When cubs are born on the night of an eclipsed moon, celebrations are put into place to commemorate the remarkable occasion. Even when their births are planned to be on such an event, it seldom truly occurs.
That rare night, a litter was born - one of strictly females. The lioness that bore the cubs and the sire were simply lowly travelers, that of which belonged to no pride. The daughters inherited their father’s mutation, they were mighty primals.

Unbeknownst to the traveling couple at the time, that small, blind, mewling pile of fur would bring about a great new era to their lands. But for now, they had to hide and protect their vulnerable offspring. Shamans would seek out their eclipsed cubs, killing them, seeing them as nothing but bad omens and curses.

For their early cubhood, Soleil and the rest of her sisters were confined securely to the hip of their mother. Their upbringing could be described as a rather graceful and peaceful one.
They blossomed into the years of their early adulthood like beautiful flowers of the field. Their days of play fighting and vulnerability were over. The sisters banded up and left their parents, through teary good-byes and reluctant last looks. Such an event was obligatory - it’s something all must go through to even step on the path of maturity.

Soleil’s band grew into respectable lionesses. Many local coalitions had their endeavors at vying for their paws, all of which were in vain. Soleil was never particularly interested, much less than her sisters, at least.

Oftentimes, as Soleil grew, she found herself distancing herself from her siblings. It was strange, she’d never thought she’d do that, but something about it felt right. Maybe she was made to be on her own, especially on the day the sisters were finally convinced to pair up with a coalition.. An odd one. Something was off about these lions.. There was something.. wrong. Whenever Soleil raised her snout to catch a whiff of them, all she could smell was the scent of distrust, disloyalty, as if there were dark intentions laying deeply beyond their gaze. For this, she chose to stay away from them as they paired up.

The fateful morning arrived, the morning the stench of blood met the cool morning air. The blood of the sisters, that was.
Their newly paired coalition wasn't a coalition at all. They were simply deceitful shamans, gone under the guise of protective males, on a deadset mission to kill the eclipsed lionesses. For the most part, they were successful. The band of sisters had been dispatched as a result of their attacks, apart from Soleil. The act of her separation seemed like divine intervention. If she took part in that pairing.. She too would’ve been killed. She would’ve joined her sisters in the ground.

Soleil had barely any time to grieve; she needed to get far away from the shamans. She fled from her homeland, and unknowingly into rival pride territory. Unbeknownst to her, a shaman had caught up to her in her slumber, and relentlessly attacked without second thought.
The attacker easily had the advantage, or so he believed. Soleil reciprocated with twice his strength, feasibly overcoming and defeating the shaman, but she wasn’t let off unscathed. She suffered deep gashes across her body, eventually fainting from the blood loss.

Soleil woke up, laid across soft bedding - her wounds patched up with medicinal herbs. The elders of this strange pride had taken her in and cared for her… but why?
She sourced the king of the pride, a large, elderly primal. His face was dappled with old battle scars. She could tell his eyes had seen many days.
Soleil questioned him, asking him why his pride had saved her. It was through their conversation that she discovered this king was a fellow eclipsed cub, and that he could simply distinguish such lions, making his pride a haven from murderous shamans. Soleil didn’t know why, but she felt safe with this king, as if he was a parent or an older littermate. Their features did have their similarities, after all.

After the king passed away, his court came to Soleil, explaining that he in fact was her elder brother and that he didn’t want her to know until after his passing. It was then that Soleil found out that her traveling parents sired the rulers of all the prides encompassing their land, all of which were eclipsed cubs. Since Soleil was a part of such royalty, they granted her the grace of leading her elder brother’s pride.

She declined, explaining how she wanted to start her own. She then took a handful of lions from her brother’s pride, and with them, her pride expanded and grew exponentially, becoming a more prosperous one than ever seen before in the lands. She welcomed any eclipsed lions into her pride, especially any with the possibility of being her littermate. Her pride became set into place next to her sibling’s surrounding prides in the lands.

