Lion of Jabir

In the fabled Sultanate of the Iron Wall, deep beneath the golden gardens of Damascus, through the Cavern of the Sleeper and past the Seven Gates of Potentiality, are the vast laboratories and metaphysical factories of the Alchemists.

Using the mysterious Jabirean process called takwin, the alchemists are able to create artificial life, and produce all manner of strange, wondrous beasts and automatons to delight the masses of the souk, and grace the gardens of the Sultan.

Deeper still, in the darkest and most secret reaches of the alchemy complex, past the Seven Hidden Gates of Actuality, are the sanctums where the art and science of takwin is honed to its most keen and deadly purpose. Here they make the dreaded Lions of Jabir.

Named after the deadly hunters of the plains, the Lions of Jabir can take many forms, not all of them leonine. Each one is a unique masterwork, and they are grown according to the skills and artistry of the Jabirean scientist that created them. The esoteric arts the alchemagi employ are learned through study of forbidden Books of Solomon, and many alchemists are killed when their experiments fail or run amok. However, the Lions are in desperate demand by the army of Sultanate, so the program continues, regardless of cost and casualties.

Creating the Lions of Jabir is extremely difficult, and there are endless variables to consider. Because of this the Lions are often malformed in some way. Though still magnificent hunters in war, their malformations often cause their existence to be one of constant physical pain and suffering. The truly tragic cases are the Lions created with human-like intelligence, who are wracked with existential dread as they realise the horror of their unnatural origins.

In battle the Lions of Jabir are deadly threats and are used as a vanguard of the host of the Sultanate. The Sultan himself has a hunting pack of seventy-seven enormous Lions of Jabir that guard him day and night, and accompany him on the battlefield. The speed and ferocity of the Lions is nearly unmatched, and some even have strange powers granted by their alchemical birth. Many have armour melded with the flesh and fashioned from alchemical metals, etched with cryptic seals and sigils, and richly embellished by the Alchemists to hide the defects in their creations.