Wemic

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the wemic is a monster with the upper body of a humanoid and the lower body of a lion. Like centaurs, they are considered "tauric" creatures.

Description
Wemics are larger and stronger than humans; a wemic can leap up to 50 feet with a running start. Their front claws are sharp, and they can fight with both claws and weapons at the same time. Some gamers have suggested that they are keen of eye and ear, that they can roar, that they can rake with their back claws, and so on, but these options are not universally used in most role-playing games. 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.

Society
Wemics are excellent hunters and fighters. They do not make settled homes, but generally follow the herds they hunt for food. Some have compared them with the aboriginal people of the central plains of North America. A nomadic, stone-age 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.

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
Wemics entered the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons in the accessory Monsters of Faerûn, which also introduced the 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.

Wemics in the Forgotten Realms
Wemics appear in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. They inhabit the vast African savanna-like grassland known as the Shaar, waging war with the loxos, thri-kreen and centaurs who also dwell there.

Creative origins
David C. Sutherland III, the artist who painted the covers of the first edition Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide, created the modern-day wemic for a game product called Monster Cards Set 3, a first edition Dungeons and Dragons supplement released in 1982.

Wemics in other systems
Wemics are a player race in Maelstrom, a UK based live action roleplaying game. However, in this system they appear as highly cultured, bipedal felines, rather than quadrupeds.

Wemics in the Maelstom game-world are divided into two cultural groups - those from Amun-Sa and those from Tritoni, although some also reside in the Free Islands. This said, individuals or small prides of Wemics are still found all over the Known World.

A creature similar to the Dungeons and Dragons monster, called a Liontaur, appears in the 1992 Sierra Entertainment Quest for Glory III computer role-playing game. It first appeared in Quest for Glory II as a single character, before making its appearance as an entire tribe of such creatures. A similar creature appeared in Quest for Glory I, called the Cheetaur. It resembled a Wemic, but with the skin coloration and appearance of a black panther. The Cheetaur was more bestial than its Liontaur cousins, being little more than a rampaging monster.