The Shah Numan

Golden and tawny-furred, the males heavy-maned in brown or red, the Shah Numan hold the savanna crossing between the Heartland and the Emberwaste — and are the only Cait Sith who hunt in company rather than alone.

This single fact separates them from every other tribe, and the others have never stopped finding it faintly embarrassing.

The Pride

A Shah Numan pride is a group of related females, their cubs, and however many males are currently tolerated. The females hunt, and standing follows the hunt: the best hunter speaks first at a kill and last in a dispute, and both are understood as authority. Coordination is the whole craft — the encircling drive, the ambush lane, the long patient work of separating one animal from a herd — and a Shah Numan on her own is a considerably worse hunter than a Shah Gaz on his, which she will tell you before you can.

The males contest one another for status and breeding rights with a great deal of noise and comparatively little injury. Every other tribe in the Hedges regards them as decorative. The Shah Numan have heard this, and observe that their prides eat more reliably than anyone else on the ring, which is true and is not usually accepted as a rebuttal.

The Crossing

The Pridelands are the easiest of the four Hedge crossings to travel and the hardest to travel unnoticed: high grass, open ground, and nothing at all to hide behind for anyone who is not already very good at hiding. Caravans bound for the Emberwaste pay a toll that is not called a toll, and in exchange arrive.

The prides work the waterholes, which is where the herds are, which is where everything is. A pride's territory is measured in water rather than in ground, and boundary quarrels are settled at the water or not at all.

Ways

Sociable in a way that startles visitors who arrived expecting Cait Sith. Shah Numan camps are loud, crowded, and full of cubs, and a guest who has been formally received is genuinely safe — a courtesy they extend more readily than the Shah Gaz and less theatrically than the Shah Hadiz.

They keep the Kingdom's writ better than any other tribe on the ring, largely because the Pridelands carry enough legitimate traffic to make lawfulness profitable. The Chancery cites them as proof that the Cait Sith can be governed. The other four tribes cite them as proof of nothing at all.