Ink, then digital.

Work for an upcoming Ironclaw project.

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"Panther" is a broad term that describes felines who are larger than your common cat, but also distinct from lions and cheetahs, who tend to be special cases by temperament. Unlike those other felines (with the exception of lionesses), panthers are ambitious, purposeful, worldly, effective people. They make plans and follow through, they are self-possessed and are the movers and shakers in their social sphere. They think bigger than cats, who tend to settle for local territory and minor gambits, they aren't as prone to poetics and soft living as the lackadaisical lion, and they are able to focus with more discipline than your average cheetah.

Panthers include the jaguars, leopards, pumas and so on, and they make excellent fighters, leaders, captains of industry and any other role requiring cunning, fearlessness, and competence. They aren't exactly interested in nobility, seeing it as a minor reward for boldness and achievement (rather than a goal itself). For them, real power is actively obtained; not something you are merely born into as a blue blood.

This conservative, no-nonsense demeanour can verge on general arrogance, but it makes them useful as exploring conquistadors and proponents of manifest destiny. It also means they miss out on the wisdoms found by simple living. Though they may look down upon their feline cousins as parochial, slackers or scatterbrains, it is not uncommon for the aging panther to go through a kind of late-life crisis of atonement for ruthlessness in younger years. Many social institutions are founded by these people who go to their deathbeds concerned with thoughts of legacy and philanthropy. In turn these efforts to atone actually do some measure of good, and so panthers make and mold the world variously, for better or worse, perhaps more so than any other species.