Torak

The Toraks are a nearly extinct half-human half-tiger race driven from their homeland, the isle of Yokai by a necromancer looking to create an army of zombies to replenish his ranks with fresh zombies.

Biology and appearance
The Toraks are a half human half tiger race coming forth from the Therian creation. They have the great hearing, smelling, strength and eyesight of the tiger but also have hands of the human atonomy with sharp strong claws as nails. Toraks, just as any other subspecies of the Therians, reach physical adult size and strength at the age of fourteen and mentally at the age of 25. Their bodily growth halts at the age of fourteen until the age of 30 at which point the body ages at the same speed as humans would after reaching physical adulthood.

History
The Toraks were one of the tribes that came forth from the Therian race. The tribe excisted solely out of tiger Therians, not taking any other Therian species into their tribe although not excluding trade and coexistence with other tribes.

~'More history will follow but will be integrated into the lore in the "Extra" tab. This part here will just be a summary of it.~'

Society and culture
The Toraks were a tribe with a pagan-like culture, but never sacrificed any animals nor hunted them. These cultural fundaments were the same for all the Therian subspecies, the things at which they differed were the gods they preffered above other gods and how they acted when meeting humans. The Toraks were not hostile towards humans but in the early generations tried to keep them away from their young ones so their minds would not be influenced by mainland stories of wealth and adventure. This would distract them from their true purpose.

Extra
This is some lore I made about the origins of my species the Toraks, hope you guys enjoy learning more about them.

- sleepymexican1 (Nemutai)

'''The Isle of Yokai

A long time ago in the far eastern reaches of the Barrier world, old gods were ruling the land and all the people there were proudly worshipping their gods. Some of these people had such an extraordinary connection with the gods that they were sent away on tasks to keep balance in the territory of their divine leaders. Spirits were sent to the persons who were chosen to fulfill the tasks of one of the gods, which was one of the greatest honors to achieve in the eastern cultures. One of these people was a young man called Sylvanas, who had very strong connections with the god of nature called Nymfo. Nymfo sent Sylvanas to the Isle of Yokai to learn as much as he could about nature and all its complexities. The earth, water, wind, fire and animals were roaming around on the isle freely and unharmed by the touches of human civilization. Sylvanas’s purpose of learning all about this isle was to see how nature looked like while it was still in pure balance. Good and evil, light and darkness, hunted and hunter. The battle for the survival of the fittest on the main land was clearly already won by the human kind. Nymfo was afraid that they would grow too fast and with their speed, would ruin the balance that the world was intended to have. Hence, Sylvanas was sent to the Isle of Yokai.

Arriving on the Isle by a spirit made portal Sylvanas’s first days were tough, but he was prepared for the journey and used his survival skills to make a treehouse and a fishing pole. After managing to get a steady food and water supply Sylvanas could finally start to calmly study the isle and its mysteries. He studied every plant, every animal and every element for years until one day he was visited by a spirit sent by Nymfo to grant him magical powers to control and shape the elements and animals he had studied for so long. Nymfo’s spirit messenger told Sylvanas that he should practice these powers and see if he could find a solution for the imbalance that was going to come soon with the rapid growth of civilizations across the world. Nymfo did not tell the other gods about his plans for Sylvanas because he thought the other gods would want to have a say in how exactly Sylvanas was going to restore the balance of nature in the world. They would taint the pureness of the balance that nature was supposed to have with their own desires for influence and power over the land. Especially Izanagi, the god of creation and life was very keen on keeping everything he made the way he intended it to be. Nymfo did not take on this task himself because the other gods would have surely found out about his plans. That is why he secretly asked Sylvanas to help him without being noticed by the other gods. Sylvanas at first did not know how to think of task he was given. Was he supposed to make an army or use his magic to create natural disasters and destroy all civilizations to cleanse the world of the spreading taint? This could not be the idea Nymfo had in mind for the human kind. No, He had to find a different solution. This is not what his wise god could ever have had in mind, but what is it that he did? Years went by and Sylvanas studied the isle as well as he possibly could, comparing it to the civilizations back on the main land. He could not find the solution until one day when he was looking for brown cave mushrooms he stumbled upon a dead tiger who seemed to have been slain by another great feline, presumably a jaguar or a panther. Noticing the size of the belly of the beast it seems like this was a female tiger who still had some extra weight on her from giving birth about a week or two ago.

Sylvanas did a prayer for the beast its spirit to get to the heavens safe and sound. Walking a bit further up the hill he stumbled upon a cave and went in to see if he could find some brown cave mushrooms. As he ventured forward into the cave he suddenly heard a small roar coming from the outside and it sounded like a desperate and scared tiger cub.

