Curious Cats Draft Manuscript Part 4
9 months ago
– Tue, Mar 05, 2024 at 07:49:41 AM
Hello Curious Cats,
Two great chapters from the draft version of Curious Cats of Mau for backers today! This is the Who, Where, and What phase, with a dive into the culture and customs of these cats, details about the monarchies themselves, and also Guide advice on the different kinds of stories you can tell.
International Shipping – Collected in the Pledge Manager
One quick note about Shipping before we get into the manuscript previews.
First up, it's amazingly expensive to ship, especially from Onyx Path's home base in the US. We get that, but there's not much we can do at this time. Onyx Path is in a difficult space where the company is big enough that they're not saving money by fulfilling out of Rich's garage, but small enough that they can't really set up international partners to handle portions of the fulfillment. So we are where we are - for now.
The best we can do at this point is to plan carefully, advise everyone up front that international shipping will likely be expensive (see our projections on the main page) and only charge what it costs us when the time comes. We’ll be charging for shipping in the Pledge Manager once the books are being printed and we can deal with the actual shipping charges rather than using our best-guesses this far out. If you live outside the US and aren't sure you want the hardcover or other physical items, you can pledge to the PDF tier now and upgrade your pledge in the Pledge Manager once we know the final shipping costs.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY
Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Reply to The Update" link on the bottom and I'll see you below the title treatment.
WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK
I'm going to be sharing the manuscript in sections over the next 30 days, Part of the reason for that is to keep focus on one section at a time so the developers, Eddy and Lauren, can gather feedback to help guide the manuscript through the next steps of editing and development. To that end, they've created a special Feedback Form for you to submit your comments after reading each section!
You can submit your comments here:
CURIOUS CATS OF MAU FEEDBACK FORM <link>
Sneak Peek: Cat Culture
9 months ago
– Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 11:10:45 AM
Cat Culture
Cat culture varies greatly throughout the monarchies, but the proudest Siberian can find commonalities with even the wildest moggie. Whether the Siberian can tolerate the moggies frolicking through their lounge is entirely a different question.
Spirituality
Cat spirituality is deeply personal. Many believe that Man granted the cats all manner of gifts including nine lives to enjoy and improve the state of their souls. A cat must prove worthy of the great gifts, or fall into disgrace, personal ruin, and worst of all, pernicious embarrassment! Though cats possess no past or future lives, many consider their good sense and intuition to flow from their other selves, supporting righteous and clever actions in the present. There’s no empirical evidence of such beliefs, but they still shape the ideas and actions of countless cats across the world.
Temples in Mau are dedicated to the Nine, raised by ministers as state sanctioned sanctuaries and houses of worship. Here, cats meditate or consult with their other selves safely and privately. Minsters also provide guidance and advice, some confidentially telling worshipers whether they’re a “young soul” or an “old soul” in their progression of lives. Others are orators, using the respect their positions afford to sway public opinion. Some cats privately question such uses of the pulpit, while others ascribe their abilities or ideas to their other lives communing with them inside temple walls.
Precepts of Mau
Dating back to the Treaty of Unification, the four precepts represent a common code of behavior and ethics accepted across all the great and lesser houses. While certain houses append others to the list, even Trillani and the Ruling Council could only agree on a pawful that all held in common. Other precepts are referred to as the Disputed Precepts, such as the house mottos.
Always Trust Your Instincts
All the gifts and praise Man lavished upon cats can be traced to this precept: Cats act in ways worthy of reverence, and so they were revered. A cat cannot look to an outside source to provide ultimate guidance, whether a dog’s single-minded devotion or a badger’s certain superstition. Instead, it’s up to every cat to follow the only authority they can truly accept: themselves.
Always Pounce Upon the Minions of the Unseen
Cats of old protected Man to the best of their ability, hissing, scratching, and pouncing upon the Unseen, and yet it wasn’t enough to save their poor, oblivious servants. After Man’s disappearance, cats lost their ability to detect the Unseen — perhaps due to failing Man, perhaps as a side effect of whatever foul plot stole away the Old Ones. Thus cats must redouble their guard against Unseen threats every day. The slow return of the ability to sense the Unseen has not been lost on cats, but even the least aware believes it a duty worth upholding. Of all the precepts, this is the one cats agree on the most readily.
