Let’s dive into an article discussing one of Gor’s major subcultures, the panther women, also known as forest women, who represent and embody the antithesis of classic Gorean society and the only model of strong women in the world of Gor. And I’ll start with the first quote from the novels that clearly refers to them:

The next lot was an interesting one, consisting of two slave girls, clad in the skins of forest panthers, from the northern forests of Gor, and chained together by the throat. They were driven up the steps by a whip slave and forced to kneel at the center of the block. The northern forests, the haunts of bandits and unusual beasts, far to the north and east of Ko-ro-ba, my city, are magnificent, deep forests, covering hundreds of thousands of square pasangs. Slave girls who escape masters or some free women, who will not accept the matches arranged by their parents, or reject the culture of Gor, occasionally flee to these forests and live together in bands, building shelters, hunting their food, and hating men; there are occasional clashes between these bands of women, who are often skilled archers, and bands of male outlaws inhabiting the same forests. Hardy slavers sometimes go into the forests hunting these girls, but often they do not return; sometimes slavers simply meet outlaws at the edges of the forests, at designated locations, and buy captured girls from them; interestingly, at other locations, on the eastern edges of the forests, Slavers from Port Kar meet the female groups and purchase men they have captured, who are used as galley slaves; it is not too uncommon that a Slaver Warrior has entered the forest only to be captured by his prey, enslaved, and eventually, when the girls tire of him, be sold, commonly for arrow points and adornments, to Port Kar Slavers, whence he will find himself chained to the oar of a cargo galley.

To the amusement of the crowd, it took the whip slave and two others to strip the biting, scratching forest beauties. The pair was eventually sold to a collector for ten gold pieces; I trust the security of his Pleasure Gardens is superb, else he might wake to a knife at his throat and the demand for a tarn, and, perhaps eventually, in the rags of a slave, a seat on the bench of a cargo galley.

Assassin of Gor

1- General

Panther women are mainly concentrated in the Great Northern Forest, a vast territory of deep forests with a rather cold and harsh climate and long winters, covering an area half the size of Europe. They are so named because of their habit of wearing panther skins as clothing and adornment, a powerful feline very common in the great forest. There are also the talunas, who are the equivalent of panther women, but who take refuge in the Jungles of Schendi, in an equatorial climate and an environment that is just as harsh, but very different from that of the Great Forest.

Panther women form tribal groups of between ten and fifty individuals, adopting a hunter-gatherer culture with a nomadic lifestyle, moving around a large hunting territory over which they maintain control. They do not build permanent villages, but rather temporary camps and winter shelters to weather the bad season and the cold.

Panther women favor the bow as a weapon for hunting and defense. They travel light, carrying only the essentials and storing their extra equipment in hidden shelters on their territory, within easy reach if needed.

They are experts in stealth, surprise attacks, and survival in hostile environments. And they all have one thing in common, in addition to their visceral rejection of Gorean society: a fierce hatred of men. And no, they never attack towns or large villages! Even when they band together, panther women rarely number more than 30 or 40, which is not enough to attack a fortified and well-defended target. Panther women attack caravans, travelers, outlaw camps, and small villages and isolated farms, carrying out quick raids before disappearing with their loot.

And it is not good to be a man captured alive by panther women. The poor fellow will be mercilessly enslaved and treated harshly and cruelly, as long as the panther women see it in their interest, and will ultimately usually sold to a trading post run by outlaws or crooked merchants, and end up in mines or as galley slaves. But it’s not much better for a woman who is too weak or not fierce enough in the hands of the panther women: she will be enslaved and, more often than not, sold on, just like the men.

2- Who are the panther women?

According to Norman, in his novels, it’s very simple: they are runaway slave girls, or women who have fled the shackles of free women’s lives, mainly an arranged marriage that is going badly.

But the matter is less simple when we consider the context. Outside the relatively protected sanctuary of a community or city-state, a woman alone on Gor is prey. There are no laws to protect her, and given the mentality of the average Gorean male, she becomes an opportunity for them to gain a slave, which, I remind you, is a privilege and a potential fortune, since slave girls are not cheap, and they are expensive! The cheapest of them can be sold forfor the price of 2 to 5 tarsks, the pig of Gor. It’s no surprise that they will fight to chase after a woman alone, and above all, not let her get away!

