[-Isabella-]

To adopt this lion, you must either:
1. Have a founder, be at least level 1, and have enough space to accommodate this lion
2. Or you can adopt this one as your founder!

Well, I've been wanting to do a caribou based lion for a while now, and what better time to do it than winter?

To win this lion tell me what kind of culture they come from, what are some things unique to their family or pride? Do they like those things?

You have a maximum of 750 words.

Code: Select all

Username:
Lion name:
Lion gender:
Pride:
Pride status:
Prompt:

Ends February 9th.

*Medium edit: Antlers

[Kitten-Girl-500]

Username: Kitten-Girl-500
Lion name: Jacinth
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Summitfall Pride
Pride status: Moonfolk
Prompt: mark!!
- comes from a pride of all moonfolk
- holds the moon in reverence
- festivals on the new and full moon of each month
- family lines are important

[Runnersback]

Username: Runnersback
Lion name: Reverie
Lion gender: Female
Pride: Realms of L’Oasis Lo
Pride status: Sailor of the Privateers Fear
Prompt: [/750]

“My culture isn’t your costume!!!” The caribou lioness hissed.

[beebun]

Username: Coraly
Lion name: tarandrus "taran"
Lion gender: cismale
Pride: pride of northern lights
Pride status: hunter
Prompt:
mark.
some notes for me to elaborate on later;

- old pride migrated every winter. he hated it.
- old pride was very violent
- you had to fight in order to gain your way up the ranks
- everything was decided on your fights; feelings didn't matter

[Meowdle]

Username:
Meowdle

Lion name:
Artemis (Artie, for short)

Lion gender:
Male

Pride:
Kingdom of Thorns

Pride status:
Hunter

Prompt:

Artie was born in a strange era for someone of his appearance. At the time, the land had already been barren and essentially dead for years. Prey was and still is scarce, and so the appearance of any antlered animal was a shock. Of course, Artie isn't a prey animal, but he has the appearance of one. The culture he was born into was already a culture obsessed with food -- especially large food. Sure, he has never been at any real threat of being eaten by his fellow pridemates. However, if they see him in their peripheral vision, they sometimes perk up in excitement before being let down in realizing that it's only another lion. For obvious reasons, this makes Arte feel uncomfortable. To even be briefly considered as a food item is certainly not a relieving feeling.

His pride’s obsession with food doesn't end with this. Any amount of prey, no matter how scrawny, drives his older pridemates crazy. They’d hardly be able to contain themselves long enough to let the King have the first pick, after which everything else would be devoured in mere seconds. The younger generation -- Artie’s peers -- are much less ravenous… perhaps they are just used to starving. The older pridemates had been alive before the disappearance of the prey, and so they seem to desperately cling to their memories of plentiful food. Artie, on the other paw, sees this as ridiculous. He believes that food would be best served equally and that it should be rationed. For everyone to eat at least something would be better than a few lions eating nearly everything and leaving just the bones for those not quick enough, after all. Because of the competition for food, many from the younger generation -- including Artie himself -- mainly hunt for themselves before providing for the rest. The way he sees it, he does this not as an act of selfishness but an act of necessity. A subservient tom by nature, he doesn’t fight his older pridemates in their stubbornness to change. Instead of waiting for change, he often goes off by himself to hunt, keeping his measly prey to himself and eating it before returning to camp to hunt for the rest of the pride.

[Galeslash7]

Username: MacawWildGirl
Lion name: ResoundingDeep
Lion gender: Male
Pride: Ndege Pride
Pride status: Flock Guard
Prompt:
ResoundingDeep had traveled for many miles and for many days to get away from his old culture and life. It was so uptight and boring, ResoundingDeep wanted more from his life. He wanted to be unique. Different. Not all stiff and the same as everyone else. That is why he fled the area and chose to live with the Ndege.

