Tharban

Eye-catching and relentless, tharbans are cunning predators whose endurance hunting tactics make them formidable foes.

Distribution and Habitat

Tharban were once found in forests and shrublands across Kumari and Nibiru. After the planet stopped rotating, and competition for territory and prey on the Hel-side of the planet grew fiercer, tharbans gradually found themselves out-competed by psyers in many regions, and the Scree'reh in The Hunting Grounds. There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting of a wild tharban on Nibiru in nearly a century. Remaining populations are primarily found on Kumari. A sizable population of them can still be found in both Syllva Cirros, The Frozen Jungle and The Dark Wood, where they seem to have established a firm foothold against even the fiercest of competitors.

Characteristics

Though they superficially resemble cats, tharban are most accurately compared, in earth-terms, to endothermic therapsids. Tharbans are long-legged and lanky, with adults potentially reaching 6 feet (1 ya/1.8 meters) in length. Their feet are composed of three-toed claws, which tharbans use to climb and to gasp their prey. They have long, thick-furred tails that sometimes end in a tuft. A stiff mane of bristly hairs runs from the base of their skulls to just behind their shoulders. Most strikingly, though, tharbans are covered in fur, and have a distinct bright red-and-white coat pattern. This has earned them the nickname (presumably from some human source) of “peppermint tigers.” Under the fur, their hide is very thick, and their underbellies are covered by layers of tough scutes, belying their reptilian ancestry. Tharbans can open their jaws nearly 140 degrees, and bite down with considerable force. Their teeth are specialized for tearing and shearing rather than crushing, and grow continually throughout their lives.

Ecology and Behavior

Tharbans are highly social animals, and spend their lives in permanent packs; finding a solitary tharban is extremely rare, and usually indicative of an animal who has lost its pack. These seldom last long, unless they can integrate themselves into a new group. Packs can range in size from 5 to 25 individuals, and males and females have their own individual dominance hierarchies usually dictated by age. New packs are typically formed when one group grows too large or the ratio of males to females is too skewed. Tharbans are ostensibly carnivores, but can digest certain fruits and plants, and have been known to “graze” on the plants of Syllva Cirros from time to time, though this behavior hasn’t been observed in the Dark Wood yet. Tharbans typically hunt larger animals, and draw no distinction between predator and prey as far as their diet goes. What makes tharbans particularly dangerous is their cooperation and sheer endurance. Some measure of stealth is typically used in approaching prey, but their primary strategy is to run their prey down over long distances and periods of time, using their long jaws to tear out large chunks of flesh as they do. Tharbans have been known to pursue prey in a pitched chase for over two hours over the course of several miles. They use harrying hit-and-run attacks against prey that chooses to stand and fight, alternating between members of the pack. A group of tharbans working in tandem is a machine. Young are raised communally and are fiercely defended. Injured or sick tharbans are also cared for by the pack until they make their recovery. Tharbans typically den underground, and seem to have managed it despite the challenges of their new, permanently-cold homes, and tharban dens are rarely ever completely without some member of the pack nearby.

Utility

Tharbans can be very dangerous when they feel threatened, but they do not see most sentient species as prey unless circumstances are very dire--which is to say, even more dire than the baseline in their current habitats. They are also not particularly afraid of sentient species, and have been known to harry and hunt livestock. Typically, they only attack when they feel threatened, or when someone has wandered too close to their dens. Efforts to exploit their social bonds have been met with limited success. No long-scale domestication efforts have been attempted, but on occasion, a lone tharban may choose a person as its surrogate pack. Tharban pups that are raised by humans can be socialized from an early age to make effective guard animals, but they are still large and dangerous wild animals who require work and skill to handle. There is some demand for their beautiful pelts, but as the interest is usually small-scale and the result of the whims of some eccentric aristocrat or other, no large-scale hunting operations have ever achieved a foothold. Denizens of the Dark Wood and Syllva Cirros have enough trouble just surviving, after all.