Warning: just my own ideas ahead! I dont use headcanons to contradict canon, but I do like to expand on it, and fill in the gaps
" title="Heart" />
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At the beginning of recorded history, The Great Spirits made the Tree of Life. It was meant to be a safe haven in a feral world, where animals could come to rest and heal. But this territory needed some form of leadership, if it were to be safe. So The Great Spirits put a pride of lions in charge, instructed not to simply kill and overpower, but to rule with care, following and enforcing laws: they were taught about the circle of life. This was the first monarchy: the Night Pride.
Generations later, another pride of lions would follow the example of the Night Pride. They called themselves the Pridelanders, and they became the second ever monarchy. The Pridelanders helped to found two other lion kingdoms (the Mbali kingdom next to theirs, and the Riverlands kingdom, just beyond the Elephant Graveyard). These were the only other kingdoms that the Pridelanders created directly. Indirectly, however, they had a bigger effect: monarchies were a safer, easier, and happier way to live than running wild, killing and being killed nonstop. Other animals took to this new way of life, and soon there were many kingdoms, ruled both by lions and by other animals.
Soon, there were monarchies rules by gorillas, hyenas, elephants, rhinoceroses, etc.. Any animal willing to rule fairly, and with care, could end up a lasting leader (those who were unkind were inevitably overpowered by their subjects). Soon every animalliving inside or outside of kingdomslearned about and understood the circle of life. Monarchies are very common: a large territory, lead by a sovereign and their mate, who rule over many different animals and groups of animals, including their own group of their species.
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But not every territory is a kingdom. There are vast stretches of land (often in between kingdoms) without one single ruler. These areas are called Halali lands, halali meaning lawless.
Animals take care of themselves or their groups in small territories within the Halali, without a higher authority to report to. These lands allow much more freedom, but are, in exchange, much more dangerousthey are still inhabited by animals who are taught about the circle of life, but there is nobody to guarantee that they will respect it.
Halali lands are inherently risky. But even without the safety of a governing body, there is usually a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect among the animals who have chosen this way of life. Theyre a popular choice for independent animals, like cheetahs and leopards. On the other hand, Halali lands are also an easy refuge for a kingdoms exiles...
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Kingdoms and Halali are the most common lands. But there is one more, a very rare type that has come to be referred to as empires: territories ruled by one individual, like monarchies, but who rules by fear and actively goes against the circle of life, instead following the brutal ways of the animals from before Amris revolution. Emperors kill young who arent theirs, suppress resistance with force, and eat as they please, without thought to the animals numbers or the hunger of others. Emperors often justify themselves with the idea that theyre following the true circle of life, and that Amri weakened animals by spreading his idea of peace and compassion.
There arent very many empires, and theyre usually small*, due to how hard it actually is to keep a territory like that for very long without being overthrown. Empires embody the worst of both kingdoms and Halali lands.
And yet, some empires have been known to go further. Instead of merely following the Old Laws of nature, certain empires have built upon them. Nunkas pride, for instance, came to believe that their reigning emperor was inherently better than all other animals. Due to this, they only marry within their familyinstead of finding another pride to take over when theyre kicked out, the males of this empire hang around the sidelines, until theyve grown big enough to kill their own father, and take his place. This diseased pride cant even claim to be following the natural way, anymore.
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*Just by the way, I am aware that in the real world, empires are actually very big
" title="LOL" /> I went with the word empire to describe these territories, due to it being an old title thats associated with conquest (I did consider using dictatorship, since that would be the most accurate word, but it felt... too real? It conjures a much more recent image in the brain than emperor does, yknow. I dont know, maybe Ill go back and change it at some point).
Oh and one more thing, that random Night Pride lion ended up looking extremely related to the random emperor lion -_- I swear that was unintentional, and just the result of me sketching these at random moments over the course of like two weeks.
https://www.deviantart.com/percy-mcmurphy/art/Headcanon-Ways-of-Life-853999440
" title="Heart" />
" title="LOL" /> I went with the word empire to describe these territories, due to it being an old title thats associated with conquest (I did consider using dictatorship, since that would be the most accurate word, but it felt... too real? It conjures a much more recent image in the brain than emperor does, yknow. I dont know, maybe Ill go back and change it at some point).
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