Laironir

File:Lionir.png

Laironir depicted on heraldry, it is rather common for noble houses in especially Vedian to use Laironirs as heraldry

Laironir are a creature of Scanderan folklore said to inhabit the lands to the north of the Vedian mountains but specifically did they make their home in the thick and dark forest of Sfartmård according to the legends. According to legend were Larionir a fierce race that eat other sentient creatures that looked like a man with the legs of a lion but still walked upright, generally were they said to have been great archers. More than that so do the stories differ on a lot of points, some stories make them out to be monsters that only lived to spread death and destruction while others gave them organised armies and them being able to be as honourable as the thinking species of Scandera.

One thing that is rather common though is that the Laironir was the enemies of dwarves and the dawnmen and the more famous of the stories that have survived, possible from just a few centuries after the fall of the dawnmen and before even the Wharen empire tells about the Dawnmen and Dwarven kings often joining forces and doing battle against Laironir forces. A thing that the old runestone in the city of the burning rose seems to confirm as there are pictures there of Dawnmen doing battle with things that looks like Laironir, though it is worth noticing that the ones in that depiction have the head of a lion rather than the head of a human.

Name

Laironir comes from a very archaic Scanderan dialect of the dawn tongue and it is theorised that it first came from Lionman or lion dwarf Laironmanir or Lairondwarfir but it over time got shortened to Laironir.

Looks

Laironir is according to legend described as men with the lower boy of a lion but they do walk upright and are often seen armed with bows. What however seperates Laironir from humans on their upper bodies is their teeth and eyes. Their eyes are a cool yellow and even today is it said in the north that people with yellow eyes are lion kin. Their teeth is another thing that set them apart as they have the teeth of a lion as well rather than the more omnivore set of teeth common amongst most Scanderan races with the exception of the tusk equipped trolls and the specialised needle like teeth of goblins.

History

There are countless references to the Laironir in the holy chronicles, even if they do not mention where they went or if they went extinct at one point or another. They are mentioned in the tales about the Imerian migration where they according to the tales refused to join the northern peoples and march south upon the Wharen. But the holy chronicles also mentions several wars between coalitions of dwarven kingdoms, and tribes that faces the Laironir. According to the holy chronicles so was the Laironir also responsible of killing off all the western tribes that were the remains of the Erathian ancestors that stayed behind during the Erathian migration similarly to how the people of the Northern iceplains are men that did not join the invasions southwards from the eastern tribes.

There are also stories that are told in folklore rather than the ones in the holy chronicles, where the Laironir are fierce warriors that eat their foes in the chronicles so are they violent savages that just live to destroy and eat sentient people in the folklore. The folklore version is rather common amongst the people of western Vedian and Karmanjaka but the Laironir are a rather obscure race elsewhere.

They are also mentioned in "di marklevande raserna" by Hylfred Görenssen where he classifies them as a lost species, he theorises that they most likely do exist but they are lost just like the at the time also common idea of the so called Markbestar or Ground beasts that Hylfred also theorised existed. Both of these animals have in the newer editions of "Di marklevande raserna" been removed as most Scanderans agrees that they are only the stuff of legends.