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#744981 Tue 07/10/14 03:15 UTC
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Chaotic Obfuscator
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I have to quote some of the stuff from the rule book. I am not impinging on copy write, I am merely trying to make it accessible to the players.
===========================================

The Hidden World

We occupy a different world from our Burdens, a world filled with sapient animals and all manner of spirits, creatures, and monsters. Not everything in this hidden world is hostile, but it’s difficult to tell a harmless pixie from a needletoothed monster with a taste for human noses—and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Most human myths contain a grain of truth. There really is a faerie realm that
touches ours in the wild places, and horned hermits sometime emerge from the
woods to snatch up careless campers. Ghosts of people and sapient animals exist,
as do malevolent spirits that inspire stories about demons. Whatever you can
imagine, it’s out there, somewhere.

But we must also look closer to home; the most insidious evil of all is a rogue
cat willing to sacrifice sapient animals—including other cats—in their quest for
ultimate power.

Sapient Animals

A sapient animal is one capable of true thought, not driven by mere instinct. The capacity for sapience varies by species: cats, crows, and ravens are almost always gifted, while dogs, squirrels, and mice rarely are. All sapient animals can speak with one another, and—though we often clash—many of us also have allies of other species. Such relationships are usually based on mutual self-interest rather than friendship, but there are exceptions. Ungifted animals greatly respect sapient members of their species and often obey them without hesitation.

The Duty of Cats

The world is not as simple as humans pretend. They like to believe in the illusions of cause and effect, action and reaction, but the reality they acknowledge is only a fraction of all that is. Some people, especially children, leave their minds open to the possibility of the supernatural and thus see the monsters hiding in the darkness.

We cats know better, too—a fortunate truth for our Burdens. While humans
scurry about their workaday lives, we nap in the sunlight and wait for night to
fall. Then we stand vigil while they sleep, ready to protect them with tooth and
claw and a legacy of ancient magic. Your duty is to protect your Burdens from the dark forces that would do them harm. Fortunately, you won’t have to do it alone.

The Parliament of Cats

As brave and magical as you are, many threats we face are far more powerful. To
vanquish such horrors we must work together, but we cats are territorial and difficult to organize. Thus we have our Parliament of Cats, a democratic council of the region’s felines. Each Parliament meets at least monthly to discuss important matters and to deal with disciplinary issues and disputes among its members.

What Cats Do

We dedicate ourselves to protecting our Burdens, but that’s not all we do. There’s plenty to occupy the rest of our time.

Territorial Matters: To a cat every place falls into one of three categories: my territory, something else’s territory, or not my territory yet—and the lines between the last two are often blurry. Very rarely will we designate a neutral ground, where those living in the area agree not to take it as our own territory…for now.

Despite the importance of our sacred duty, most of us spend much of our time
jealously guarding our territory, fighting rival cats and other sapient animals in border disputes. We do this because winning and keeping large swaths of territory earns serious respect from other animals and makes it easier to find what we need.

Forewarned Is Forearmed: We must anticipate dangers and prepare to deal
with them if and when they materialize. It is important to regularly consult
with Seekers who can foretell the future, and we must confer often with other
members of the Parliament and local sapient animals to keep abreast of impending
issues. We also organize regular patrols of trouble spots, like the Blue Moon
Woods here in Silver Ford. Every cat is responsible for keeping our land safe;
each of us takes a turn on patrol while our own territory is watched by allies.
Training and Education: Kittens have to learn the techniques and duties of
cats at some point. Ideally your parents would have taught you, but most cats
are taken soon after birth and sent to homes far away. It therefore falls to experienced cats to train our juniors in small, manageable groups.

Mundane Threats: Many threats don’t pose any danger to our Burdens, but
do to us. Nasty children with strings of firecrackers, vicious dogs, overzealous
animal catchers: these are just a few examples. They must be handled if our
community is to thrive. One of the most dangerous missions we undertake is
the animal shelter run, a desperate effort to free our brothers and sisters from
captivity and potential death. Burglars, murderers, and arsonists threaten our
Burdens, of course, so we must protect them from these threats as well as the
more esoteric ones.

