The great cats and their place in the story

"What's that son?  You just saw a cat the size of a horse?

I can't tell you how many time I have heard people unfamiliar with the mountains make those statements.  Let me start by explaining about the the forest cats, we can build up to the larger cousins the hill cats and mountain cats as we go along.

Forest cats area beautiful race of cats, sleek of fur and shiny black.  They are a bit slimmer than your hunting dog, but almost of a size.  The amazing part is that they weigh a good bit more than your hunting dog, and in some cases twice as much.  They come up about mid thigh on the average man when on all fours and are a holy terror when defending themselves.  The cats are fairly intelligent or so I have heard, but thankfully have never witnessed.  One of the most beautiful sights described to me by a hunter was of the sleek black cat darting between the tree trunks in the forest.

Now the hill cats are about twice the size of their forest cousins, and have grey fur.  These cats are very agile, and appear to have a very high pain tolerance.  One of the hunters once said that it took three men to take one of these large cats down, and even then only on man survived.  They are amazingly quick and strong.  Their primary source of food in the hills are the wild sheep, although I have heard that on occasion one will wander into a small village or a farmstead and take a child or two.

The mountain cats, now that is an interesting cat.  They are the size of a horse, and can eat an entire horse at one sitting.  I have noticed that amongst the mountain cats, there is no consistent fur color, it varies from cat to cat. Interesting part is that in the southern mountains there is a tribe of people that have actually trained the cats like we train our horses, and as such they ride them from place to place.

Out of all three cats, the mountain cats are the least aggressive for some reason, while the forest cats are the most aggressive. If I didn't know any better I would say that their size determines how likely they are to attack you, at the same time I would walk up to a mountain cat and try to put it."

Author Unknown, found on a scrap of cloth in a cave in the northern foothills.
Items found with note: Bones, apparently human
                                  A Broken Spear
                                  A bent sword
                                  What appears to have once been the hide of a hill cat
I do believe he was the third hunter to face the hill cat and apparently he did not survive.
   Sir Malaross Head Lore Seeker