Cat's Way

Basic Information

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• The Cat's Way is not a character, but a fictional place that my OCs reference frequently. Cat Purgatory I jokingly refer to it as cat purgatory because it is an afterlife for domestic cats. It resides in a pocket dimension all by itself, and is all but inaccessible to anything but a dead cat. All shapes, all sizes, all real. Cats spirits who reside there have the same experience they had in life. They still get hungry. They still bleed. They just don't reproduce. They can use special talismans called sparks to paint themselves into new shapes. Sparks are limited in supply, so most cats don't have any. Domestication is key. The Cat's Way was born coinciding with the domestication of cats in ancient times and the cat's role in protecting grain stores from vermin. For that reason, agriculture is a big theme in their afterlife. They love to farm! Their religion is very much based in it. Every cat has a crop! All domestic cats were born from Su's field. Every cat has a crop, and considers that crop its family. Some are peas, some are wheat, some are apples, so on and so forth. Every nine years, Su harvests another crop and sends it out into the world to be born. There's even a silk crop! (Cats were once used to protect silk worms). But no one wants to be Ergot. Ergot is not a crop, but an affliction of crops, particularly Rye. In this story it's a catch all term for crops that have been ravaged by various kinds of fungus. If allowed to be born Ergot has unfortunate results. Historically ergot is a very bad thing, and these cats are always outcasted. Second-death. When a cat dies, it goes to the Cat's Way and lives out its second life indefinitely, or until second-death. At which time it returns to Su's field, where Su decides who will get reborn and whose spirit will help stoke the sun's fire and warm the next generation of spirits.

  

  
  
  Strays
  Strays are standard four legged felines. Nothing has changed. Their number is countless.
  
  Gybs
  Gybs are short or human height cats who usually have just one spark. They're farmers, shop keeps, and all around copy cats of civilized humans. Gyb is a multipurpose term, often used to refer to any cat of any kind. It's kind of like saying Sir, or Ma'am. Hello Gyb!
  
  Tiberts
  Tiberts are usually lumped into the fancier upperclass. They have at least two sparks and are tall, elegant, absurdly dressed landowners and politicians.
  
  Baudrons
  Baudrons have many sparks and are either enormous or ape-like. Often both. These cats can get bigger than houses.
  
  

  

  
  
  Winks and Blinks
  Su has special helpers called Winks, and sometimes Blinks! They're one eye'd spirits who help organize the chaotic afterlife of their brothers and sisters. They create sparks, so that other cats can shapeshift into something new. They also help tend his field in the first eighty one years of their life.
  
  Cat's Eyes
  A Cat's Eye is an orb that can be made with a deceased cat's eye. The cat must have a fair death. If death is willed on it, or intended in any way, the eye cannot form. If done properly, the eye will become a marble and the cat will become a Wink. It takes eighty one years to make a Cat's Eye, so the humans who make them often don't see them come to fruition. This makes them very rare. A ripe Cat's Eye will rattle in place when it wants to be noticed. They can be found in hidden places, most often in oak drawers or wooden boxes.
  A Cat's Eye can be used to travel to the Cat's Way. The Wink associated with it assumes a familiar like role.
  
  

  

  
  
  Gyb Winks
  Before a Wink is properly 'born', it has an eighty one year incubation period in which its spirit joins Su and helps care for the next crop of cat spirits. During this time, it may return to reality and have poltergeist-like relations with the human who took its eye. Most of the time, it's harmless, but some cats can be *very distressed* by the transformation they're going through.
  Gyb Winks are usually just disembodied cat feet.
  
  Cats like people, usually.
  Humans are rare in the Cat's Way and may be a celebrated arrival by the religious Gybs, or a quick lunch for somebody else. Depends on which cat you're talking to. The connection between humans and the birth of the Cat's Way is widely recognized as a 'good thing'.
  
  It is always night time.
  The sun rarely comes up. The belief is that Su can only loan it to his people occasionally, because the sun plays such a vital role in keeping the next crop of cat babies warm. Sunrise is sporadic, and night can stretch on for months.
  
  

  

  
  
  Light good, dark bad.
  There seems to be a trend that cats carrying torches, candles or other light sources will be helpful to visiting humans, and anything found at the edge of dark roads or in the wilderness is bad bad bad. Whether or not this is true is up for debate. A human could find them self in an angler fish situation very easily.
  
  Sometimes Su is smol.
  

  

  
  Rarely do I roleplay in this setting.
  I usually reserver Rp in the Cat's Way for friends or familiar faces, because it is near and dear to me and very much still in development. However, in their current storyline Jacky and Herman still visit it frequently, so you may hear about it from them or in posts.
  I have no open species or objects. Cat's Eyes, Winks, etc are not available to other players unless they are very much my trusted friend. Maybe someday, but not this decade.