Always Reward Loyalty
Unlike the dogs who devote themselves to any friendly wagging tail, cats consider true loyalty more precious than plastic or treasure. Loyalty misplaced or abused led many a cat to ruin. Formalizing the importance of reciprocating loyalty allowed the great houses to spread trust and fraternity, and modern cats benefit from the practice without knowing how precious the gift is.
Always Respect an Honest Duel
Even the most idealistic cat didn’t expect Unification to end all conflict. The Treaty channeled traditions such as Korat’s support of martial clashes or some moggies’ fondness for knife fighting into a standardized set of dueling rules. These rules gave cats from different regions common footing to settle their serious grievances without giving over to wholesale slaughter, through an exhaustive list of conditions, considerations, and alternatives.
The basics are simple: when two cats cannot settle a dispute, a duel may determine which party is correct. Properly conducted and honestly witnessed, a duel settles the matter in favor of its victor. The code provides for any number of ways that cats may come to grips, from weapons to bare claws to nonviolent resolutions such as tests of skill or games. Some older cats disdain duels that don’t leave the possibility of bloodshed open, but modern cats accept that even a serious card game may decide matters.
Dressing duels up in social ritual or elaborate etiquette is common, often to save face for both sides. Cats of House Rex complain of “a matter involving a boat” as a pretense, allowing potentially embarrassing or secret reasons for the dispute to remain hidden while issuing a challenge. Typically, challenger and challenged clearly know the true reason for the duel, though Cymric playwrights have written a number of popular comedies about when that isn’t the case.
Stretch Goals & The Stories You Can Tell
9 months ago
– Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 04:27:54 AM
Hi Curious Cats,
I've got a two-part update for you today. At the top, I wanna share our latest Stretch Goal success and set up our next targets. After that, I want to share a recent article from the Onyx Path website about the different kinds of stories you can tell with Curious Cats of Mau (and the Realms of Pugmire).
Edit
Once we'd funded, we had announced a trio of Stretch Goals to take us through the first half of this 30-day campaign. Well, we're a little ahead of schedule because we've already unlocked all three!
ACHIEVED! - At $22,000 in Funding – REDBUBBLE BACKER T-SHIRT – A Curious Cats
-themed Crwodfunding Backer shirt will be hosted on Onyx Path’s Redbubble store for a limited time. Only backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available for purchase.
ACHIEVED! - At $25,000 in Funding – DIGITAL WALLPAPER – Cool Curious Cat artwork will be used to create a wallpaper for your computer desktop. This digital wallpaper will be added to the rewards list of all backers supporting this project.
ACHIEVED! - At $28,000 in Funding – REDBUBBLE PET DESIGNS – A Curious Cats design will be hosted on Onyx Path’s Redbubble store and made available on pet merchandise, including pet mats, pet blankets, and pet bandanas. Backers will be notified when these options become available.
So, let's see if we can set up a couple more to get us through the next few weeks!
At $30,000 in Funding - NEW ADD ON: CAT ARTWORK GUIDE SCREEN - A three-panel Guide Reference Screen with charts and information for running a Realms of Pugmire game will be created and offered as an Add On to the hardcover reward tiers for +$25. This screen will have the same interior contents as the Realms of Pugmire screen, but the outside artwork will be changed to be cat-focused!
At $32,000 in Funding - MOBILE WALLPAPER – Curious Cats artwork will be used to create a wallpaper for your mobile device lockscreen. This mobile wallpaper will be added to the rewards list of all backers supporting this project.
As mentioned, if we unlock the new Guide Screen for Curious Cats of Mau, it'll have the same interior charts and references as the dog-themed Realms of Pugmire screen already available as an Add On, just with cat-themed artwork instead. Two reasons - firstly, it's the same game! Curious Cats of Mau is a setting and character expansion for Realms of Pugmire; unlike in earlier editions, it's all the same game (under the Realms of Pugmire umbrella).
Secondly, who wants to have a bunch of pictures of dog characters when you're playing cats all around the table? Right?! So, same inside, different outside. Another option for our Storyguides at the table.
