Character Creation: Cat

 OK, I lied again. I thought I'd have time to do a Vampire character before leaving for my folks', but, ironically, I've been developing a Vampire book all day and I didn't get to it. But lest you think I'm not serious about this "character a day" thing, I give you: Cat.

The Game: Cat
The publisher: Wicked Dead Brewing Company
Degree of familiarity: A good deal. I've run it a couple of times, and played in Jae's game at Origins a couple years back.
Books required: Just the Cat book or pdf. 

 

Right, so the basic idea here is that cats protect people from invisible monsters called "Boggins," and that they can enter our dreams to protect us. Also, dogs came up second in the contest to protect humanity, so while some dogs are OK with that, some are still bitter.

Basically, people have two approaches to this game. They make their own pet cats, or they find an archetypal cat and make that. Last time I played, I played Happycat of I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? fame, and spoke LOLcat the whole time, which was a lot more fun than I'd normally admit.

This time, though, I'll play the kitten I owned as a boy, all growed up. His name was Marshmallow, because he was all white and I was, like, 6.

Step One: The Traits. Cats have six traits. I get to prioritize one as Best, three as Strong, and the rest as Good. Let's go to work!

I want Marshmallow to be a clever cat, so I give him Face as Best. That means he gets a bonus of 5. I also want him to be pretty, so I assign Strong to Coat. Marshmallow is a runaway, so I'll put my other Strongs into Legs (for the actual running) and Tail (for magical escapes). That leaves Fangs and Claws at Good; he can fight, but he's not great at it.

Step Two: Names. Cats, as Mr. Eliot tells us, have three names. The first is the given name, the one that people use - I've established already that it's "Marshmallow" in this case. The second name is the cat name, that other felines use. Marshmallow is called "Fiend" by other cats. He's called that because he usually stays with a family long enough to solve a particularly nasty Boggin problem, and then he buggers off, often leaving a child heartbroken.

Hey, it's not his job to make 'em happy, just to kill the Boggins. You want to be happy? Get a dog. Want to be safe? Call a cat.

Finally, he has a secret name, but since Marshmallow never told me, I can't tell you.

Step Three: Reputation. Cats have titles, and these can give me bonuses in certain situations. I get seven points of Reputations, and no one Rep can start higher than three.

Well, the biggest Rep for Marshmallow is "Save 'em and Leave 'em." He's known for getting the job done quickly and then vamoosing, so he gets bonus dice when that would help him (say, convincing another cat to let him sleep over, since he won't be staying long).

Since he's a white cat and he stays so pearly, I put 2 points into "Never Dirty." And finally, since he's so businesslike about finding and killing Boggins, he gets a "Never Sleeps" Rep at 2.

What's interesting here is that he's got this rep for killing Boggins, but he's not that hot in a fight. How's he do it? (Hint: His name is Fiend. He can talk Boggins into anything, even getting into the dryer.)

Step Four: Lives. I have 9 lives, until something bad happens.

 

 

And that's it! Tomorrow I'll do Dread and Wednesday I'll do Prawn, since those are both basically sheet-less. Then Thursday I'll do Vampire. Friday I don't know that I'll be in any shape to do a character, but if I am, I will.