As for the forests of Gor… French speakers will immediately understand if I mention the jungles of French Guiana, and English speakers will easily understand if I mention the green hell of the Amazon. I could also mention the deep primary forests of the Urals or Finland, or the jungles of Congo or Uganda. In short, places where, nowadays, if you drop off an average city dweller, even one with good athletic and hiking experience, they suddenly find themselves in an environment where they are once again part of the food chain, and no, they are not at the top of it!

The forests of Gor are undoubtedly even worse, because large predators still live there in large numbers, and these are often bigger than their terrestrial counterparts. Between the 80kg spiders and the mambas (which are not snakes, see here: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/ predators/ ) that weigh over half a ton in the jungles of Schendi, and the wild sleens that weigh over 250 kg and the panthers that weigh around 100 kg in the Great Forest, not to mention the giant super-predators that roam everywhere, such as the larl and the wild tarn, humans are more like walking food than ultimate predators.

The women, whether slaves or free, who flee the stifling Gorean society and the shackles of male domination to join the panther women and live in isolated communities, are clearly not just any women. The vast majority of them fail: either they are captured and enslaved, or they die on their journey. Only the most talented, the most resilient, the most motivated and ferocious, and the most cunning of these women manage to survive and join the panther women. You can forget about gentleness, pacifism, and kindness! This is a point that Norman emphasizes heavily in the novel Captives of Gor: panther women are far more ruthless, harsh, and cruel than men. And it cannot be said that the average Gorean man can be accused of softness in these areas.

There is therefore a ruthless selection process, due to the context itself, which separates the women who become panther women from those who fail, with an inevitably dire fate. Very few manage to reach the forests, and even fewer manage to integrate into a community once there. Want to know who the strong women are in the world of Gor? Now you know… of course, they are strong according to the criteria of the world of Gor regarding strong humans: don’t expect any kindness or charity from them, it’s generally a waste of time.

3- The society of panther women

Firstly, there are not many panther women, given how difficult it is to become one. Secondly, some of them were born into these communities, as the renewal of these communities by new recruits from outside is not sufficient.

That said, there are inevitably very few children in a community of panther women. This is not because there are no men (they know very well how to find them, enslave them, and use them), but because with a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle in a hostile environment where living is difficult, it is unwise to make life even more complicated with a bunch of children to feed and protect. Even in wild forests, Goreans have the advantage of controlling their procreation, and therefore choosing when to have children. What happens to newborn males? Given the general mentality of panther women, do I really need to spell it out for you?

How many are there?

It’s hard to say, but given the context and the living conditions of this subculture that lives constantly on the edge, there are probably no more than 10,000 to 20,000 of them. They are significantly fewer in number than the outlaw communities, which, although also outcasts, are less hunted and find it much easier to recruit. Considering an average of 10 to 30 members per community, this represents about a thousand groups in total, spread across a forest half the size of Europe.

Way of life

Panther women are forced to remain hidden, for good reason: a panther woman is a prestigious prize for a Gorean, and a slave trader can sell her for a high price on the markets. According to the standards I use for the price of slaves in Gor, in accordance with the ZcS system, a panther is auctioned off for an average of 25 silver tarsk (more info here: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/the-real-price-of-slaves-in-gor/).

So panther women know they are sought after and hunted by the men they unanimously despise. This is why they only leave the unexplored depths of the Great Forest for highly targeted raids, preferably at night, striking targets identified in advance by scouts, and striking very quickly before disappearing immediately afterwards, returning to the depths of the forest.

1- Raids, looting & trade

Panther women are not particularly interested in riches (gold, silver, jewelry) during these raids, but rather in basic necessities and manufactured goods that they cannot produce in the woods: salt, textiles, iron tools and weapons, medicines, oil lamps and candles, and of course, food when the winter season is bad. Since they have to strike quickly, hard, and disappear as quickly as possible, their raids are violent and ruthless. They don’t really have the time or the luxury to be magnanimous. Thus, they will only take prisoners if they are numerous enough and in the right conditions to bear the additional burden of noisy captives who, inevitably, will not make their retreat to the shelter of the forests easy.

Does this mean that they tend to kill everyone in their attacks? Since their targets are outlaw camps, farms, and small isolated villages, or poorly defended merchant caravans and groups of careless travelers, they are rarely forced to kill everyone. Their victims are wise enough to flee as soon as they realize they cannot resist, leaving them to plunder their loot. But clearly, an outnumbered group that makes the mistake of resisting will be slaughtered to the last, so as to leave no witnesses and send a message to the next daredevils.

