The Lionesses of Kan

As promised, here is the first of the entries of the world in which my upcoming release The Lioness of Shara Mountain is  set. I’m going to present this a little like an entry in an encyclopaedia, because I’m a nerd. So bear with me.

The Lionesses of Kan​

See also: Lions of Kan, fauna; Kan, Island of

The Lionesses of Kan are four divinely appointed female guardians of the Island of Kan. There is one Lioness per territory of Kan, each having been called to defend their particular region by one of the Four Daughters of Kan. As a Lioness of Kan, the warrior is expected to leave behind all familial and tribal attachments, abandoning even their names. They are referred to only as Lioness, which serves as both a name and title. In the rare occasion the ordinary inhabitants of Kan interact with a Lioness, they will sometimes call her Lady.

Function​

The Lionesses of Kan serve as guardians of the island, against both external and internal threats. Their allegiance is to their patroness, who are responsible for ensuring the island remains in a state of harmonious equilibrium. This means invaders attempting to conquer the island find themselves facing a fierce adversary in the Lionesses. Similarly, an inhabitant of the island who extracts more than what is sustainable will also face the warrior’s wrath. The inhabitants of the island have often been rescued by a Lioness on the warpath, and inhabitants that observe the natural laws of the island and remain in the Daughters’ good graces are left alone. In this way, the Lionesses are both beloved and feared on the island and across the channel, where close familial and trade relations have spread their legend.

First Epoch After the Fall

The first enforcers of the Daughters of Kan, after which The Lionesses of Kan are named, were the legendary lions of Kan (Panthera Immanis), a now extinct megafaunal predator native to the island. The lions became the favoured warriors the Daughters after the Great Fall (see also: First Darkness; Celestial War), when four prides of lions protected the fall sites of the Daughters after their plummet from the celestial realm. It was the lions who nursed the daughters to health following their fiery crash to the earth.

The War of the Lions and the First Lioness

The War of the Lions was the result of the greed of the human inhabitants of Kan. Late to the island compared to the continent, they were unused to such limited resources. Their foolish hunting practices were responsible for the extinction of several megafauna, including the hairy rhinoceros and mammoth.

The Daughters called the lions to battle before the island lost the musk ox, moose and giant red deer. The resulting war lasted the better part of three years, with the Daughters army of lions victorious. The fight restored the balance, but the lions were never able to recover their numbers and went extinct less than a century later.

The first of the Lionesses was Ansa, a child orphaned in the same war, who was carried away by the lions and raised amongst them. She was instructed in warfare, combat as well as medicine by Zoryn, whose spirit is said to reside in the Misty Hills in the south western territory of Kan. With the remaining prides threatened, the other three Daughters also sought to call their sides human replacements for their feline protectors. Each an orphan, and each with a natural talent for combat.

The Krysatli Empire and the Invasion of Kan

Though isolated from the continent by a strait marked by cold, rough seas and frequent storms powered by the island’s proximity to the great land of ice in the north, Kan was not immune to the events on the continent. They were not spared the aggressive imperial expansion of the Krysalti, a people native to the south-central territory of the continent.

Known to be particularly cruel and violent, made worse as the Cult of War came to power, the Krysalti rose to prominence during the Second Darkness. Their aggressive expansion quickly annexed the territory between the channel in the west and the desert marked the edge of the Inura’i Empire in the east.

Unable to make headway against the Inura’i, the Krysalti turned their attention westward, to Kan and the northwest archipelago.

The fierceness of the inhabitants of the island, let alone the Lionesses, was underestimated in the beginning, making the invasion of Kan a lengthy, costly process. The Second Darkness was defeated in the southern continent before the first territory of Kan was successfully annexed. Due to frequent uprisings and wars with the remaining free peoples of the continent, It took a further thousand years before the Krysalti Empire could take the two central territories of Kan, leaving only the northern territory, presided over by Eshta, and her solitary Lioness, free. It has remained free for millennia.