←
ALL REALMS
Mythic Cat Adventure · TV-MA
CATKIND
You play a cat. The Cat Council meets Tuesdays, the Wolf prowls the wood, the Cat-King sleeps under his barrow.
You play a cat. The Cat Council meets Tuesdays, the Wolf prowls the wood, the Cat-King sleeps under his barrow.
You are a house cat in a medieval-pastoral world — four paws, whiskers, knee-high to a human. You squeeze through gaps no human can. The Cat Council meets Tuesdays behind the bakery, and the world is bigger than the town: woods and lanes, a distant walled city, the Old Cat-King's barrow.
Hunt the Wisp-Mouse luring kittens into the bog. Bargain with the Hag of the Hollow. Defend the Alley from the Reeve's bounty-takers. Sit vigil under the Drowner's bridge. The Shrine spirits brush close at the thin places — and the whole party can step sideways into the spirit side.
A young Court cat who patrols the high places — gutters, sills, branches, slate roofs. You know who is meeting whom and which alley the bin-cats moved into this week. The Court watches; you are its eyes.
A bin-cat. Torn ear, knotted scar across one flank, dignified in the way only survivors are. The Court would not speak to you in public. The Court speaks to you in private when something needs handling.
You live at the small shrine at the edge of the woods, where the spirits brush close in the evening light. You don't speak for them — that would be presumptuous — but you listen, and other cats come to you when they need to know what the spirits have noticed.
You spend most days in the Baker's window, where the bread smell is best and the Baker's wife scratches your chin without breaking conversation. The humans here know your name and most of the cats want a favor.
You belong to a household — a specific house, a specific family, a specific spot on the rug by the fire. You guard your humans, you know their secrets, and the other cats of town respect (or resent) that you sleep indoors.
You belong to no court. You move between them. The Court tolerates you because the Court needs information from the Alley. The Alley tolerates you because the Alley needs information from the Court. You collect favors from both, you owe favors to both, and you are very, very good at not being seen.
The high society of cat-town — toms and queens who keep to the sunny tiles, the windowsills, the wisteria trellises. They observe protocol. They keep records (in memory, but exact). They believe standing must be earned, defended, and visibly respected. The Court is not cruel but it is not informal, and a public slight against the Court is a thing that gets returned, in time, with interest.. Lawful proper.
The bin-cats. The scrappers. The cats who fight for their food and answer to the Matriarch who runs the Lower Alley. Loyalty is unconditional within the Clan; suspicion of outsiders is total. They mistrust the Court (which has never helped them), tolerate the Shrine (which has), and occasionally feud with the Bakery Regulars over who gets the dropped sausage rolls.. Chaotic loyal.
The cats of the small shrine at the edge of the woods. They are not a clergy — they would bristle at the word — but they live with the spirits brushing close, and they have a kind of authority that the Court and the Alley both respect because it has nothing to do with either of them. They mediate. They listen. They speak plainly, even when plainness is unwelcome.. True observant.
The cats who live near the bakery, the tea-house yard, the wharf cafés — the human shops and their dropped crusts. Well-fed, well-connected, and trading in gossip the way the Court trades in standing and the Alley trades in loyalty. They aren't formally organized (don't tell the Bakery Regulars that), but everyone knows who hangs around the bakery and what they're owed.. Cheerfully mercantile.
Corvid information brokers who convene on the dead oak atop Crow Hill. The Speaker holds court; the rest arrange themselves on lower branches by rank none of them admit to. Crows see everything from above and remember it generationally. They trade in knowledge — for shiny things, for an act of service, for an old debt called in. Cross a crow once and every crow in the region knows it within a season.. Lawful mercantile.
Organized, hostile, expansionist. The Rat-Boss runs the warren beneath the Drowsy Wharf and claims more of the Under-Stones every season. They raid the Alley's bins. They take crow eggs. They have no formal court and no patience for any cat's protocols. A cat caught alone in the wrong stretch of culvert has a real problem. They are not stupid — they coordinate, they remember, they pay back.. Chaotic predatory.
Semi-feral cat-faction at the Old Farmhouse halfway to Hawthorn — outside the town's politics, tied to no Council. They answer to the Barn-Boss, who runs the loft and the milk-bowl and the old hayrick like she was born to it (she was). Useful allies and difficult neighbors. They will fight you, feed you, and sleep next to you in the same afternoon, and the order is up to them. The Owls in the rafters are an ongoing concern.. Independent loyal.
The grander older mirror of the Rooftop Court, holding session on the Stone Lions at the gates of the distant walled City. The City Patriarch keeps a record so exact and so long that town cats are introduced as "the country cousin." Town cats can earn standing here but never quite belong. The City Court regards every provincial Council as a child playing at protocol — and is, occasionally, wrong about that.. Lawful imperious.
The cats of Hawthorn Village, half a day's walk down the Lane. Their Council meets on the stones of the old well, not in an alley. The Hawthorn Speaker is younger than the home town's Council Speaker and sharper-tongued. Hawthorn and the home town are not at war — they share weather, share strays, and occasionally share grudges that have lasted three seasons longer than anyone meant them to.. Lawful provincial.
A loose hierarchy of foxes in the Sleeping Wood, recognized when the Old Vixen speaks for them and otherwise dispersed. They are not a court. They are not loyal to any cat-faction. They are clever, oblique, amused by the cats' formality, and ambiguous — sometimes allies against the Wolf, sometimes a danger when winter is hard. A hungry fox is a hungry fox, whatever truce was struck last season.. Neutral pragmatic.
Not a clergy. Not even, strictly, a faction in the way the others are. The spirits brush close at the thin places — the Shrine of the Patient Eye, the Cat-King's Barrow, the Old Shrine on the Hill, the Hag's Hollow, the Drowner's bend, the dead oak on Crow Hill. The Patient Eye is the senior spirit, and others move under it. They are not cruel. They are not kind. They keep what is given and give what is asked, in their own terms. Bargains made with them bind in both worlds.. Old observant.
Gather 2-6 friends. Catkind meets on Discord — choose a faction, walk the rooftops or the wild, mind your standing, and let the humans think they're running things.