Moving out of the cave and getting further up the hill, still following the sound of the roars carefully, Sylvanas reaches a dead hollow tree with two tiny feline eyes shining in its darkness. The roaring stops as soon as its eyes meet the ones of Sylvanas as he freezes making it stay silent for a couple of minutes while they keep their eyes locked onto each other. Sylvanas eventually decides to try and lure the cub out of its safe haven with a piece of fresh fish that he had caught earlier that day. He slowly reaches for his back pocket, opening it and grabbing a piece of the flesh out of the pocket. Sylvanas brings the piece in front of him holding it for a moment to see if the cub would come and get it, with great result. The cub starts sniffing the air and smells the delicacy immediately and is now slowly moving out of the dead hollow tree. Carefully moving his paws forward with his eyes wide open now switching between his meal and Sylvanas he gets only one feet away from the flesh when he stops walking. Sylvanas looks at the cub and smiles a bit, closing his eyes as well to make an obvious joyous face. The cub shifts his head sideways a bit looking at the funny old man with a lot more curiosity than fear now. Sylvanas noticing the cub didn’t take the fish yet opens one of his eyes to see what the cub is up to. Seeing that the cub got less scared he discreetly moves his hand closer to the little cat, while also opening his other eye to get a clearer view of the situation. The tiger cub leans back a bit before throwing his forepaws up into the air to grab the fish out of Sylvanas’s hand, successfully doing so. Noticing the little fellow most certainly enjoying his meal Sylvanas takes another piece of fish out of the pocket and feeds the cub some more, gaining more of its trust with every bite. Eventually Sylvanas’s newly made friend lets him pat him and they even have some fun together with Sylvanas tickling his belly. It’s all fun and games until Sylvanas finally realizes that his little friend is going to be out here on his own when he leaves as the chances of this cub being someone else’s than the dead female tiger he found earlier were very, very small. Sylvanas decides to let his friend choose to either stay here or come with him, as Sylvanas was actually not allowed to interfere with the cycles of nature and its natural selections. The moment Sylvanas started to decent down the hill the cub started running after him and when he caught up keeping the pace of Sylvanas walking by his side. Sylvanas took a route around the body of the mother and ventured forth towards his hut where he would make dinner for the two of them and afterwards playing games together until it was time for bed.

After Sylvanas his adventure with the tiger cub he decided to keep taking care of it until it was old enough to take care of itself, seeing the cub grow bigger every day. Sylvanas still had to come up with a solution for the problem on the mainland though and he had already been here for so long that this solution would have to come soon. He struggled to find any clue in the matter until a few days after taking care of the cub and it being very friendly towards him he realized something. ''“I can live alongside this animal without any trouble, why could the rest of the world not do the same?” he thought'' by himself. Thinking further on this matter he started to see that animals and humans can of course not communicate with each other and that animals rely way more on their instincts than humans do nowadays. But what if the animals could make contact and talk to humans, would they be able to live together in a new form of society? He had to start somewhere he thought, and what better place for him to experiment with this than on the isle of Yokai where he could not be bothered by naysayers, warmongering lords and prevailing gods. He started to study the anatomies of animals and humans and came to the conclusion that with the right set of spells and processes, he could make his plan work. He decided to call his to be newly created species the Therians, which would be the name of the main species of all the half human half animal races. He would have to compensate for the fact that animals have a much shorter live span than humans and he decided to try and even it out by making the aging process of the Therians take a pause at their 14th life year. At the age of 30 they would grow older just as slow as the average human being would to complete their circle of life and death. He started by cleansing the water of a giant underground lake in the cave where he usually found his mushrooms to create an anti-aging water where he could put the cubs into a physical and mental slumber so he could gather enough of them to start his experiment. Within days of rituals and spellcasting he had it finished and it was ready for use, he could do this so fast because of his years of studying the ways of nature and magic in its most pure and serene form. He now started gathering as many motherless cubs of all species as he could, putting them in the magical anti-aging lake that he created for them to sleep in. The first one to be put in the lake was the tiger cub he had found on his most recent adventure and many more followed until he had gathered five male and five female cubs of as many mammal species living on the island. When he stopped gathering he had put tigers, jaguars, bearded pigs, tapirs and okapis all together into the lake and then he began to prepare one of the largest and most dangerous experiments in the history of the eastern kingdoms. It took Sylvanas half a year to finally complete his grand spell, but the result was precisely what he wanted. The moment he was done casting and the before cubs now rose on their hind legs with arms stretching into the air Sylvanas knew that this was only the beginning. Realizing that he had now have to take care of 50 half human half animal children he called for the aid of Nymfo to lend him some spirits to help him on his cause. Nymfo had been spectating the process and immediately sent a group of spirits to help Sylvanas out with his troubles, raising all the cubs until they were old enough to be told what their purpose in life was. When all the cubs reached the age of 14, this being quiet old as the cubs were all physically and mentally at the age of 25, Sylvanas decided it was time for them to learn the truth and meaning of their existence. As all of the now fully grown Therians listened to the story that the old man had to tell, they started to realize that their existence was much bigger than what was going on at the isle of Yokai. Sylvanas gave them time to accept and understand all of this and as soon as they were ready he sent each individual species out into the wild to start to build their own settlements, being able to return to Sylvanas whenever they needed guidance. And thus began the age of the Therians.