Trophy Lions

Calanthi was founded by noblemen in search of fertile farmland to grow a new nation and to trade with the Old World. The Old World had been stagnant for years when the Proclamation of Tefrujh released a host of noblemen to attempt to expand the power of their house. Many first or second sons of noblemen dared the journey across The Great Sea to the North Coast where dragons were known to live. They hoped to secure large areas of arable land that would produce crops needed to feed the inhabitants of their lands in the Old World.
The adventurers that undertook this journey were immediately rewarded because the land where they arrived was a great basin of grasslands bordered by two mighty rivers. The grasslands were home to a number of herding animals, and these animals were hunted by a number of carnivorous beasts including the Prairie Lion.
These lions were the rulers of all they could see. The grazing beasts were so numerous that the lions were large, healthy and numerous for the wealth of food available. Before the people of The Old World arrived, the only thing these lions feared were the nomadic Orcs that also hunted the plains.
The men from the Old World observed ritual hunts by the Orcs and came to understand this was a big element in their culture to show off their status with lions taken on the hunt. Somehow this idea infected the noblemen and they too wished to take a great lion as a sign of their own skill and courage. But while the men were scouting and setting up supply camps they did not give away their presence to the Orcs.
After the initial open range wars with the Orcs, the nobles continued to import people and supplies from the Old World. They claimed vast areas of land even as the armies fought the Orcs back from the coast forcing them north. As events began to settle into a stalemate, the nobles went on ceremonial hunts of their own, taking lions, and having them preserved by taxidermists for display in their strongholds.
The honor and prestige of having a few magnificent lions displayed led the King of Calanthi, as he was later crowned, to choose a reclining lion for his new device on his Coat of Arms. The Reclining Lion in a field of green under a blue sky and over a blue sea became the symbol of the kingdom. The biggest lions found in less inhabited areas are called Trophy Lions, and are only allowed to be killed by Nobles to this day. But that doesn't mean the Lion always loses.