When designing a world, whether for fiction, or a table top role-playing game, the best advice I’ve ever received was “put the things you love in your world.” Because of that, in my D&D campaign, I’ve decided that many rats, some cats, and a few dogs can speak. They’re otherwise ordinary examples of their kind; no other special abilities or extra hit points, no opposable thumbs, they can just talk. They don’t like to talk around the Two-Legs, and they’re in constant war with each other.
I was inspired by several things: cats I’ve known in my life, for one; the stories about Lankhmar Below by Fritz Lieber; the novel Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams; and the Dream of A Thousand Cats from the Sandman series.
I surprised my players with this knowledge by introducing a cat by the name of Shadowtail. This is Shadowtail’s origin story.
Act I:
It’s true; some cats can speak with lesser creatures, like dogs, or rats <hissss> or even Two-Legs. Not all of us, though. And some of us don’t like to let the Two-Legs know. They can’t all be trusted.
I’ve always known how, as far back as my kittenhood. My mama Sunrise, and my papa Stonegray, both knew how, and they taught me. I was better than my brothers and sisters, I knew that much. Don’t tell them that I loved them. I did, but they wouldn’t believe me. That was a long time and a far journey away, in Kopno’domas Below, the city beneath the city. We hunted and rested, and avoided the Two-Legs above, for the most part.
My family and the rest of the colony didn’t only play and hunt and sleep, though. We were at war, always at war, with the dogs, and the rats <hissssss>. I hate the rats the most. Dogs are just dumb but many of them are bigger than even the biggest cat, and can be dangerous sometimes, in large numbers.
A few years back, the Rat Queen and Her Court <hissssss!> had somehow gained the upper hand on our little colony of cats. They greatly outnumbered us, and had enlisted help from among the Two-Legs, and were coming to eat us all. It was the smart thing to do to leave. We had no ties to Kopno’domas Below. Pfft. It didn’t hurt us at all, leaving the only home we had ever known, full of warm soft places to sleep and many tasty things to hunt. Surely anywhere would have those things, right?
So we left, my brothers and sisters and I, and Sunrise, and Stonegray. One night, we crept out above ground, made our way past the Two-Legs with big knives in metal shells, and we kept traveling in the direction of the setting sun. We found plenty of things to hunt, though some of them were large and better avoided than chased. We found fields full of grain, and kept going. We found tall mountains full of dangerous things, and kept going. We smelled salt in the air, and living fish, and followed the streams to the biggest area of sand, jutting up against a bigger than big pool of water, from where the scent of salt and fish came from. Mama and papa said that surely this was the hunting ground we had dreamed of for many of our lives.
Sunrise and Stonegray called this a beach, and The Ocean, and when the sun fell into The Ocean it all lit up like it was on fire. It was a good life. We didn’t have comfortable cushions to rest on, and there were no small fires to sleep next to, and there were no Two-Legs around to leave out tasty treats to eat. We had to find those comforts ourselves. And we mostly did.
As we roamed we found smaller towns full of Two-Legs, and over time, some of my brothers and sisters wandered into them. I worried (don’t tell them) but I also hoped for them. Not all Two-Legs are bad.
Sunrise and Stonegray also felt the call of sleeping on windowsills and silk pillows to rest on after a good hunt, and one day they butted my head, told me I was special, and wandered into the town. I was torn, but I also knew I was not fit for these kinds of comforts, as special as I was. So I kept wandering, keeping The Ocean and the setting sun to my right as I continued down the coast, hunting and sleeping as I wished. Mice were plentiful and clever, but I was cleverer.
One evening from atop a bluff, I saw a big wooden boat out on the ocean waves. It had wine-red sails that caught the wind and pulled it over the water. From the beach, I kept up with it as best as I could, until the boat pulled into a cove, and it lowered a smaller boat, full of Two-Legs. They had found a Two-Legs ruin, walled off, abandoned. It was a large area, with a dead tree in the center, and many towers and buildings. Some of them stayed above in tents with a fire, the others disappeared into one of the buildings. This was not a town or a village. I could keep my distance from them, so I stayed for several nights, hiding in the bushes. I stole bits of food and cheese from them but kept out of their awareness. I slept near the dead tree, where they did not go.
One night, I woke, whether from luck or alertness, to see another cat, pale with ginger stripes, and blue eyes, watching me. “Hello,” she said, in the common Two-Legs language.
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