And speaking of Storyguides and running games in the Realms of Pugmire, I wanted to re-post an article that was recently shared on the Onyx Path website, covering the different kinds of stories and chronicles you can run with this game.
CHRONICLE STYLES
There are lots of ways to run just about any tabletop game. Small changes to the rules and setting can have an additive effect on creating a particular mood or style, which either emphasize certain parts of the game’s setting or wildly change it from its original intentions. But sometimes it can be a bit unclear what changes are useful for what styles, or even how those changes might modify things.
Both the original edition of
Pugmire and the upcoming edition
Realms of Pugmire have advice on how to “hack” a game into a different shape. But I thought I’d use
Realms of Pugmire (
which you can still pre-order!) as a good example of what kinds of chronicle styles you can get for the game, and what kinds of changes will help bring those styles around.
Silly
Silly chronicles are more than just light-hearted games. They’re explicitly comedic, and intentionally funny with low-stakes consequences for player actions. Realms of Pugmire starts off as light-hearted, but here are a few ways you can amp things up to be explicitly silly.
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Shorter Game Sessions: In my experience, players work their way past the gags and jokes about 1 to 2 hours in. So cut the session down to that length. Comedic television shows tend to be shorter as well, so the short, punchy length can reinforce to players that you’re here for a laugh before things get too deep.
-
Funny Fortune: A new rule could be that players will always get a Fortune if the entire table breaks out in laughter at a joke (or groan audibly at a terrible pun). This will encourage players to keep the punchlines rolling, because everyone loves getting a reward for doing something that contributes to the game.
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No Death: You can even take death off the table entirely. Simply ignore any reference to dying, and assume instead that anyone with zero stamina points is just knocked out. It’s a simple change, but it does have knock-on effects to consider. For example, the shepherd spell “Spare the Dying” isn’t as useful when death isn’t an option, so you might want to rework it to be a simple healing spell that grants 1d4 stamina points, or something similar, to solve the problem.
Gritty
On the other hand, you can go the other direction and make things a bit darker and grittier. The original pitch for the game was called “Fall of Pugmire,” and you can channel that Gothic, elegiac feel if you want.
-
No Rucksack Test: In Realms of Pugmire, players can make a Cunning test to see if characters pack something in their rucksack that isn’t listed on their character sheet. By getting rid of that test, characters have only what they have, which means that every item counts.
-
Tougher Enemies: The enemies in the book are calibrated to be a challenging fight for equivalent character levels, but characters will generally win those fights. Using enemies that are a level or two higher than normal, as well as not using any characters with the Minion tag, can give characters tougher combats that require them to use every resource available.
-
Political Animals: While the upcoming Curious Cats of Mau will have more focus on intrigue, it’s still intentionally shoved a bit into the background, making it something groups can opt into if they like. You can make that more of the focus of the game, putting characters as the focus of several intrigues. Muddy the waters between “good” and “bad” dogs and cats. Push the monarchies closer to all-out war between the city-states or the kingdom of Pugmire. Make it feel like everything can fall apart with a hasty word or an errant punch.
Epic
Epic is all about bigger-than-life storytelling, where everything feels like a legend in the making. Realms of Pugmire already draws on this epic fantasy tradition on some level, but you can really emphasize it with a few simple tweaks.
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Minions and Legendary Enemies: Emphasize both minions and legendary characters for epic-style play. Mobs of creatures defending a powerful warlord or a conniving necromancer are exactly the kinds of characters players love to hate. Speaking of which…
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Returning Enemies: Find ways to bring old enemies back. Maybe the characters keep running into Rondo Border-Collie, the Rat King, or Kibu the Red. Then add some more levels to them each time they return. Seeing old enemies come back more powerful than before definitely feels epic. (And remember those legendary rules!)
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Starting Artifacts: Give each player an artifact they can improve, right out of the gate. Attach a story to each: “This is my mother’s battleaxe” or “I stole this cloak from a noble’s castle the night she died.” Then, allow the character to improve the item every two levels, without spending an improvement. For those curious cats, instead give them a “family secret power” they can improve in the same way.