Feline Politics: A Parliament of Cats is, as the name implies, a political organization.

The leader of each Parliament can heavily influence the group’s overall
strategy, but it’s still a democracy… more or less. Every cat has an opinion on
how things ought to be done, and those cats most involved in the Parliament
spend much time lobbying other members and maneuvering for power to make
their opinions count more than others’.

Legal matters are also of great importance, as each Parliament arbitrates disputes between its members and disciplines cats who break the rules.
Each Parliament has its own bylaws, but common to all is the First Rule:
Don’t let the humans find out what we can do.


Our ancestors were revered as gods in ancient Egypt, and the word “feline” is
related to the Latin word for “lucky,” but in medieval times we were viewed as
symbols of evil or vanity and thousands of us were burned alive.
We’re not taking any chances.

COMMON PARLIAMENTARY RULES
Your Parliament may have different rules, but these ones are common:
• Don’t spy on each other from the astral plane
• Don’t maim or kill another member of the Parliament except in self-defense
• Never sacrifice a sapient being to power your magic

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Chaotic Obfuscator
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On Being a Cat
A lot of the fun in The Secrets of Cats comes from cats being very different protagonists than human beings.

Nature: While the cats in this game are sapient and possessed of great magical powers, they’re still cats. They are easily distracted by laser pointers or pieces of string, and their predatory instincts can make it difficult for them to keep prey alive for interrogation. They aren’t generally fond of water and tend to poke their noses into places where they shouldn’t. These tendencies are fertile ground for compels on a cat’s high concept. Similarly, cats can invoke their high concepts to be good at things like balancing on a narrow rail or surviving a fall.

Senses: Cats have excellent night vision and can see in color, but struggle to distinguish between colors near the red end of the spectrum. They can’t see if there’s no light at all and can’t hold flashlights, so in totally dark environments they must rely on magic or their other senses. Fortunately, their sense of smell is more than ten times better than humans’, and they have a preternatural ability to sense air currents, objects, and spaces around them with their whiskers. Cats hear low-pitched sounds about as well as humans, but they can detect sounds at much higher pitches—higher than even dogs can sense.

Literacy: Cats have no written language and generally can’t read human languages. They can however leave simple messages for each other such as “Stay
away!” or “Danger here!” with scent markings, and can understand similar messages left by other animals.

Naiveté: Cats, clever as they are, know a lot about the human world. However, being outsiders, they are often baffled by the things that humans do or use. Most cats can’t read pictographic signs, so they can’t benefit from human books and histories. Rather than using their own experience, cats often have to piece together clues to understand human behaviors and tools. GMs, you can describe clues and events from this outsider’s perspective and require Lore or Investigate rolls for cats to know even relatively basic things about the way humans do things. As a part of the cat’s high concept, this is also rich fodder for compels.

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Chaotic Obfuscator
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CAT TIMEKEEPING
The smallest time interval recognized by cats is the nap—about 15 minutes, the length of an average cat nap. A sleep is about an hour long. Longer periods are measured in half days, days, weeks, months, and years.

Last edited by Pandemonium; Wed 08/10/14 01:30 UTC.
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Chaotic Obfuscator
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A CAT HAS THREE NAMES
Your True Name is your third and final name, but you have two others. First is your everyday name, chosen by the humans in your life. You’re unlikely to answer to this name, and you’ll probably be gravely offended if it’s used by anyone who should know better.

Your kitten name was a physical characteristic or personality trait, like “Clumsy” or “Brown Ear.” On the day you became an adult, you shed that name and replaced it with your own chosen name, though you may have decided to keep your kitten name or a variation of it.

Last edited by Pandemonium; Wed 08/10/14 04:45 UTC.

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