Lexicon:Modern/Skadh

Skadh
Stage	Modern CLT
Pronunciation	/ˈska.dɪð/
Part of speech	Noun
Etymology	from middle CRT skaddē, from Proto skad
Related words	Vennek, Skadh, Baechri

Skadh — the twilight ambusher of the temperate forests.

Notes

A large cat-like predator, roughly the size of a tiger at four to six hundred pounds, with proportions that are wrong for any natural feline. The limbs are longer, giving it a high stance that lets it see over undergrowth, and the skull is broader and the jaw heavier — built to crush skull or spine rather than to hold a throat. Tawny to dark brown with faint striping that breaks its outline in forest light, and in older animals the stripes fade almost entirely.

Hunts in the hour before dark and the hour after dawn, and is almost never seen at any other time. Solitary, patient, and quiet past all reason for a thing of its size. The commonest large predator in the settled temperate country, and the one that most often takes livestock from an unwatched pen. A Skadh will not face a Vennek clan and knows it, which is most of why the Vennek is kept.