There was one thing, however, that he loved about his culture, because of its uniqueness. It was an old tradition that happened once a flake-fall and celebrated the last of the flakes (snow). This tradition was Mchoro Wa Sikio, Swahili for the Painting of the Ear. This tradition often had feasts, large hunts, and dances to along with it and was the one happy time in his old life. The Painting of the Ear festival is the one thing he always wanted to continue, no matter what happened.

The Painting of the Ear involves days and weeks of planning, as the individual decides what they will design inside their ear. They choose various materials such as: bug guts, crushed flowers, grinded deer antlers, slime, goo, or anything else one could find. Some lions did simple designs that has special meaning to them, or some did the most intricate and beautiful designs a lion could do.

ResoundingDeep was one of the ones who would do beautiful and intricate designs. He would spend weeks planning and overthinking, until the day before the Painting of the Ear. The night before, everyone would stay up all night and paint the inside of their ears. It was considered horrible luck if paint touched any part other than the inside of the ear, even the outside off the ear. ResoundingDeep would spend all night, painstakingly painting scenes step by step. He would create scenes of snow and fun, of diversity and differences. Everything his life at the time did not have.

In the morning, everyone would show their ears and everyone would admire them. Usually, the ears were also how the young lionesses attracted mates. The males were drawn to the beauty of the lioness' ears and skills. But ResoundingDeep was different. He was a skilled male and was not interested in using his skills to draw in a mate. It felt like cheating. For all these reasons and more, he left.

But ResoundingDeep still wanted to continue the tradition even in his new Pride, Ndege. All every flake-fall he paints beautiful scenes in his ears and is proud of his differences. He may be the only lion who does this anymore, but he is proud of the work put into his art to make it such a wonderful sight to those who see it.

{450 words}

[-Isabella-]

Extending this comp to February 11th, 9 p.m EST.

[Clementine Cloud]

Username: Clementine Cloud
Lion name: Steadfast
Lion gender: Male
Pride: The Forgotten Vale
Pride status: Resident and Defender of the Vale
Prompt: [726/750]
Steadfast’s old pride was one of competition. Everyone fought and sparred and trained to become the best. The strongest. The males would battle it out almost every day in the training fields, often with the lionesses and younger members of the pride watching on in awe. If they weren’t training they were boasting, each telling stories of how they defeated each other in the most outrageous manners. Or they were tending to their antlers, you see in this pride, both the lions and lionesses grew antlers, but the lion’s antlers typically grew larger and were viewed as a status symbol. In this pride how big and impressive your antlers were, and how strong and good you were at sparring were the only things that really mattered. It was all vanity. Vanity among the fighters, the lionesses who fawned over them, and the cubs who idolized them. Even those with regular jobs within the pride couldn’t stop thinking and talking about when the next big sparring matches were and who they rooted for. That was their culture. Even the lions far beyond their youthful strength would share stories and mentor their favored “champions” in order to extend their legacy.

Steadfast was once like these, he fought and he trained to become the strongest and best fighter he could. It’s what he was told he would do since he was a cub, it’s what all of his “friends” did, it’s what everyone wanted for him. And so he did. But, he was no champion. In his pride, Steadfast was middle-of-the-road in every single aspect. He wasn’t ridiculed like the weakest, and he was strong enough to remain part of the fighter’s groups, but among them, he was little more than a training dummy. Steadfast often grew tired of the monotony that was his life there, every day was all the same. When you’re not particularly good at the one thing people cared about, but not bad enough to be excluded completely, you’re just stuck. Stuck in the middle of the road.

The strangest part about this culture of fighting and training, at least, In Steadfast’s mind, was that they only ever fought each-other. Even in the tales of old that the elder lions would tell, all of their great victories and defeats, were among other lions just like themselves. Sometimes they were from other groups or subgroups, but their cultures were nearly identical between them, the only difference was in location. And of all of these stories of great battles, the only thing that ever started the fight was one side boasting or challenging the other because they thought themselves the strongest. It was just the same as the one-on-one sparring they did within his pride, just slightly larger scale. The only thing they ever seemed to defend was their own ego. Steadfast was disappointed in the overwhelming vanity of his entire pride, but looked for the best in them, perhaps they had just been lucky in that they’d never really had to defend their pride against an actual threat. But that luck soon ran out.

