Oppression on Ferzona

...under pressure...that burns a kingdom down...splits a family in two...

The sapient peoples on Ferzona had been the Forsaken and the Shifters for hundreds of years. The Shifters, with their heightened senses and abilities, subjugated what they saw as the weaker species.

Neera's kind, the normal ones--Forsaken, they'd call her and hers--were prey to the usual orders of beasts and brutes and inhumanity, the two-legged hunting cats, bears, wolves . . . really the whole damned planet if one were being honest.
Her kind fought for survival in a stewpot world, slowly cooked until they were devoured or worse: chained.

— Neera, Tiger's Catch

And then the Hunters crashed to the ground, breaking through the sky in a streak of fire. Aid would have been offered, but the Hunters took to the air again, in ships like clouds. They gutted Shifter cities by slaughtering the Forsaken workforces in each, a tactic that meant they had very little to do to take down the Shifters next. Between dominance battles and Shifters' inability to do what was needed to run their kingdoms now that their workforces were gone, the infighting between Shifters helped chip away at previously solid governments, softening the fight for the Hunters and devastating kingdom after kingdom almost overnight.

Tiger's Catch by Cera Daniels

Luridity contains mature content. This article includes the following content warnings: mentions of attempted genocide, subjugation, war. Also a naked tiger-man's torso on a romance book cover, avert your eyes lest ye be scandalized! *clutches pearls*

This article is a WIP created during World Anvil Summer Camp 2023 and may contain incomplete sections. It probably also lacks pictures and proofreading. And it most certainly was written frantically by a caffeine-fueled, sleep-deprived author. No worries--edits are a future me problem!

Pre-Hunters

(~300 years ago - 2 years before Tiger's Catch) The weaker of the two human species, the Forsaken, are enslaved and used as a workforce by Shifters.

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Tiger's Catch

Forsaken are "free". Most are no longer slaves, as there are no longer kingdoms to keep them. Many have been slaughtered by Hunters, and they have a common enemy with their past subjugators as a result. But they haven't forgotten hundreds of years of torment at the hands of Shifters, and most Shifters haven't changed their long-held belief that Forsaken are less than human.

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The Future?

Things have changed, and continue to change, for the survivors of the Hunters' arrival and devastating war. Refractive Magic twists in the air, and long-held beliefs of how things work, what people must do to survive, and what really matters...all are shaken by the grip the Towers have on a suffering world.

My novella Tiger's Catch, written under my Cera Daniels penname, takes place two years after the Hunters arrive on Ferzona. Of the previously dominant tiger kingdom there were only 112 survivors. But there are always chances for those in dire situations to change...and for those situations to change with them.

— A Note from A Dani! :)

Instead of bothering to destroy the remaining Forsaken and Shifters, the Hunters saw value in keeping an oppressed population around. Whether for sport, experimentation, or future subjugation purposes, no one yet knows. One thing is certain: they do not want to be friends.
Shortly after their slaughter of Forsaken and edging Shifter kingdoms into ruin, the Hunters built enormous white spires that spread their powers over the land. Shifters within range of a tower discovered the second soul in their body, belonging to the animal with which they shared forms, became locked inside them. Unable to shift forms, only able to access a fraction of their abilities, the Shifters are on far more equal footing with Forsaken.
Not that the Shiftless would see it that way for a number of years to come.
For now, both human bloodlines, the Shifters and the Forsaken, have little more than pockets of survivors and rebels left to stand against the might of the rising Hunter power structure.

"They aren't Shifters, aren't Forsaken, Neera. They're mages and they used tech the likes of which we'd never seen. Hunters took down entire Shifter cities overnight. Magic and technology against our cities, our people—yours first, then mine--murdered by the score. Sundered villages. Razed farms and palaces alike to the ground.

"Not how you'd expect, either. There are no siege weapons, no swords. Our enemy summons earthquakes, creates storms that devour a shoreline, calls down the lightning. They can do all of these things, more, aided by their magic and these devices. Boxes and gears and machines they carry around to do their dirty work for them."

— Amoy, Tiger's Catch