselves, they are considered adults. In these prides, the males spend the nights patrolling the area, protecting the pride from any threats. They mostly sleep during the day while the females hunt for food. The leader of the pride is the strongest male. When he is eventually challenged and removed from power, he usually wanders off to live alone or join with other males who have left their prides for various reasons. Sometimes prides join together to form a tribe that can defend itself against a threat larger than a single pride could handle. Older wemics eventually slow down too much and are picked off from the pride by predators, much in the same way that a wemic might cull a herd of antelope. This is considered the natural order of things. Some older wemics, realizing that they are slowing down the pride, instead wander into the nearest humanoid community, retiring from the pride but taking up a whole new life elsewhere.

Language
Wemics normally speak Sylvan. Wemics who interact with outsiders pick up Common to hire themselves as guides or scouts in their homelands, or (more often) to warn away settlers or hunting parties trespassing on wemic territory. All wemics are illiterate, except for those with a player character class other than barbarian. When a wemic must be still for a time, telling stories around a fire, pausing for a meal, waiting for a friend, or just to take a brief rest, the Wemic commonly assumes a posture in which his hindquarters rest on the ground as his front legs remain straight and his forepaws stay flat on the earth. This they call sitting. This is different from a Wemic sprawling (both hind and forequarters on the ground, but with torso upright) or laying down.

Subspecies
Mountain wemic: essentially the same build, but the lion portions replaced by those of a large cougar. Mountain wemics are slightly smaller than common wemics and generally solitary.