Among every lion that joined her pride, two had stucken out - Ember and Jupiter, lions that were born the day of a solar eclipse rather than a lunar eclipse. They had joined the pride in seeking refuge from a local famine. The two had gotten close to the queen, and they became a strong trio, regardless of Ember and Jupiter’s lack of royal heritage.
It wasn’t long before the pride would welcome their first ever hybrid - Iris. She was truly a lioness to be treasured. She was a rarity, and a beauty. Her presence in the pride alone simply encouraged mutation diversity. As more mutations were welcomed in Soleil’s pride, they eventually made appearances among the other prides, too.

Soleil continued to look after her pride, doing everything in her power to maintain the wellbeing of her beloved pridemates.
The lands that these prides belong to have always been prosperous ones, and will remain that way, as long as there’s rulers like Soleil.

Somewhere amidst the plains, the plateaus stand tall. Though it seems nothing more than just steppe, their presence is undeniable. In legend, the plateaus watch over everything they see. Their morning songs, portrayed in gusts of wind or the lights of the dawn never fail to accompany the presence of life within them. A land of endless grasslands can exist only because of them. It’s a sign of great power and importance to be on this plateau. This is what the lions hold close to their hearts.

Not many know when it truly began, the presence of the pride in these highlands. Others will turn to the ever famous tale of an unnamed prince.
His life was just short of ordinary. Born to a jungle pride and subjected to the grueling task of becoming heir and uplifting the duties his father bore on his back. There was not a lion in the pride whose paws weren’t worn out. Even when he was a little cub, so much was expected from him. Why did the pride live like this? He wasn’t sure. Their extreme lifestyle may have been adapted through their extreme environment. A savannah would have been preferred, though one can only grumble.
When his father tasted the sweet relief of death, he took the crown. He yearned to alleviate his family from the burdening jungle lifestyle, and he did just that with the first ever migration the pride had seen.
Along the journey, many were lost to the grip of death, either through the exhaustion that primarily affected the elderly, or starvation. Maybe it was better that way. He couldn’t promise a better life, but he could surely try to look for one.
The pride thinned by the day. The remaining lions grumbled and groaned, blaming him for their losses. “Why leave our old home?” “At least we were surviving,” they would pester him.
Regardless of his ears ringing from complaints and his tired paws, he pursued on. By the time he reached the ever-known breathing plateaus, only a handful of faithful lions remained. With them by his side, they clawed away at soft deposits of soil in the sides of the plateaus, forming lengthy yet sturdy overlapping tunnels.
From then on, the lions haven’t given a thought about leaving their new paradisiac home. The tunnels provided solace from the great thunders and heatwaves. The cubs born into the pride after this time regarded their home as nothing short of perfect. With that, they expanded rapidly, their numbers larger than ever before.
The prince had many sons and daughters born to him. The tunnels were filled with his offspring, and his heart was filled with love for them. Some say he loved his cubs just as much as the sun and the moon love the stars.
When death beckoned him as his bones grew weak and his body bore the gripes of life, he succumbed to the afterlife. A great honor was given to him thereafter. His body may now only be a part of the grass, but his spirit was said to be a part of the plateaus, living with his pride forever.

It starts with the tale of the two queens, Valory and Lola - both alike in dignity and royalty, but separate in duty. Queen Valory conducted the hunts, and Lola nursed the cubs to safety. King Reffy’s favor was certainly not divided unfairly among them, he held both of his queens near to his heart. To express his benevolence, he instituted two households, each one taking on the name and duty of each wife. King Reffy intended for these two households to live within the pride for the generations to come - Household Valory, and Household Lola. The former shaped up to be a very powerful and influential household, mostly where hunts are planned and executed. The latter was less of an influence, as it was the center of broodmothers in the pride, though its importance still stood regardless.

A descendant of the Lola household, Lola Urri, soon found herself in a predicament with the evil second king, Phoenix. Help from Household Valory would be preferable in a case like hers, in which she was planning an uprising. Though she soon found out that her small, yet sturdy, band of broodmothers was sufficient in dethroning the iron paw.
Lola Urri was greatly praised for her victory, and was regarded highly by her pridemates. With the position of king now vacant, the pride turned to her to decide who was going to don the role under her watchful eye. Ravana, a young male, was particularly ambitious when it came to leadership. Lola Urri knew she would have to be careful about her next choice, but luckily, seldom anyone had anything negative to say about Ravana. He sent his daughter, Shallow, to talk to Lola Urri concerning his possibilities of kingship. The pride, with Lola Urri’s approval, came to a consensus and Ravana was crowned, where he would lead under Lola Urri's guidance.