What are some other ways to make a chronicle feel different?
Tomorrow, I'm going to have a sneak peek at Cat Culture ahead of our next draft manuscript chapter! Let's keep up the good work and see if we can't unlock these next two Stretch Goals before we hit the end!
#CuriousCats
Welcome Home
9 months ago
– Fri, Mar 01, 2024 at 07:48:05 AM
Welcome Home
The red-edged carriage clattered through the streets of Heart’s Blood. Rain splattered off the glass windows, and the green-furred horses rattled their heads to get the water out of their manes. Inside, two cats sat on a plush bench, dressed in fine, red-trimmed cloaks. Illiad von Korat, former diplomat to the kingdom of Pugmire, stared out at the rain and sighed.
“Aren’t you happy to be back home?” came the voice next to Illiad.
The black-furred diplomat closed his eyes, trying to remember the cat’s name. Some kind of minor noble shoved into an even more minor position of authority within Korat.
“Of course I am, cousin,” he said, refusing to turn back and look at her.
“Sophia,” she said again.
Illiad ignored her. “I haven’t been home for many years. I’ve missed it.”
“I’m sure you’re excited to be back,” she said with mock sincerity, causing Illiad to roll his eyes at his rain-streaked reflection. “It must have been so disgusting having to live among those dogs for all those years.”
The insult finally caused Illiad to turn to his companion. The intensity of her orange fur against the black cloak seemed somehow even more garish than he remembered upon first meeting her at the start of the trip. She stared at him with wide brown eyes and a huge smile that were too innocent-looking to be truly authentic.
He wasn’t sure what her game was, but he was willing to play along for a while, even if only to pass the time of a tedious trip. “’Disgusting,’ you say? And what led you to this conclusion, cousin?”
Sophia’s smile dimmed, not expecting the question. “I’m sorry?” she asked, clearly trying to buy some time.
“The word you used. ‘Disgusting.’ It is quite strong. I assume you have some reason for using it.” Illiad leaned closer to her. “Perhaps you hold some bit of unique intelligence about our friends across the forest that I somehow missed in my years of cohabitating with them as the diplomat for our beloved monarchies.” His ice-blue eyes stared into hers, challengingly. “I would very much like to know how you came to this insightful conclusion.”
“I… uh… that is… I assumed….”
“Ah,” Illiad said, leaning back. “You assumed. Well, that makes it all right, then.”
He started to turn back to the window, but Sophia’s voice stopped him. “Well, it was disgusting the way they removed you from your position and kicked you out of their city. They’re… they’re no better than beasts.”
Illiad stifled a hiss. “You do not know what you speak of, cousin,” he said, stressing his continued refusal to use her name.
“How am I wrong?” Sophia asked, indignant.
Illiad blinked. “Do you truly not know?” Sophia started to answer, but he put a finger up. “The question was rhetorical. You are obviously an idiot.”
“How dare—”
“First,” Illiad hissed, cutting her off, “I was not ‘kicked out.’ The correct term is ‘deported.’ I was asked to leave, not dragged out of the city in chains like a commoner. Second,” he continued, counting off each point on the fingers of his paw, “while the kingdom of Pugmire is naturally inferior to our beloved monarchy of Korat, they are a civilized people and you would do well to remember that.
“And third,” he said, flexing his claws just enough so that Sophia could see them, “the dogs have acted honorably toward our nation and House Korat, even after our negotiations with them broke down. They may not look upon us fondly now, but we will not disrespect them.”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “Honorably, you say? Regardless of what words you use, it doesn’t change the fact that you were forced out of their capital in disgrace. And what use does Korat have for a deported diplomat?” Her smile returned, but this time there were teeth in it.
Illiad sighed. “But you were the one saying I should be happy to be here, did you not? Why would there be any shame in coming back to my home monarchy and seeing my family again?”
Sophia shook her head. “Admit it, Illiad. You’ve failed.”
The ex-diplomat turned back to watch the rain. “And it is because of people like you that I have failed.”
He could hear the sigh behind him. “Still, welcome home, Illiad von Korat. May the purring of Korat bring you peace as you find your new role in this life.”
Illiad ignored her and plotted his next several moves.
