Sea of Grass: History and Rumors
For a long time, this region of the island has been the realm of the liontaurs, a noble race of creatures that are half-man and half-lion and who have a deep respect for nature. The lion clans are nomadic, and tribes of liontaurs travel across the savannas as they hunt for their daily needs. Their lives revolve around the hunt, and in the liontaur language, the words for 'life' and the word for 'hunt' are identical.
These creatures are a proud and noble race who place great social value on hunting and fighting skills, but they are also very vain regarding appearance. As proud warriors, they disdain wearing armor and will never wear metal armor, preferring to fight the way nature intended them to fight: with spear and claw. Besides hunting and engaging in feats of strength with each other, there is little else that can hold the attention of a liontaur for too long. They have no written history, nor have they ever shown an interest in writing. They consider voice and songs to be sufficient for telling tales and have a developed oral tradition'though it cannot rival that of the centaurs.
They are typically distrustful of anyone who is not of their own kind, though over the years they have developed a deep respect for the centaurs with whom they share the island. The centaurs are very protective of their leonine cousins and their pure way of living and protect Veapra's shores from human intrusion so they can continue to live that way.
Liontaurs are always seen carrying a few spears and a short bow. These are the weapons of the hunt, and these are the only weapons, apart from their claws, with which a liontaur will kill prey. Their aversion to metal is well noted, and it is rare to see them using the metal-tipped spears of arrows that the centaurs and satyrs often favor.
Liontaur ceremonies usually revolve around ritual hunting, especially as a mark of adulthood for a young liontaur. When the young liontaur reaches the threshold of adulthood, the shamans of the clans come forward and send him or her on a hunt to some remote place on the island where both strength and endurance will be truly tested. If a liontaur returns from this hunt successfully, he is given his first tattoo.
Liontaurs proudly display their tattoos and every year they come together for a great series of contests of strength. Here liontaurs are able to earn the honor of bearing more tattoos, each representing a particular victory. It is also at these contests that many positions or responsibilities important to the clans are reassigned, usually to the victors.