“I am Verna,” she told them, “a Panther Girl, of the High Forests. I enslave men, when it pleases me. When I tire of them I sell them.“ She walked back and forth before them. ”You are tarsks and beasts,“ she told them. ”We despise you,“ she said. ”We have outwitted you, and captured you.

We have bound you. If we wished, we would take you into the forests and teach you what it is to be a slave!” As she spoke she jabbed at them with her spear, and a stain of blood was brought through the fabric of more than one tunic. “Men!” laughed Verna, contemptuously, and turned away from them.

I saw them struggle, but they could not free themselves. They had been bound by Panther Girls.

Then Verna was standing before me. She appraised me, as might have a slaver.

“Kajira,” she said, contemptuously.

I shook my head, No!

Without looking back she then strode, spear in hand, from the camp, toward the dark forests in the distance.

Her girls followed her, leaving the fire, and the bound men, and Ute and Lana, whom they had tied at the feet of two of the guards.

Captive of Gor

That said, they are able to trade from time to time with trading posts and unscrupulous traffickers, who profit greatly from the products that panther women can exchange. On the one hand, there are skins and furs, which can be quite valuable, then there are the few treasures of gold and jewelry that panther women can trade, and finally, there are prisoners and slaves, who are a significant financial windfall. In general, panther women do not sell for gold, but rather for basic necessities and essential manufactured goods, which they have no chance of producing in the forest on their own. And among these goods, arrowheads, their weapon of choice, are of course highly coveted!

Editor’s note: in case you didn’t know, an iron arrowhead is not very strong or durable. If it becomes blunt from being stuck in the wood of a tree trunk, it is fairly easy to sharpen it again with a whetstone. But the metal inevitably becomes brittle, and if the arrow strikes a hard obstacle hard enough (a bone is more than hard enough), the tip will bend or break. One in two arrowheads bends after penetrating a living body, say, the size of a tabuk. And one in four breaks. It is therefore a consumable material, rather expensive, and one that can only be manufactured with a properly equipped forge, iron ingots, and the necessary skills.

After the trek of perhaps an hour we came to a clearing in the forest. In the clearing, there was a small hut, a stave house, with a single door and window. Inside there was a light.

I was led to the door of this house.

Verna removed the bag from its hook and knelt down on the ground, the other girls around her. She shook the contents of the bag out onto the ground. It contained steel arrowheads. She counted them in the light of the moons. There were one hundred of them.

Verna gave six arrowheads to each of her girls. She kept ten for herself. She and the girls put the arrowheads into the pouches they wore on their belts.

I looked at her, shaking my head, not believing what I had seen. Could it be that this, and this alone, was my price, that I had been purchased for only this, the points for one hundred arrows?

Captive of Gor

2- Hunting & Gathering

As I mentioned above, panther women live as nomadic hunter-gatherer groups, covering a vast territory whose resources they control against other clans of panther women, groups of outlaws, or incursions by slave hunters and other reckless free men.

These resources are primarily game, fish, and edible plants, fruits, and nuts that provide sustenance for the group throughout the year. Their nomadic lifestyle is linked to the seasons and climatic constraints, as well as access to the food resources provided by the Great Forest. Fish are more abundant in spring, edible plants, game, and fruit in summer and fall, and edible nuts and roots between fall and winter. And, of course, not necessarily in the same places. Thus, the panther women move around a lot, from one resource area to another, building temporary hunting and gathering camps and preparing hidden shelters on their territory to store their provisions and equipment, returning later to help themselves when needed. With such a lifestyle, it is difficult to carry much with them when they move.

This implies one thing, which Norman perhaps considers less: solidarity within each clan of panther women is very strong, and while clans sometimes compete for survival or prestige, they are also united by the same solidarity among panther women. Even though panther women are clearly the strongest, most ruthless, courageous, and cruel women in Gor you will ever meet, they are nonetheless perfectly aware that their lives are constantly on the line, and that sticking together is the best way to survive! They will therefore collaborate, even between clans, for example, for seasonal hunting of large game, such as wild tarks and bosks. It is easier to work together to gather as much meat as possible while taking limited risks, thanks to their numbers. Considering the mortal danger posed by an old, hungry larl lurking in the forest, they will surely join forces with several clans to track it down and kill it. In addition to working together to eliminate a threat that hangs over each group, they come away with not only prestige, but also a trophy that can be sold for a high price. A large larl skin is a luxury that can be paid for in gold!

