Lion

Overview

The Lion is a temporary mount in Crimson Desert that can be found at The Laughing Marionette, a circus located in the Demeniss region. Unlike horses, the lion cannot be permanently tamed, registered at a stable, or summoned on demand. It functions as a rideable animal for as long as you remain mounted, but it becomes unavailable once you dismount.

Base Stats

At Level 1, the Lion has the following base stats:

Location

The Lion spawns at The Laughing Marionette in Demeniss, positioned between the "M" and the second "E" of "Demeniss" on the map, just outside the City of Demeniss. You will find the lion sitting near circus tents where NPCs are petting it.

How to Mount

Simply approach the seated lion and press Square (PlayStation) or X (Xbox) when the Ride prompt appears. There is no combat, no taming minigame, and no legal consequence for taking it. You ride away freely.

Mask restriction: Make sure you are not wearing a Mask when approaching. If you have a mask equipped, the option to ride will not appear.

Riding Characteristics

• Speed: The lion is extremely fast, one of the quickest temporary mounts available.

• Stamina: Low stamina pool (100) limits sustained running despite the high top speed.

• Combat: The lion cannot attack enemies on its own. You can use your own weapons from its back.

Limitations

• Not permanent: Cannot be stored at stables or registered as a mount.

• Respawn timer: After leaving or losing the lion, you must wait several in-game weeks for another to appear at the circus.

• Hostile guards: Guards in the Demeniss area are hostile until after Chapter 8 of the main quest. Consider visiting later in your playthrough.

• Wild lions are different: Wild lions in the Crimson Desert region are hostile and extremely rare. The circus lion at The Laughing Marionette is the most reliable source.

Patch 1.06.00 Special Mount

On May 10, 2026, Patch 1.06.00 added the Special Mounts system, which gives lions two acquisition paths. The pre-existing circus-captive lion at The Laughing Marionette in Demeniss remains a temporary-mount option. The new permanent-mount path tames wild lions from a White Lion pride in the Varnia region.

The Varnia path uses the standard Special Mounts trust loop. Drop meat near a lion in the pride, wait for the lion to approach and feed, and repeat until trust reaches 100. The Take In prompt then converts the lion into a permanent registered mount under the new Special Mounts inventory tab. Meat is the only food accepted; cooked food and dairy are ignored.

The Varnia White Lion pride sits outside the city of Varnia in the western part of the region. The pride contains multiple feedable lions, which makes it the faster of the two acquisition paths for players hunting a permanent mount rather than a temporary ride. The Demeniss circus lion can still be taken for a temporary ride without combat by approaching while unmasked, as described above.

Three Known Sources

Community testing through Patch 1.07.00 has confirmed three separate ways to obtain a Lion in the world. None of them grant access to the legendary White Lion or the Black Lion, both of which are kill-only encounters.

• Legendary Animals questline pack. The Legendary Animals mission line includes the Black Lion encounter north of Demeniss, and the Black Lion is flanked by a pack of standard lions during the fight. The Black Lion itself cannot be tamed, but the standard lions in his pack reportedly respond to the same force-palm flow used at the Vernia pride. The questline rewards the White Lion Necklace on completion, so the pack lions are a side-trophy on the way to the necklace.

• Demeniss Circus steal pen. The Laughing Marionette circus inside Demeniss occasionally has a tameable lion penned among the rotating menagerie. The lion is rare and not guaranteed on any single visit. When it does appear, approach the pen with a lantern equipped, jump on while the steal flag is up, then sprint out of the red circle and feed any meat to convert the steal into a permanent Special Mount. The pen otherwise commonly holds a hippo or other large animals. See the existing Circus Lion page for the temporary-ride flow from the same circus.

• Vernia spawn point at the White Lion site. The area just below Vernia where the legendary Sighting of the White Lion plays out also holds standard lions that respawn at night even after the white lion has been killed. Earlier patch-notes confusion suggested the pride permanently despawned after the legendary kill; this is false. Visit at night, on a fresh zone load, to find the pride active.

Only the Male of the Pride Can Be Tamed

In every pack source above, only the mane-bearing male responds to the Force Palm trust loop. The lionesses cannot be tamed and will keep attacking through the subdual, which makes them risk both to the player and to the male (a stray combo can knock the male off a cliff at the Vernia site).

Recommended approach: save first, isolate the male by kiting the females out of the pack, kill the females with your strongest weapon, then close on the male and spam Force Palm until the Ride prompt appears. Do not jump on his back to force palm down. The prompt is easier to read from the side. Once mounted, feed meat from the inventory. Bird meat grants 35 trust per piece; every other meat type grants 40. Three pieces usually clear the 100 trust threshold.

Press Take In (Y on Xbox, triangle on PlayStation) when trust hits 100. The lion registers under the new Special Mounts tab, where it can be renamed and summoned on demand. The full taming loop is documented in Legendary Mounts Guide and the trust mechanics shared with other big-cat tames sit on the Force Palm page.

Repopulating a Liberated Area

If the circus or the Demeniss roads are already cleared and refuse to repopulate, switch the world to war mode through the Re-Blockading setting in the gameplay menu. War mode reoccupies certain points on the map with their original faction roster and is the cleanest way to make the circus pen rotate its menagerie or to bring the Demeniss pack back.

See Also

• Circus Lion - Detailed article about the circus lion variant

• The Laughing Marionette - The circus location in Demeniss

• Tiger - Another big cat mount with similar stats

• Mounts - All mounts in Crimson Desert

Vernia Lion Pack Route (Detailed)

The wild Lion permanent-mount path follows the same area as the White Lion legendary fight. The pack spawns at the same site, but only after the legendary white lion has been defeated and a few in-game days have passed. The notes below cover the path the community has settled on as the most reliable.

Where the Pack Spawns

Travel to the northeast corner of the map, south of Vernia. The spawn coincides with the White Lion legendary location. The fastest approach uses a nearby fast travel point: glide outward, recover stamina on a small rock outcrop partway across, then glide the rest of the distance to the marker. Without the legendary kill behind you, the area holds only the legendary white lion. Once the legendary is dead, a regular pride of lions (one mane-bearing alpha and several lionesses) begins to spawn after a few in-game days.

Lions do not appear on every visit. If the area is empty, either wait several in-game days, switch the time of day (night-time spawns appear less common), or fast travel away and back to force a zone reload. Plan for multiple resets before a successful tame.

Why You Need a Weak Weapon

Maxed-out weapons will kill a regular lion long before its trust meter opens. A typical late-game greatsword or sword has 30+ attack power; the alpha lion's stagger threshold is reached well before its health is depleted only when individual hits do far less damage. The community-recommended solution is the Bamboo Spear harvested fresh from the Bamboo Forest in the area between Hernand and Demeniss, south of the Ironwood. Bamboo stalks have approximately 3 attack power, low enough to bash the lion into submission without killing it. See Bamboo Spear for harvesting steps. Even an unarmed strike from a high-level character can kill a wild lion outright if gloves are heavily upgraded, so swapping to bamboo before engaging is the safe play.

Cliff Hazard Warning

Some Vernia spawn points sit close to cliff edges. The third basic combo hit knocks targets back, and a poorly-timed combo near a ledge can send the alpha lion off the cliff to its death. Recovery requires waiting several in-game days for the pack to respawn. Steer the fight away from cliffs before committing to combos, and prefer single-hit pokes near the edge.

Taming Loop

Cooked food and dairy are ignored as feed for lions. Only raw meat counts toward the trust meter.

The pre-existing circus-captive Circus Lion at The Laughing Marionette in Demeniss is still available for a temporary ride without combat, as described in the earlier sections of this article.