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.
Legends of Windemere 
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.
😉
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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. 🙂
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My cat Esther is a torty calico X . They are thought to bring good fortune Meow
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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.
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Maybe the unlucky one has been cursed
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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.
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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
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True. Though, faith in Windemere can grant a person holy magic if they’re priests. 😉
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Oh I’d be a priest then…can I be a High Priestess please?
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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.
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lol
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