Editing Wemic (section)

==Culture==
In a nutshell, wemics are one of the "primitive races" of D&D, with a culture that combines Stone Age nomadic human with distinct leonic elements. Proud but slow to anger, the wemic "society" consists of the pride; a small family group of males, females and offspring whose size has been described as consisting of either "4d4 adult males, 2d12 adult females, and 1d12 cubs" (Monstrous Manual), "dozen males, one or two dozen females, and as many as a dozen young, age five years or less" (Ecology of the Wemic) or "1 to 4 males, 2 to 12 females, and 1 to 6 cubs" (Monsters/Races of Faerun). Prides may gather together based on ties of relationship via blood or marriage to form tribal groups, though in 3e lore it's stated that tribes tend to be temporary arrangements usually serving to guard the prides against a threat too great for an individual pride to handle. In AD&D, tribes may band together under a particularly mighty and charismatic patriarch to form short-lived kingdoms, but invariably scatter when that king is defeated, since they are a naturally fractious race.

The largest source of information on wemics remains their Ecology article, which goes into many details of their culture. For example, only a pride's patriarch takes multiple mates, as a symbol of his might, but females have complete authority of which males they choose as a spouse (which is why only the patriarch, the alpha-strongest wemic in the pride, gets multiple women) - males primp and preen and strut to attract a female's attention. However, many of these details are contradicted by their writeup in "Races of Faerun" - for example, Ecology of the Wemic states that males hunt whilst females guard the cubs, but Races of Faerun states that females do most of the hunting, as males take up the duty of guarding the prides from attacks by marauding monsters during the night.

Wemics live about 40 to 50 years, in no small part because once they reach their late 30s, they start to physically slow down and so become easy prey for the monsters of the savanna. Which makes you really think about what kind of world the D&D setting is when a 600 pound sword-wielding lion-man is considered "prey"!