I personally think its a recessive gene that creates primals and variants of said gene creates Felis and Smilus primals.

The mutation for smilus is recessive too but only shows in males as its X linked and two copies in female lions is deadly. (Like Frame Overo in horses but overo isn't X linked I think)

Ferus is a different but related gene that to act as dominant needs primal gene to show thus is rare.

All lions are hetrozygous for the gene but primals are Homozygous and the mod simply is gene editing on a living creature. Homozygous cubs typical don't suvive so the ingame ones are the lucky ones.

Yeah in my eyes how mods work is super unethical in my opinion as its not for medical purposes.

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Awesome, I love me some genetics! Thank you :0
How do you think female primals work since they can't pass but can inherit the mutation?

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In my pride lore, Primals are the result of cubs who have been personally blessed by the gods (I imagine it's a specific god but I've not bothered to really think of lore for them since it's not a focus in my pride), usually to help a pride out with a hardship they cannot overcome themselves such as a massive group of invaders or a severe lack of food.

Because of their blessing, Primals are often named king as the pride believes their blood to be superior to that of a normal lion. Any Primal cubs born into the pride have an instantly higher social status to normal cubs of the same age, or even of the same litter (No, this does not usually cause a racism thing in my pride. Cubs are taught from a very young to respect and praise the existence of Primals in the pride but, likewise, not treat them with too much more respect than normal lions. Primals are not gods themselves). These cubs, if a position of royalty is not available, are often given the more important roles within the pride when grown such as guard, broodmother, or hunter. (however, only Ferus' are given the position of "healer" as the pride feels that other Primals would be wasted in a position that favors intelligence over strength or speed. Usually, though, Ferus' are just given the position of "adviser" which is a position that is exclusive to them and does not exist if there is not a Ferus to fill it)

While the birth of Primals is not terribly rare, only a few of these mighty lions tend to stay within the pride of their birth their entire lives, often leaving and wandering the plains in search of other, potentially more vulnerable prides. However, this isn't a conscious decision as Primals can sometimes feel a sort of pull to wander beyond the pride's borders at as young as 4 months. The lions of the pride think of this phenomenon as a way for the gods to disperse Primal lions and prevent any one pride from growing too powerful.

Primal variants are thought of as strains of Primals which have been altered/modified from the existing primal genes they received from their father for a more specific purpose while the normal Primal is more of a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none".
Felis is thought to pop up when a pride is struggling or will struggle with a famine that will last a great while. Felis' lack the impressive size and strength of Primals though the absence of these traits allows them to have enhanced speed and agility beyond the ability of other Primals.
Smilus is thought to appear when a pride will face a foe beyond the capability of other Primals such as an invading pride who themselves have Primals in their ranks. Smilus', while smaller than normal Primals, are far more muscular and thick-skinned. They also have enhanced aggression and longer fangs on top of being slightly faster and more agile due to their smaller size: the perfect Primal-killer. They are thought to be the rarest of them all for this reason and, unlike other Primals, Smilus' never find a permanent home for themselves, instead preferring to wander from pride to pride or simply stay as loners. Occasionally, they will also become bounty-hunters and aid any prides they come across with pesky/troublesome animals that might be in the area in exchange for a place to sleep, some food, and/or currency.
Ferus crops up when a pride needs superior intelligence to overcome a situation or foe and are the only Primals to be more intelligent than a normal lion. For this reason, Ferus' also have the side effect of making a pride slightly more advanced than they were before the Ferus came along and Ferus' are often responsible for many of the new invetions or methods of doing things within a pride. That they they appear out of nowhere confuses the pride (the item doesn't exist in my lore), however, and many argue weather Ferus is a variant of the original Primal or a new mutation all in itself.

MoD: Primals, or really MoDs of any kind, don't exist in my pride lore. If I happen to use a MoD on a lion I almost always do so when the lion is a cub and simply headcanon that they were a Primal when they were born.

EDIT: I forgot to include Primal Fangs.
Primal Fangs is not thought of as Primal variation within my pride but more as a half-way point between a normal lion and a Primal. Primal Fangs pops up when an unborn cub fails to be fully effected by the 'superior' genes of their father and become fully Primal, instead only inheriting the elongated fangs which are the first thing that the Primal genes effects. Cubs effected any more by the primal gene without fully becoming a Primal are still-born or otherwise unable to live more than a few hours, their bodies being too mutated - and sometimes mangled - to survive.

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I would personally think it's a recessive vestigiality that can present itself in the lions.

Pretty much it's traits that present itself in an individual or lineage of individuals that once served a purpose in their ancestors, but have little to no function now thanks to evolution.

For example, all humans have muscles behind their ears. However, this is known to be a now useless trait that once allowed us to swivel our ears to the direction of sound, kind of like how most mammals can. Because of this trait being now useless, most people can't wiggle or move their ears any without moving facial muscles (ex. smiling). However, some families or individuals have retained stronger ear muscles that allow them to wiggle or "swivel" their ears on command without the aid of moving any facial muscles.

Another example is wisdom teeth. A human's jaw used to be bigger, but are not now. However we still grow extra molars as if our jaws are still large enough to accommodate them.

I think the primal variations are an extreme form of that. Seemingly useless evolutionary traits that show up in an individual. I know with humans, it can sometimes "skip," a generation and not show up at all. Example being a father having "wiggly ears," while mother does not. Child is born without wiggly ears, but a sibling to the child may have them. There's also strange cases such as father having full set of wisdom teeth, mother only having two, and the child ending up with none.

It's a very weird way of looking at it, but that's how I see it.

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@Corvid Fossils (#66304)

I think the females can't pass their primal due to the ''delicateness' of the primal mutation 99% of the time being fatal in primal x primal. Its also why i think one cub litters are so common as they were lucky to survive and not just lionesses who were pains.

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Thisis a bit different, but I think that primals are actually literally, primals. They are actually prehistoric, or an early version of the game, but the gorillas exploited code of the lions brought to them , and managed to bring them back. The exploited code theory page is being worked on, but I mention it a bit more here:

Click

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My personal headcanon goes something like this:

Long, long ago, in the time of the Great Land (Pangea), wolves and lions lived in some of the same areas. It was not uncommon to see wolves and lions in the same packs. Wolves would rule prides, and lions would rule packs. They would often interbreed, creating all of the primal mutations we see today and more!

However, when the Great Land separated, most of the wolves ended up either scattered or in another area of the world. This caused great sorrow among the Pridelands, as there was no lion that didn't have at least one loved one who was a wolf.

So the gods created teh Mukombero and Pennyroyal herbs to help assure that the wolf genes wouldn't completely die out, and to provide some comfort to the Pridelands.

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the primals are part hyena as evidenced by this flavor text: You are sure some of the moves Sandbar just used during the wrestling training would not even be used by the most underhanded of hyenas, but he certainly came out on top.

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I love reading about other’s pride lore T^T I’m working on mine still. Just been burnt out. I can’t wait to think of how this works into my pride! It gives me so many ideas! RIP people who open my den XD

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Magical plants mutate their appearance; The only thing I can think of.

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