I forgot that the last section of Beginning of a Hero introduced another facet of Windemere. I had focused on the dragon, which is standard for fantasy worlds and people would be more surprised if I didn’t have them. Then again, I had Fizzle. I’ll talk about the dragons tomorrow after posting the finale of ‘Catalysts’. Is it wrong to plug my own posts on my website?
Like all fantasy authors, I had the standard races in Windemere. Human, elf, dwarf, half-breeds, orc, gnome, and halfling. As time went on, I wondered what else I could throw into the mix. This is where the Calicos and several other species came from. They were originally part of an older story where each hero was a special creature, but I slowly slipped them into mainstream. Of course, they remained on the fringe for years until I decided a few months ago to turn Theresa Marley into a Calico. I had too many humans and didn’t feel like making her go elf. So, I gave her ear tufts, a tail, and various cat-like habits.
I’d love to say that this is highly original, but I’ve watched enough anime (Japanese cartoons) and read enough manga (Japanese comics) to know that the cat-people are rather common. Though, they’re always cutesie characters or stand-offish characters, but Theresa doesn’t help me get away from that. She was catty before I made her part cat, so that might be why I did it. Luke kept comparing her to a panther and I think she got compared to a lioness at one point too.
Calicos are going to be getting more and more common as I continue writing. Several characters in later books and later series are being altered as I write. They are still a work in progress because all I had was that they are cat-people and don’t have a central government like the other races. They stick to the laws of whatever city they happen to live in, but there are a division of Calicos who are wild. They tend to be bigger and more barbarian-like, so it will be interesting when I can find a way to introduce one of them. These cat-people were a race called ‘Beasts’ until last night when I realized they were too similar to the Calicos and merged them. I guess they do have their own culture with one group choosing to be civilized and the other to remain wild. Is that cat-like? I’m more of a dog person, so I don’t really know.
I can’t believe I’m responding to a post about cat-people, but I am
I often make my pet cats talk (and they carry on lengthy conversations with my husband and children) so I feel like an expert on this particular subject.
I think that it *is* very cat-like that one group of cats would think it would be superior to the other (let’s say the wild-cats v. the more domesticated/civilized cats in your story) because cats already believe they are superior to other household pets and even humans. So I think they’d be pretty hierarchical, even within their own species.
Thanks. My wife and my mom are allergic, so we have very little cat experience. The most is a friend who has a part-Persian cat who is the queen of all she sees. I’ve been working off her on this. I’m glad I got the hierarchical and superiority complex right. It’s funny too because I just changed another character into a Calico and he’s constantly trying to overthrow his employer because he thinks he’s better.
My cat Esther is a torty calico X . They are thought to bring good fortune Meow
Cool. I was thinking of implementing a natural luck to the Calicos, but one of them is too unlucky for me to have it work. It’d be hard to work in anyway.
Maybe the unlucky one has been cursed
Possibly. Truthfully, luck is an ability that is always hard to write. It’s easy to overdo it and have the character never have a bad thing happen to them. This in turn tends to weaken them as characters. Best use of it that I’ve seen is a magic sword called Coinspinner in Fred Saberhagen’s Book of Lost Swords. It bestowed great luck to a person, but was always trying to get away from the holder. It would vanish at the worst moment to balance the scales.
Yeah luck is overrated..faith is much better, cause even when really shitty stuff happens, faith holds a candle, a way out, least thats how I see it
True. Though, faith in Windemere can grant a person holy magic if they’re priests.
Oh I’d be a priest then…can I be a High Priestess please?
Sure. There are 5-6 pages of deities to choose from too. One big, happy pantheon due to a few historical blunders on their part.
lol