Worries of the future prompted Shallow and Lola Urri to seek out a way to ensure the safeguarding of future generations. Lola Urri especially did not want the possibility of another tyrant taking control of the pride, so the two sought out higher powers. On their journey they were enlightened by the many shamans and elders of other prides of the goddess who resides in the Frozen Pond, a dimension in which the souls of the lions can prevail forever whilst also being able to interact with their previous worldly home. Lola Urri and Shallow, with the help of this goddess, were promised entry to this dimension upon death, from where they would be able to guide and control their beloved pride forever.
With the guidance of those in the Frozen Pond Council, the pride would enter an era of peace and prosperity that would span years. The beloved King Erwan and Smitta would lead the pride during these years, contributing greatly to the peace and quiet.
As Smitta marked old, many of the lionesses were anxious about the future heir, a smilus, fearing his potentially ferocious nature greatly.

Generations would pass. The queen Valory Ritter, who had lived her whole life without a speck of hatred towards anyone, was growing old. Her granddaughter, Valory Lor, noticed her grandmother's increasing elderhood. It sparked anxiety in the young lioness as she came to the realization that she would bear the same fate of inability to help her pride in her older years. Because of this, Valory Lor longed to join the immortal Frozen Pond Council to avert her future yet inevitable death, but such an action would likely not be free of repercussions. In most cases souls would gain entry to the Frozen Pond upon death if granted by the goddess, but a living lion entering the dimension was unheard of. Valory Lor feared it would tear the fabric between the two realms, destroying the pride in the process. Even if she were to cross over successfully, Valory Lor was without cubs, meaning the Valory Household line would end there, cutting off the legendary huntresses that had been a part of the pride for generations. She was unsure what to do.

The Sultan Pride.
Feasibly the most feared forces of claws and teeth in the entirety of their reserve. These savages will stop at nothing to feel the sensation of blood-painted muzzles and dripping claws.
What sets the fierce Sultans apart from the other barbarous prides? Their notorious thirst for the blood and flesh of man. They are the bane of poachers, inspired by the spirits of their ancestors to hunt down and kill any man who dares to carry his weapon into their lands. He will surely be ripped apart, and his skull will be hung for all to see. A warning sign.

It’s tragic what happened to the ancestors of the Sultans. Their abundant food sources were poached to a pulp.
The coalition of males leading the pride at that time died out gradually as a result of starvation. The lands were so barren of food, that their huntresses could not succeed in making a kill.
The pride was ultimately unable to make decisions without their leaders. Many disputes and bloody fights ensued, some of which led to mothers killing their own young in desperation for the absence of competition. Those who had otherwise fled had no other choice, but to resort to eating their own in order to survive.

It’s the fault of the poachers, that the cubs they bore didn’t receive a chance to grow, to learn, to find their own mates, or to start their own pride.
It wasn’t fair. Their cubs were the epitome of innocence, they shouldn’t have had to suffer. If the lion’s stomachs were satisfied, if their pridemates had not been killed for their pelts, they never would’ve thought about needing to kill or eat one another to survive. The poachers were to blame.
But man kept on killing, and killing, and killing. He spared no one; he destroyed everything in his path.

Those of whom survived the poachers eventually gave birth to the savages that would fill the land thereafter. They would bring the vengeance against man that their ancestors could not. They were the beginnings of the true Sultan pride.

The torture the ancestors went through was unfortunate, inhumane. Perhaps it was necessary, though, in order to start the savage beginnings of the maneaters. Without them, man would be hampering around unscathed. That couldn’t happen, now, could it? They needed consequence for their actions, their actions against the Great Mother, the ancestors, their actions against the innocent lifeforms victim to their greed.
The Sultan pride would make sure of it, that no man who dares to disrupt their lives will live. His bones will be chew toys for their cubs, his flesh will satisfy the hunger of the pride.
Now, the poachers do not dare step into the territory they once ruled, and it will stay that way, as long as the man-eating lions are around.