Wildclaw

Wildclaws are among the most feared predators of Runeterra's wild places, ranging across the frozen tundra of the Freljord and the open country of Shurima. Ferocious and powerfully built, with crushing jaws and razor claws, they hunt the largest prey the wilderness offers and give settled peoples a constant reason to fear what waits beyond their walls. The Freljord's hunters know the wildclaw as a killer capable of bringing down even a full-grown thunderhorn. When a young huntress named Vrynna and her clan tracked such a beast after a month of failed hunts, they found the thunderhorn already dead, slain by a wildclaw. The creature fell upon the party before they could flee, killing the hunter Rylor, mortally wounding the scout Ice-Runner, and raking Vrynna across the face, tearing away her spear and blinding her right eye. Only after her knife strikes opened the beast to hunt leader Shiverbones did they kill it, and Vrynna carried the scars home as her clan's new scarmaiden. Slaying a wildclaw has long been a mark of worth in the Freljord. The spirit walker Udyr, wandering the wastes alone after his tribe was slaughtered, rejoined human company only when he landed the killing blow on a wildclaw troubling a Winter's Claw hunting party, and the grateful warriors brought him into their camp. The hero Braum earned his early reputation much the same way, defending his home valleys from blizzards and ravaging wildclaws until his name became a byword for hope across the frozen north. The Winter's Claw have learned not only to hunt wildclaws but to raise and train them for war. During a Noxian incursion along the Winterspike Road, trained wildclaws burst from the treeline as snarling, six-legged shadows and leapt for the legionaries' throats, with Winter's Claw warriors charging close behind. Whether hunted as a menace or loosed as a weapon, the wildclaw remains one of the deadliest creatures in the Freljord's wilds.