Cougarling

A mutated human prowls on all fours, a low growl coming from their lower throat.  Their hair is unkempt, they are fully nude, and their legs and lower back are far too muscular for the rest of their body.  Their eyes are wild and animalistic, and their mouth is unable to close fully due to the massive incisors protruding from it.

The leopard and jaguar, already endangered, were hunted to extinction by starving survivors within two years of atomic war's conclusion.  As society reestablished itself in the world, the renewed aristocracies of many areas looked upon the destroyed mines and plantations of the more irradiated zones with greed, and work parties were sent, often at gunpoint, to reclaim these facilities in the hopes of making a huge profit.  Instead, day-in and day-out exposure to strange, supernatural radiation reshaped the unfortunate laborers into a new predator, one that took up the mantle of the dead big cats.

Cougarlings originated within the more heavily radioactive areas of Africa, but they haven't stayed there.  In the south of the former United States, cougarlings compete with their namesakes, the mountain lions, for territory and prey.  Huge, maned cougarlings roam the African savannah, bringing a terrible beauty to the poisoned lands.  In Siberia and China, rumors abound of tigerlings, which have been reshaped into the form of the white tiger by what seems to have been a sentient hand.  Still, these uncanny, majestic creatures are far more aggressive and intelligent than their feline counterparts, and they can pose a mortal danger to unprepared people moving through their territory.