But the life of a hunter-gatherer is not all roses, far from it. And it is not for nothing that Homo sapiens ultimately favored animal husbandry and agriculture, despite other major problems with this way of life.

3- A hard and exhausting life

Hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times had a life expectancy of between 20 and 35 years, with a catastrophic infant mortality rate: one in two children did not reach the age of 15. This does not mean that the maximum lifespan of these people was 35 years, but it is an average between births and deaths. Most adults had a good chance of reaching 45.

But that said, it was clearly a lifestyle with a high mortality rate and low life expectancy compared to the subsequent agricultural model. And it is surely worse on Gor, with its wildlife being far more dangerous and aggressive than on Earth. And what does that mean?

It is obvious that the panther women’s lifestyle weighs heavily on their life expectancy, and that death takes its toll among them much more heavily than elsewhere on Gor. Every winter is difficult, and the harshest ones can decimate entire clans. Hunger leads to epidemics, far from any effective Gorean medicine, and accidents and attacks by wild animals can very quickly lead to a fatal end, for the same reasons. It is understandable that, even if panther women have children, they can only have a few, with high infant mortality rates. And the Preservation Serum does not change much! Panther women do not die of old age… they die from accidents, infections, hunger, or being devoured by a predator. This is the price these women pay for their independence and freedom. And the vast majority are well aware of this.

Culture & personality

Panther women have rejected Gor’s patriarchal society entirely, which also implies a rejection of the religion of the Priest-Kings. While one can imagine that they retain, like all Goreans, a superstitious fear of this very real power on Gor, they reject its cult and dogmas.

Thus, it is not uncommon to see them turning to informal forms of worship similar to shamanism. If you live in the forest, and your life depends on the climate and the abundance of game, you will turn to spiritual representations of the forest and its avatars. Also, because panther women have existed for a very long time, there is a true shamanic cult with its own codes, rules, officiants, and culture that is passed down from clan to clan and from panther woman to panther woman.

Obviously, it is also a female cult, which rejects men, considered responsible for all the evils of panther women (it would be hard to blame them, given their history). This shamanism is never described in detail, only evenings of dancing and trance, perhaps with hallucinogenic plants or mushrooms, and cruel and violent initiation rituals, so that a panther woman candidate can prove her worth, whether to gain rank in the clan or to be admitted to join it.

“Would you like to be one of us?” she asked.

“Yes!” I cried. “Yes!”

“Untie her,” said Verna.

The choke leash was removed from my throat. My wrists were unbound.

“Stand,” said Verna.

I did so, and so, too, did the other girls. I stood, rubbing my wrists.

The girls put down their spears, unslung the bows and quivers from their shoulders.

The light of the three moons filtered through the trees, speckling the glade.

Verna removed her sleen knife from her belt. She handed it to me.

I stood there, holding the knife.

The other girls stood ready, some half crouching. All had removed their knives from their sheaths.

“The place of which of these,” asked Verna, “will you take?”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“One of these,” said Verna, “or myself, you will fight to the death.”

Captive of Gor

In terms of personality, panther women are a bit unsociable. While they are very supportive of each other, their society is based on authority and the law of the strongest, the most resilient, the most cunning, and the most ruthless. Many panther women have experienced or endured abuse from men when they were still slaves or free women in Gorean society. The others, who were born in the forest, have known only the harshest survival, with their main enemy and greatest threat being those same men who are willing to do anything to hunt them down and enslave them. I think it would be difficult to find people on Gor more determined, resilient, fierce, and merciless than panther women. They are the epitome of survival, and only the Red Savages can truly compare to them.

So, can you negotiate or reason with them? If you are a man, your only chance is to have something they really need, and to remember that you are negotiating with women who will stop at nothing and who are every bit as dangerous as the most dangerous predators. And if you are a woman? Your chances improve, slightly. But they will not welcome you with open arms. For them, a kajira or a Gorean woman is, until proven otherwise, an accomplice of the Gorean society they abhor. This is true even if you are from the Torvie culture, which is also sexist, slave-owning, and patriarchal.

In conclusion, it must be considered that panther women are a fiercely independent subculture, very isolated from the rest of the world of Gor, whose members are willing to kill without hesitation to preserve that independence, whatever the cost. And most od her are well aware of that price, which is why it is so difficult to capture them alive and even more difficult to enslave them. They know what to expect and will do anything to escape that fate, their determination heightened tenfold by their fierce hatred of men.