It was chaos. When they attacked it was sudden, but not so sudden that his pride was completely scattered. Or at least, that's not what should have happened. The rival pride was organized, they worked together in their attack, but they weren’t so great that Steadfast’s pride couldn’t defend against them. But all Steadfast’s pride did was run. Of all the fighters, the strongest members of the pride, their “Champions,” not a single one of them stood their ground and fought. They all fled, leaving the weak and slow in their dust, they only cared about themselves. All of that training, all of that preparation, and what was it for? Steadfast tried to stand up against the invaders, but he was alone. He was outnumbered. If even just a few of the other fighters had stood with him, they could have been strong and defended the pride. But he was alone. He had no choice but to flee as well, he couldn’t protect everyone by himself, and as he ran, he thought about his pride and just how sad their fate was, and he made a promise to himself that from then on he would be strong not just for himself, but for others. Because true strength is when you stand together.

[snapshot]

Username: snapshot
Lion name: North
Lion gender: female
Pride: Ngozi
Pride status: Tracker
Prompt:

The Pride of Antlers is where North was born. They are a group known for their resemblance to caribou, and they greatly value that piece of who they are. The ways of the caribou are woven throughout the various aspects of pride life. Their competitions are not fought with teeth and claws, but with posturing and sparring with their antlers. Their calls are less like a roar and more like a bellow.

The Antlers do not eat the caribou. In fact, they are instead shepherds of the caribou populations native to their territory. It is considered a great honor to be selected as one of the lions who watches over and defends the herds. A herder must be strong and swift and always vigilant, able to fight off predators both big and small that threaten the herds. Herders must practice several forms of combat: the traditional antler-sparring that is common within the pride, as well as the use of teeth and claws that would be better suited for fending off wolves.

Another rank among the herders is the rank of tracker. Trackers are lions who are tasked with finding caribou who have gone astray and need to be guided back to the herd, as well as locating the migrating herds that travel in and out of the Antlers' territory. They also find sources of food and water for the herds and the pride.

North has chosen to leave her pride (though perhaps only temporarily) in order to explore what the rest of the world has to offer. The more she travels, the more she has grown to appreciate the way her pride stewards the caribou. She has found that it is rare that predators chose to protect populations of prey animals, and she views her pride's traditions as a way of giving back to the land.

[306/750]

[-Isabella-]

Username: snapshot
Lion name: North
Lion gender: female
Pride: Ngozi
Pride status: Tracker
Prompt:

The Pride of Antlers is where North was born. They are a group known for their resemblance to caribou, and they greatly value that piece of who they are. The ways of the caribou are woven throughout the various aspects of pride life. Their competitions are not fought with teeth and claws, but with posturing and sparring with their antlers. Their calls are less like a roar and more like a bellow.

The Antlers do not eat the caribou. In fact, they are instead shepherds of the caribou populations native to their territory. It is considered a great honor to be selected as one of the lions who watches over and defends the herds. A herder must be strong and swift and always vigilant, able to fight off predators both big and small that threaten the herds. Herders must practice several forms of combat: the traditional antler-sparring that is common within the pride, as well as the use of teeth and claws that would be better suited for fending off wolves.

Another rank among the herders is the rank of tracker. Trackers are lions who are tasked with finding caribou who have gone astray and need to be guided back to the herd, as well as locating the migrating herds that travel in and out of the Antlers' territory. They also find sources of food and water for the herds and the pride.

North has chosen to leave her pride (though perhaps only temporarily) in order to explore what the rest of the world has to offer. The more she travels, the more she has grown to appreciate the way her pride stewards the caribou. She has found that it is rare that predators chose to protect populations of prey animals, and she views her pride's traditions as a way of giving back to the land.

[306/750]

Winner!